The Story

As more and more of our clients see the value of public relations (PR), we continue to educate them that PR is really what we call “Perception Management.” Any bank marketing or credit union marketing person can draft a news release, conduct a media interview or communicate with their target audience, but the key is how this communication is controlled by the marketing person or, better yet, how the perception of the bank or credit union is managed.

Public relations plays a vital role in the “Tell The Story” piece of a bank or credit union’s brand. An unscripted, non-strategic approach to communicating news about the business only hurts the target audience’s perception. Having a well thought out public relations plan is essential. PR is all about managing the communications (internally and externally) and providing the target audience with a clear understanding of what your business does or will do - all this while keeping an ever-present eye on the business objectives and how PR can support them.

Bottom Line: Be in control of your brand identity. Without managing your business’s communications, other outlets (e.g. media) will control the messaging for you and have complete control over how the audience perceives your business. Furthermore, not communicating at all could be worse. Silence is deadly in the business world. It sends out a wrong message and you may be perceived as hiding something, or worse, you don’t care that you don’t communicate to your audience. Either way, that’s bad perception management . . . oops, I mean bad PR.