The external communication defines the big public as the set of operations of communication assined to the external publics of a company or institution, that is to say, so much, straight or across the journalists, as to his providers, shareholders, to the public powers and local and regional administrations, to international organizations, etc.

At present, the publicity has stopped being the only valid tool to introduce a message on the market and has passed to a more imaginative new stage: the integral communication.

But: how can we implant successfully a politics of external communication in our business? There are great the hardware that the communication puts at our disposal and that well used can bring us important competitive advantages adapting them to the target of our product or
service: the direct marketing, the product placement, the relational marketing, the RR PP, the patronage, the fairs and Internet, which has made concepts real like interactivity, personalización, etc. and that is creating new opportunities for the companies and the professionals.

Along the previous paragraph dedicated to publicity, I have wanted to make the importance of the message well clear, Homely because across him we have to make to come to the market the image that we want that it is had of our company. In fact, the success or the defeat of our company is going to depend to a great extent on the image that we project both towards the exterior and towards the interior. And to project a good image and company information is not not any more nor less that the market has positive knowledge, an opinion and an evaluation of our organization and, therefore, of the products and services that we offer.

We have already spoken about the publicity as an excellent help tool to transmit this image, but the same way important is the starting of a plan of communication that transmits this image to the different markets and that also does it of a believable form.

Nowadays the communication has turned into a strategic tool inside any company that wants to be well posicionada on the market. This does not mean that the communication is the key of the success, but yes that is his part, and in fact across her we are going to bring over to the market the image that we want that it is had of our company, what it is going to allow us posicionarnos in a more competitive way.

Obviously, the reality demonstrates that posicionar a company or product needs of an analysis previous to the market to know what is what the consumers demand, followed by the throwing of the product or service that better satisfies his needs across the most profitable distribution channels and, finally, his commercialization. So far, nothing that all the companies do not carry out. Therefore, what is going to give us the possibility of differing from the rest is going to be the communication dealt with his most global sense, since it us goes to contribute an extra cost allowing to create in the consumer the need to acquire our product and to do that the client is praised by ours opposite to that of the competition.

Why, if not, in equality of characteristics and equality of prices, the consumers we choose one or another product? The answer is easy. Simply for the perception that we have of every mark, perception that is translated in images stored in the memory, and that they have his origin in the different strategies of communication thrown by the company in the different supports.

It is important to bear in mind that the communication must not be to the margin of the characteristics and targets that define the company, but rather everything opposite: the corporate communication must be a reflex of the managerial strategy. There turns out to be obvious, therefore, the importance of a good strategy of communication and the election of a good message so that this one is effective.

In any communication plan it is necessary to bear in mind three aspects:

• The definition of the corporate identity. Namely what is the company, his corporate targets and beginning. Hence there will be extracted the attributes of identity that it is necessary to project to the market.
• The image perceived at present. What the market perceives nowadays of the company.
• The ideal image of the company. The image that we want to transmit to the different markets must answer to a strategic plan of image, in which there must remain established the target different to which to direct the actions of communication, with a proper and specific strategy for each of them.

The communication plan contains three big areas:

• The definition of the targets of communication more adapted to transform the current image of the company into the ideal image for each of the publics.
• The definition of the strategy of means and of messages that better adapt themselves to the attainment of the targets previously definite.
• The definition of a calendar of performance and the evaluation of the costs of the proposed actions, as well as a control instrument to realize a plan pursuit.

All these tasks will be carried out by the direction of communication of the company, which is the manager of preparing the strategic image plan. The director of communication, whom he is named dircom, is the maximum responsible for the image of the company. Although his functions are not usually do not defined perfectly inside the company, yes it seems essential that it possesses the necessary aptitude to translate the global strategy of the company, his project, to a scheme of image that must be developed and controlled across communication skills.

Between the Home instruments that a communication plan integrates to support the image of a company, the RR finds PP and the campaigns of communication. The first stated way, which can belong to the company or be subcontracted, is defined as the set of planned and deliberate actions that take as a purpose to create or to support a certain image of the company before the market. It tries to create and support a few fluid and dynamic social relations between the company and the social groups or organizations that we are interested in crashing.

Across the RR PP, the company looks for a position in the field of the image, always chasing the maximum social acceptance.

The most important functions to develop for the RR PP are:

• To support and to reinforce the work of the selling departments and marketing.
• To prepare and to supervise the punctual actions of promotion and marketing of the products or services that it represents.
• To keep a climate permanently favorable towards the products or services that it represents, by means of the constant contact with clients, providers, social agents, etc.
• To establish a good labor climate and to obtain in the personnel the spirit and image that the company claims in the exterior.
• To achieve that no problem alters or harms the image of the company in the social ambience.
• Etc.

With regard to the campaigns of communication, which also can be subcontracted or carried out by the proper company, to point out that there are the set of messages and reports that the press office prepares, for the purpose of making them come to the different means so that these do to themselves echo of the content of the same ones, and this way creating buy expectations, to sensitize to the public opinion, to contribute informative information, commercial contents, etc.

The most important functions of the relations with the mass media might be summed up in the following ones:

• Selection and making of the information that there produces the company leaked and transmitted to the mass media and, occasionally, to other institutions.
• Reception and analysis of all the information produced by the mass media and other institutions.
• Filtration and summary of all the previous information to facilitate it to the areas of direction of the company and to cover his information needs with regard to the managerial interests.
• Constant intermediation between the company and the mass media, facilitating the punctual information that the event needs and coordinating the possible interviews, reportages, etc. related to the company.
• Constant control of the climate of opinion that exists on the company as of the problems that the means can come out.
• Etc.

And finally, a tool that is imposed by a lot of force in the managerial world is the corporate social responsibility (RSC), since the companies have found in her a very interesting and effective instrument to demonstrate his commitment with the society and, of step, to promote the good image that this type of performances bears for personnel and clients. For it, between the targets of a company not only the securing of economic benefits must be, but also the development of actions that they answer to the social worries like the education, the culture, the eradication of the poverty, the respect and fulfillment of the human rights and the protection of the environment.

In parallel with this current there has been created the ethical branding, methodology that it involves to the marks in the RSC of the company, by means of his association to a series of values and criteria that remember the formal commitments of the company in matters like the respect to the rights of the workpeople or the environmental impact of his activity, between others. By means of this creation of responsible marks, the company tries to communicate to his publics (consumers, clients, shareholders, workpeople, providers, etc.) his social implication and the efforts that it does for reducing the externalidades with negative connotations from the ethical point of view.

But it is very important not to confuse communication with publicity since it is very common that the companies, especially those that get for the first time in this field, confuse the role of the communication with the publicity. It is convenient to remember that it is a question of two completely different hardware, with a few very different costs but completely complementary. Only across the publicity we are going to be able to obtain the impact that we wish of immediate form, when and where we want.

8.1. Crisis communication

The communication is fundamental to solve or to minimize the impact of any crisis. The image, what perceives the market, is a sum of actions that is precise to know to be able to manage appropriately any difficult situation. An erroneous decision, a journalistic holder can end with the work of many years and with the credit that we have gained ourselves to pulse every day. 95 for 100 of the companies, sooner or later he suffers some crisis along his existence with negative effects in his public image, in his credibility and in his account of results. Only 10 for 100 of the companies that endure some serious problem he makes use of this circumstance to correct errors, to extract conclusions and, also, to go out strengthened.

The crises come without previous notice and take for surprise insiders and outsiders. Is our company prepared to face him with guarantees? The answer is usually not and we can verify it every day in the mass media that they inform us about events that shiver the foundations of all kinds of companies and institutions.

Before a crisis, most of companies react crossly and haphazardly and, also, they tend not to reflect, to culprits look, to not allow to advise for the persons who understand and, if it was small, to manage the crisis alone.

The professionalism happens for having prepared in advance a managing team of crisis and a manual of procedures where is specified what must be done, who must do it and how it has to be managed.

The election of the suitable spokesmen, the making and update of the key messages, the staging of all the possible assumptions there are some of the preventive measures that the company must take if he wants to confront successfully a possible crisis.

Although it is fundamental to come to professionals to go out victorious of the situation, next and under the pretext of example we offer some advices to bear in mind if the crisis appears:

• Before a crisis, be which will be, it is better to communicate, although it should be small, that to refuse to speak. And, for deducted, not to lie. It is vital that transparence exists in the communication.
• The impulses and the improvisations are bad advisers.
• First of all it is necessary to summon with urgency character a committee of crisis, which must be integrated, like minimal, by the director general/chief executive officer (CEO) or some maximum responsible for the company, the juridical adviser, a technical person in charge and a specialist in communication.
• Not to lose the time in struggles of internal decisions.
• It is not possible to claim that the crisis disappears suddenly. Previous steps exist to minimize the caused impact, not to pass in falsely and, of course, not to limit themselves to inserting a publicity page in the newspapers without any type of strategy of communication since this does not solve any crisis.