successful PR planning
To put together a solid PR strategy, you have to carefully consider both the short term and the long term. Taking the initial step to get the ball rolling can be daunting to consider: you’re looking six months into the future for many efforts, but it’s crucial to put things in perspective – not only for your plan of action, but also for aligning with your client’s values and culture.
With that in mind, let’s break down three important things to keep in mind when building a PR plan.
1. UNDERSTAND YOUR CLIENT’S FUNDAMENTALS
In order to create a well-rounded PR plan, you need to set aside time to figure out where your client’s company currently stands, and where they’re going. Sit down with the company’s key decision makers and ask questions about the culture, the business strategy, and any upcoming innovations. Where are we now? Where are we headed? What’s in store for next year?
It’s important to gauge what’s happening now and what’s next for the company, because this will inform the strategies you include in your PR plan. After all, beyond creativity, publicity is about the strategic timing of announcements — considering the what, when, where, and, most importantly, how things get launched is key.
The harsh reality here is that this sit-down with your client should have happened yesterday. “Early” is usually never early enough in our line of work. Make sure to schedule frequent check-ins with your client to align on these fundamentals before the year ends, and the PR planning process will go much more smoothly.
2. ESTABLISH A FRAMEWORK TIMELINE
Once you’re clear on your company’s state of the union, it’s time to combine that insight with their goals, interests, and desires to create a loose framework timeline.
That timeline is the skeleton of your PR plan – you have a hundred things happening, and you’re going to start plotting them on a calendar. And depending on how big your company is, how vulnerable and how marketing-savvy they are, it is going to take a lot of materials and preparation to promote any product or initiative correctly. So, plan accordingly, and build in plenty of cushion.
Within this framework timeline, put together a high-level set of goals for each of your initiatives. (This can look similar to a creative brief. Think: What’s the situation? What are the high-level objectives? What are some high-level tactics?)
Your framework timeline and subsequent high-level goals will really bring the bigger picture into focus. Doing this will help you figure out how much energy you can put into initiatives, and how much budget you have to achieve them.
3. MAKE SURE YOUR CLIENT IS HEARD
Here’s a scenario: An executive at your company recently took a hot air balloon ride in Italy, and now everything is about hot air balloons. He wants to launch hot air balloons with the company logo on them. (Yes, these things happen.)
First of all, you have to make sure that his idea is heard, especially since he’s an executive. And you have to make sure that he knows you're hearing him.
Of course, there’s nothing wrong with thinking big. As publicists, I think it’s our role to provide a space for big ideas, inspiration, and a sort of cultural freedom to give people a voice and make sure everyone is heard. (This can be challenging, though, since we are essentially the editors of people's ideas.)
But back to the hot air balloons. If you’re going to launch 50 balloons with company logos in six months, a lot of things need to happen. How much will this cost? Well, each hot air balloon has to be printed, and then the hot air balloons have to be tested, and you have to coordinate with air control. And you’ll have to make sure you earn enough media for it, and maybe incorporate some influencers. See where I’m going with this? You have to consider all of these pieces from the very beginning, otherwise the initiative will fall apart at the seams. The success of your initiatives truly depends on how well you handle the long run, and the strength and depth of that framework timeline you build out.
At the end of the day, the tactical elements of PR are important, but you first need to align with your client on the aspirational quality of who the company is and where they’re going before you start getting into the weeds. If you start with the big picture, you can always fill in the details later.
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