If you’re thinking about promoting your business or communicating with your customers then you need a PR strategy. It’s not worthwhile to send out messages to just anyone, without considering who you actually want to hear them. A PR strategy will help you target your communication to the right audience and the right publications, at the right time.
Here are some additional reasons why you need a PR strategy.
Find your target audience: When you create a PR strategy think about the target audience who you want to receive your message. This is an important step to ensure your message will make the most impact. Without finding your target audience your message will not be received by the right people and your PR activities will not be very successful.
Find your key messages: One of the first steps to creating a PR strategy is to create your key messages. Key messages are the underlying points you want your target audience to hear and understand through your PR activities. For example a key message for a business may be: The [insert business] is a thought leader and expert in its field, always staying on top of industry trends to produce cutting edge programs.
Target the right journalists: Once you have determined your target audience and your key messages you can now think about what publications and journalists you need to contact. The best publications are the ones that your target audience reads. This will help you to achieve media coverage in the most appropriate publications.
Determine your goal: It’s important to always have a goal for your PR activities. By determining your goal you will have a clear purpose for your PR strategy and maximise the success of your PR activities. For example your goal may be to achieve a 25 percent increase in sales for product X in three months.
Create a time frame: By creating a goal you can then plan out the steps to achieving this goal. A PR strategy will help you to establish a time frame around these steps so you can achieve your goal in the set time frame.
Measure your success: If you’re conducting PR activities for your business your boss is bound to ask you, “how successful are these PR activities.” If you don’t have a PR strategy it will be harder to measure your success and answer this question. A strategy will help you to create measurable data and determine if you achieved your goal. For example if your goal was to increase sales by 25 per cent you need to constantly measure how many sales you received while implementing your strategy.
Better communication: When you have a PR strategy it will be easier to communicate your goal and activities. For example you can tell your client exactly what you will be doing for them and when.
A PR strategy enables you to consider every aspect of communicating a message in the best possible way. It will also help you to maximise the success of your PR efforts and gain the most appropriate media coverage.
