Having a successful PR strategy is crucial to staying on track with your business goals and shaping what you want to achieve with campaigns.
When you create a PR strategy, think about the target audience you want to reach. This is the most important step and it requires well-thought out planning.
After all, you could spend months on a comprehensive PR strategy that boosts your brand recognition and positive relationships with stakeholders – yet if it doesn't reach your desired audience then it'll be deemed a failure.
Proctor & Gamble suffered this exact fate a few years ago, when it admitted it went "too narrow" with a Facebook advertising campaign that failed to achieve the mass reach it desired. It spend thousands creating PR strategies around focused digital marketing, but in doing so, forgot to consider the wider audience.
Of course, a solid PR strategy goes further than just generating a positive image of your business or brand to your audience. It also ensures you're reaching your required audience at the right time. Often a new PR strategy isn't about rebranding, but it's about systematically timing your campaigns to maximize exposure to target audiences.
What Public Relations Managers Need to Know First
This guide explores six tactics public relations companies can use to boost their brand in 2024.
But before we look at them, you'll need to lay the groundwork with some basic practices. To start, you should have a basic understanding of your company’s business goals. This will help shape the key messages you are trying to get across.
If you don't understand a company's business goals then it's almost impossible to run effective public relations campaigns.
Next, you'll need to have settled on your target audience as well as your key messages, so you can begin to research the outlets and journalists you need to contact.
This will help you to achieve maximum outreach and media coverage in the most relevant news outlets.
Once these three factors have been considered, you can start to develop a well-thought out plan that looks at how you can reach your goals and increase brand reputation.
It is also fundamental to analyze the performance of your PR strategy so that you can maintain and increase brand reputation to its full potential. If you're looking for help with this, a tool like CisionOne can measure your PR campaign performance from start to finish.
Keeping track of results will help determine the parts of your public relations strategy that have been most effective. You can then understand the necessary amendments that may be required.
So, to recap, you need to know:
What your business goals are
Who your target audience is
What your key messages are
Have a means of analyzing your plan
Now, it's time to look at strategy.
In this guide
Our six tips focus on the full breadth of a public relations strategy, from plan development through to working alongside agencies. In this guide, you'll find tips for:
1. Developing Your PR Plan
2. Choosing the Right PR Tactics
3. Utilizing Different Media Channels
4. Measuring PR Success
5. PR Strategies in Action
6. Partnering with PR Agencies
Understanding Public Relations Strategy
Before we look at our six tactics for boosting your brand, it's worth outlining what we mean by a public relations strategy.
A PR strategy is the plan you create to shape your public relations efforts. Your strategy aims to communicate effectively with your audience and meet the goals you are looking to achieve.
What is a PR Strategy?
PR is how brands manage their output of information, similar to branding. The main distinction is that PR focuses on reputation and how you effectively communicate to influence that.
Without a strategy, it's almost impossible to stay on message and build a consistent, coherent image of your brand.
A strategy contains clear objectives so you understand the end point of your public relations efforts. It could be brand awareness, increasing credibility, or stakeholder engagement.
You also need to know your target audience and develop compelling communication that is tailored to your audience's needs and interests.
Look at the tactics you want to employ, then choose the right tools and outputs like press releases, social media copy, even things like events or content marketing that engage your audience.
Finally, your strategy needs to be adaptable. Always monitor the outcomes of your PR efforts and learn from the results. This will help refine the strategy moving forward.
PR Strategy Vs. Marketing
There are similarities shared with PR and marketing, however, there are distinctions in their objectives and approaches.
Public relations focuses on brand reputation and how that’s managed to protect the image of your company. It looks to promote trust with your audience and stakeholders using tactics like media relations, crisis management, and community engagement.
Marketing, however, is where you’re aiming to sell a product or service to increase revenue and growth. The tactics here focus on TV or online advertising, promotions, and research into potential customers.
The two go hand-in-hand and a structured PR strategy will complement your marketing goals by influencing audience behavior towards your brand.
The Importance of a Comprehensive PR Strategy
It's imperative that your PR strategy is well-thought out and robust. After all, a good PR strategy will enhance credibility to your brand which will further establish your company as a leader in its industry.
It also increases visibility by telling your stories and putting your key messages out there, to the right people that will directly impact your brand.
Public relations involves strengthening relationships with different stakeholders, such as customers, media outlets, influencers, and potential investors.
And so, a solid strategy will facilitate good communication with those stakeholders and help you engage with the right audience too.
Every organization can be hit with crises or bad publicity, so a strong PR strategy is required to enhance your crisis management and prepare for when they happen.
Ultimately, a well-executed PR plan, will contribute to achieving your overall business goals, such as growth, profitability, and market share.
PR Strategy Tips
It's now time to look at our six PR tips in more detail. These are designed to boost your brand's reputation and shape your PR objectives. Of course, it all begins with your plan!
1. Developing Your PR Plan
When it comes to starting your PR plan, you must identify clear goals that are measurable towards your overall strategy.
They should align with your business plans and resonate with your target audience.
So, how do you do this? The best way is to split your plan into three sections: goals, audience, and messaging.
Setting PR Goals and Objectives
To start with setting your PR goals and objectives, you should establish what the outcomes are that you want to achieve.
Whether that’s brand awareness, reputation enhancement, creating more leads, you should use SMART goals. Set specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound objectives to meet those goals.
An example of this might be a goal to increase brand awareness by 25% within the next six months. Or generate 100 new leads every month over a certain period.
That's your goal. The next step is figuring out how to achieve it.
And Cision can help throughout the entire public relations process, from start to finish.
Identifying Your Target Audience
A key part of your PR plan is understanding your target audience. It’s important to know the demographics and psychographics of your desired customer. Look at things such as age, gender, income, interests, and pain points.
This information will shape your PR tactics and key messages so that you can have the best chance at resonating with your desired audience.
You should also look to segment your audience judging by their characteristics which will create a deeper relationship with them and guide your PR efforts.
Crafting Key Messages
Once your target audience has been identified, it’s time to craft key messages that will effectively hit your PR goals and resonate with your audience.
You need to make sure these messages are clear, concise, memorable, and relevant to your audience, based on their needs and interests that you have analyzed.
To do this, focus on what makes your brand unique. What sets you apart? Emphasize the features that differentiate you from competitors.
For example, a coffee retailer in downtown Dallas has a goal to double its sales of take-out beans. It knows its audience is people who work from home, aged in their 30s. Now it needs to figure out its messaging.
To do this, it needs to consider its audience needs and ensure that the messages align with their values within specific segments.
Remember, audiences love consistency, so the retailer must ensure its messages are cohesive and reflect the identity of its brand.
2. Choosing the Right PR Tactics
PR tactics are what companies use to reach a particular PR goal. This could be increasing brand awareness, altering a company narrative, or building out their visibility. In a nutshell, it represents the execution of a PR campaign.
The daily work of a PR team involves working on specific PR tactics - everything from writing press releases to securing media interviews and hosting events.
Here are four different PR tactics to consider adding to your overall strategy.
Press Releases and Media Outreach
Press releases are crucial when it comes to PR tactics because they portray the company voice and latest developments.
When writing a press release, they must be completely clear and concise as to the message you are trying to get across. Fail to do this and readers – most likely journalists and editors – will simply delete them.
They need to be relevant to your audience and be relevant to the publication's readership that you sent the release to.
It’s also important to have a strong list of media contacts to send it out to and ensure that it’s distributed to the appropriate people.
To build these relationships with local media journalists and outlets, actively pitch story ideas and engage in regular conversation, being responsive to their inquiries.
Social Media Engagement
Social media engagement plays a big role in your outreach because it’s where you communicate directly with your target audience and enables you to post real-time updates.
Make sure you are using the appropriate platforms for your brand and based on your audience demographics.
Invest time in high-quality content that is shareable and relevant to ensure maximum engagement.
A bonus tip is to consider social media advertising. By paying a few dollars to Facebook, for example, you can expand your reach and ensure your target audiences actually see your PR efforts.
Influencer Marketing to Boost PR Efforts
If you're looking for a fresh way to market on social media and boost brand awareness beyond paid ads, then influencer marketing could be for you.
It involves businesses partnering with individuals with a big social media presence to help market their products and services.
The things to look at firstly is relevance and how influential they actually are in your industry. Then there’s their reach because you need to make sure that they have an extensive, engaged audience that will help your brand.
Then you should consider their engagement rate and how effective their current interactions are with their audience.
Finding the right influencers will credibly build your brand and create a larger amount of trust with the consumer base you are targeting.
Crisis Management
All companies can suffer crises, no one is immune to it. It’s how you minimize the damage which will set you apart.
You must try and stay one step ahead with thorough planning for crisis communication.
First, you should identify all the potential crisis scenarios that could happen. Then create a crisis response team and give them clear, specific roles. If you work as a sole marketer or own your own business, then you're the crisis team! Be sure to spend some time figuring out how reputational crises could affect your business.
It’s important to stay cautious and address negative developments before they have a chance to gain traction. The best way to do this is to plan a process before you get to the crisis stage.
Doing all of this effectively will go a long way to maintaining your brand’s integrity and reputation, while cutting down your own workload.
Consider using the CisionOne platform to streamline your PR workflow and analyze the impact of your current public relations strategy. You'll be able to spot crises before they take hold.
You can speak to an expert to arrange a free trial and see how much it can help you.
3. Utilizing Different Media Channels
One tip that often gets missed is the idea of expanding the number of media and social channels used in campaigns.
You might feel comfortable writing press releases and sending them to a small group of trusted outlets. However, there are plenty more options out there that should be considered.
Owned, Earned, and Paid Media
Owned media is content and channels that are fully under your own control. This could be your website, blog, and social media platforms. It's the obvious first place for you to publish a press release, new imagery, or info about a product.
Earned media is publicity you get from content that others have created on your brand. This could be media coverage, reviews, or user generated content from your audience.
What's great about earned media is you don't have to pay others to talk about you. It's all about giving them something interesting to talk about and promote.
Finally, there is paid media. This focuses on advertising on media platforms in order to promote a product or service. You may only need a few dollars to achieve success with paid media, or you could spend $7 million on a 30-second commercial during the Super Bowl.
By using a mix of these media channels, you will produce a diverse and robust PR strategy that appeals to a wider audience.
Leveraging Media Relations
If you want to effectively make the most out of earned media, then you must build strong relations with media outlets, journalists, and relevant publications.
As part of your strategy, you should always do your research. Identify who the best, relevant publications are, and those who have previously shown an interest in your competitors.
Always personalize and tailor your pitches to demonstrate a proper understanding of the journalist’s interests.
It’s important also to be responsive to inquiries that come in and deal with any interview requests quickly. This will build a greater rapport and trust in your brand.
By utilizing these points, relationships will be built and established a lot quicker, increasing your chances of securing the level of coverage you want for your brand.
Engaging with Industry Influencers
Another effective way to increase your PR reach is by engaging with industry influencers.
These are different from the social influencers we discussed earlier in this guide. Industry influencers hold a significant following or reputation in your industry, and collaborations with them can help increase awareness and credibility.
Here are some tips to consider when engaging with industry influencers:
Identify relevant influencers: Search for people who have a strong presence and influence in your target market. If you're a timber merchant, then find a carpenter who has a viral Youtube channel, rather than a local celebrity.
Offer value: Approach influencers with a mutually beneficial proposal, such as sharing content, co-hosting events, or featuring their expertise in your materials. They may ask for paid posts, at which point you need to negotiate fees.
Maintain the relationship: Regularly engage with their content and be open to future collaborations. If an influencer is happy being your brand ambassador, then it makes this step a lot easier going forward.
4. Measuring PR Success
The question of whether your PR has worked or not is a common one for companies who are faced with the task of investing in public relations.
After all, what's the use of pumping millions of dollars into a campaign if your public relations strategy doesn't have a means of measuring success.
The benefits of PR are far more difficult to track than other marketing tactics like advertising. However, it should still be at the forefront of your overall strategy.
Tracking Media Coverage and Mentions
If you want to effectively measure your PR success, then you must dive deep into your brand mentions and track your media coverage.
By monitoring this data, you will gain a variety of insight into newspapers, magazines, blogs, and online publications, and the visibility they’ve given your brand.
Google alerts are a good place to start, which will notify you on brand mentions and related keywords.
Utilize media monitoring tools, such as CisionOne, to help you make fast, informed decisions that build and protect your brand reputation with powerful social listening.
You should also establish a system that categorizes and stores the most relevant writeups of your brand for future analysis.
This will help you gauge the extent of your media coverage and the success it has had in meeting your PR strategy goals.
Analyzing Social Media Performance
Analyzing social media post performance and looking at key metrics is vital for any public relations strategy.
Engagement is a good place to start by tracking likes, comments, and shares on posts, as well as detailing audience interactions with your posts. The higher the engagement rate, the more likely it is that the key messaging resonates with your audience.
You should also track the reach of social media posts, by looking at impressions and the unique users that have seen your content. This will tell you if the message you are trying to get across is reaching the places you want it to.
Use social listening tools, like CisionOne, to determine the sentiment of your audience and how well your brand is being judged.
By looking at these different metrics across social media, you will more greatly understand the areas you need to improve and enhance your PR strategy as a result.
The Role of PR Tools
There are all sorts of PR tools out there that will give you an accurate overview of your current PR efforts.
They offer things like media contact databases, which will give you access to an extensive list of contacts across media outlets. This will ensure that the press releases you produce get the desired outcomes.
You can get real-time data through analytics like sentiment analysis, as well as the reach and share, to get a better understanding of the PR campaign’s performance.
They will give you reports with visuals and metrics that is a suitable way of sharing with team members and stakeholders.
When looking at PR tools you might utilize, really look at the features and pricing to determine what will suitably help your business. By integrating this into your strategy, you will streamline your PR campaigns for greater success.
5. PR Strategies in Action
When you are looking at what a good PR strategy looks like, you should always take in some real-world examples to inspire you.
Examples of Effective PR Strategies
A tech company, well-known in its sector, successfully launched a product by creating hype in teaser campaigns and partnering with influencers. This built-up anticipation for their new product. They utilized social media channels and gave exclusive access at events for media representatives.
Another case study we have is a retailer that was seeing declining sales and negative public perception. As a result, they executed a campaign that was a complete rebrand that focused on new goals and updated values. They involved customers in the process, asked for their feedback, and incorporated this into the new strategy. This generated more loyalty in their brand and a deeper relationship with their customer base.
Once launched, the rebranding was successful in gaining back customer trust and increased sales again.
Adapting to the Evolving Media Landscape
In PR and marketing, you must always be adaptive to take into account the ever-developing media landscape. To do this, you need to always look at new ways you can engage with your audience.
Always be agile in your approaches. Respond timely to current events and trends by placing them within your strategy where possible.
Don’t be afraid of new technology, you should always embrace it to leverage new trends and help get your message to a bigger audience.
Make sure to diversify your content by producing a wider range of content. This could be in the form of blog posts, graphics, videos, or photos to maintain audience interest.
Future Trends in Public Relations
When it comes to developing your PR strategy, it is key to consider future trends and watch out for how they evolve.
Data-driven campaigns are important because they give you a deeper dive on your audience demographics. A successful PR strategy has a big reliance on data-driven insights and decisions to understand the target audience.
Your consumer base cares a lot about customization and personalized experiences that deliver a certain message. This is important when considering individual segments of your audience that is tailored to them.
There are also ethical considerations due to increased scrutiny over transparency and corporate practices. Your PR strategy needs to emphasize ethical implications that is communicated clearly to the public domain.
6. Partnering with PR Agencies
If you partner with a PR agency, you’re able to work with an entire team of experts who know about, and anticipate, any issues that could arise, and the best ways to tackle them.
By leaning on their experience, you can elevate your brand by supplying the know-how you need to market any PR opening that comes your way.
Agencies don't come cheap but they can take your PR efforts to the next level.
What's more, don't underestimate how important it can be to get an outside perspective of PR on your brand or business. Agencies provide a fresher outlook that you might be missing.
When to Seek External Support
You might not necessarily be a big brand or company, and your in-house team could potentially become overwhelmed with their workload, or might not have the specific expertise needed.
You could also be launching a product or service that needs outside eyes on it to give a different approach.
Another reason could be that you're facing a crisis that requires additional support to handle the potential repercussions.
It's therefore worth writing into your PR strategy the points at which you predict you'll need support. You might not need it for the first three press releases for your new product. However, you might require support if you start getting negative feedback.
Choosing the Right PR Agency
It's therefore worth identifying a few PR agencies or PR experts who you could hire at the moment you need them.
Make sure you have clear and defined objectives that make it obvious what you are trying to achieve through any form of partnership.
Do your research into potential agencies and compile a shortlist of those relevant to your industry.
Once your research is complete, evaluate and analyze their expertise to effectively understand which agency will be right for you.
One thing not to overlook is the culture of the agency and whether they align with the values of your own business. This will create a smoother approach and lead to a longer-lasting relationship.
You can then keep a note of the agencies and experts who you plan to contact if you need them. This can be a page in your overall strategy, which identifies the strengths, weaknesses, and costs of each agency/expert.
A final tip is to always be transparent about expectations and the costs. Be open with the agency or expert about what you want to achieve, the timeline involved, and your budget. This will save you from tough conversations down the line and lead to a far more successful partnership.
Conclusion
The whole foundation of good PR is building strong brand reputation. To do this, you need a public relations strategy that actually works.
Focusing on this will foster positive associations with your brand that elevates your communication efforts and produces better brand awareness.
To successfully achieve this, remember to develop a clear message that demonstrates your brand’s core values and maintains a consistent approach.
Create content that is compelling and consistently engages your target audience. Always respond to feedback to develop stronger relationships and build greater trust.
Lastly, always remember it is essential to monitor and measure how well your PR is doing. Relevant data should always be tracked and adapt your PR strategy to reflect that, as well as the changing market conditions and audience preferences.
Each PR tactic adds to the overall effectiveness of a campaign. We've detailed six above that PR professionals can use to achieve this. It doesn't matter if you're a small business or a global corporation, a good public relations strategy is crucial to achieving your goals.
Now you've just got to go out there and create it!
