Tactics

Tactics are the tools practitioners use to perform strategies formulated by managers, including public relations managers. Usually the most comprehensive part of a communication plan, tactics provide a toolkit with which to carry out the plan and achieve the intended goals. Addressing the application aspect of public relations, tactics allow practitioners to customize their plans to address specific target publics and markets. In sum, tactics are what practitioners do and strategies are how they think. As is true of every profession, public relations requires an understanding and application of a variety of unique tools.

While objectives, goals, and strategies outline what practitioners wish to accomplish with their public relations endeavors, tools are selected to achieve specific objectives and are most often plotted out in outline form in a communication plan. A good analogy is to view tactics as the engineers in the field who carry out the research and planning done by the scientists in their laboratories. Thus, after a solid foundation of research, planning, and identifying goals and objectives, public relations practitioners can enter the execution stage with the implementation of tactics.

Tactics are part of a hierarchy of elements that define the public relations profession. At the top of the pyramid of strategic elements of the profession are the ethical choices, management philosophies, public relations program, and strategic business planning options that drive public relations counseling.

No savvy organization that engages in strategic communication, issues management, and public relations positioning does so by accident or whim. This level of analysis requires careful assessment of the strains and challenges that must be addressed as any organization seeks to build, maintain, and repair mutually beneficial relationships with its stakeholders/stakeseekers. These may be publics interested in issue positions or customers, donors, or beneficiaries interested in the reputation and mission of the organization.

Whether an organization is large or small, it is likely to engage in some or many public relations functions. Functions are the broad headings that in turn group types of activities used to address specific public relations needs. The list of functions is comparatively shorter than a list of tactics and includes employee relations, customer relations, investor relations, student relations, government relations, donor relations, member relations, and such. In large, sophisticated organizations, one or more persons is in charge of one or two specific functions. In smaller organizations, several specific functions are grouped together more tightly, yet nevertheless are likely to be performed.

Strategic business and public relations plans are executed through functions that require the use of various strategic options. Strategies are the choices practitioners make regarding how to accomplish the ends specified in the strategic plan and enacted through functions. Strategies often also focus on desired achievable outcomes. For example, one strategy is to attract attention, another is to inform. A third is to persuade, which entails seeking to create [Page 910]favorable opinions, changing opinions, or adapting to the opinions that prevail on some matter. Persuasion includes efforts designed toward motivation. Strategies are employed during crisis response. Strategies are the essence of communication. They typically are thought of as independent variables leading to desirable dependent variables that are necessary to create, maintain, and repair mutually beneficial relationships.

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