Public relations should provoke responses from your audiences.

You figure out what you want people to do and then find ways of persuading them to do it.

It’s a simple enough idea, so long as you know what it is you want them to do.

The problem is, when you put it like this it sounds like a trailer for a Derren Brown stunt or an ad for the latest Paul McKenna self-help DVD.

But it is neither mysterious nor cynical because most businesses either want people to buy more stuff, buy the same amount of stuff for more money or buy more stuff for more money.

It’s how businesses grow and prosper, it’s how the employment market expands, it’s how the economy is driven.

But it’s not always what businesses say when they speak with communications specialists.

“We’ve invented a new widget, so we need a 32-page glossy brochure and a press release sent to Widget Weekly.”

These requests aren’t uncommon, and neither are they unreasonable.

But they do rather run the risk of missing the point.

Good communicators need information. They need to understand the workings of a business, what drives it, where it is heading.

In short, to get the best from your PR team, you need to share with it the business plan and the objectives.

Then you need to offer them the thinking space to find ways of meeting the objectives in a public relations context.

Only then will they be able to demonstrate a re-brand followed by a series of direct mailers directing customers to an enhanced web site is likely to work better, particularly if a feed of positive news stories can be supplied to the right press before a major exhibition at which a guest-speaking slot has been secured.

Then again, the 32-pager and Widget Weekly idea might be just the job.

But it’s worth finding out.