The need for PR planning

Quick thing: Today is my birthday! And one way I’m celebrating is by gifting $500 toward our Get Started PR Launch Kit - the PR plan, materials, and support you need to take PR off your want-to-do list and ensure 2023 PR success. Reach out if you’d like more info.

Ahhh, 'tis the season of holidays and end-of-year hustle.

Everyone seems to be sprinting toward the proverbial finish line and trying to check those last remaining items off their to-do lists before they close out 2022.

Raise your hand if you had PR on your want-to-do list this year.

Raise your hand if you wanted to get your organization’s story out there and find ways to share your expertise.

You know that PR can help you:

• Increase awareness of who you are, what you do, and the impact you make
• Expand the reach of your message and grow your audience
• Gain recognition for your work and expertise
• Build trust, credibility, and influence with your stakeholders
• Become known and sought after as an industry leader and authority

But ugh, where does one even begin?!

With a plan.

"A goal without a plan is only a wish."

You wouldn’t start a road trip without a destination in mind. The same goes for PR.

You wouldn’t pull out of your driveway to start a road trip without first deciding where you were going, would you?

If you just started driving you’d certainly end up somewhere, but how would you even know if it was really where you wanted to go?

As a restauranteur, you wouldn’t open a new cafe without a menu.

As a teacher, you wouldn’t start the school year without a lesson plan.

I could come up with analogies all day long, but you get the idea. And to that end, you shouldn’t launch a PR program without a PR strategy either.?

Creating a PR strategy, including clearly defined goals, KPIs to measure against those goals, media targets, and a solid messaging platform is a necessary foundation for a successful PR program.

New clients will sometimes ask why we can’t just get started with the pitching right away.

I get it, they have exciting news to share and they want it to be out in the world yesterday. Timely news has value, and I certainly understand the urgency.

However, you wouldn’t start a road trip without first knowing where you are going first you must first understand how the story you're pitching plays into your organization's broader PR goals.

Creating a PR strategy is vitally important to make sure you know what you really want to get out of your PR efforts.

At the end of the day, your PR program should support your business goals. Otherwise, what’s the point?

When people think of PR, they often think of high-profile media coverage – TV spots, feature articles, and profile pieces in the local business journal.

While high-profile media coverage is all well and good, it may not be the best area of focus for a brand’s PR efforts.

There have been many times when a client tells us they want one thing, such as coverage in The?New York Times, but once we really do a deep dive into the business’s marketing goals, we find that an?expert positioning strategy?that positions the CEO and company to become a sought after industry leader would actually be a much more effective way to reach the goals they want to achieve.?

Taking the time to develop a plan ensures you're not wasting your time chasing the wrong things.

Avoiding the "now what?" moment

In addition to ensuring you're focusing your time and energy in the right way, a PR plan also helps build and maintain momentum.

If there is no real strategy in place, you're destined for the “now what?” moment.

Once the original golden nugget of news for which you wanted to do PR in the first place has been announced, there must be a plan in place to keep the momentum going. One-time news coverage will only yield fleeting results.?

In order to move the dial in a truly meaningful way, an ongoing PR strategy must be in place to support and grow with your organization.

True PR impact comes over years of consistent work and brand building amongst media and industry partners.

Though an organization may have a flash-in-the-pan success with one big news story, any clout that they’ve built through that one campaign will gradually fade away as the news cycles continue and their competitors take their turn in the spotlight.?

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So what is the moral of this story??

Spending the time to create a PR plan is vital to the success of a long-term PR strategy.

You need a roadmap and measurement tools to guide your long-term PR and communications strategy.

Detours and adjustments will likely be needed along the way, but if you don’t outline where you want to go before you start, how will you know when you arrive?

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I give purpose-driven organizations (both for-profit and nonprofit) that want to do PR the strategy, materials, and support they need to get started. Reach me at [email protected] to learn about our signature "Get Started PR Toolkit."