Planning: Learn about the key to PR success

Are you thinking about working in PR? Then there are a few things you should keep in mind when planning a cost and time effective PR campaign. More time, money and effort is wasted in PR through people not planning it properly than through any other cause. In truth, planning is not a terribly difficult art. Most self-respecting PR practitioners can tackle it without too much apprehension and often reap substantial benefits from doing so. Let’s have a look at some of what to consider when it comes to a successful PR planning approach.

The Planning Approach

The approach is not hard, complex or daunting; it is largely common sense and the application of a little logical reasoning. A typical planning approach would be:

Research

What do your audiences know about you already? What do they think, feel, believe and say about you’re your organisation, product, service and reputation? Without researching this type of data, any PR campaign is going to be a shot in the dark – and that os not then best sue of hard won resource.

Objectives

These should be SMART – that is:

S-pecific – to achieve a certain numerical goal

M-easurable – to allow for evaluation

A-ttainable – as there is nothing more disheartening than trying to reach for a latter day Holy Grail

R-ealistic – so that energy and resources are concentrated where they can do most good

T-imed – so that the goal can be achieved by a certain deadline

Writing objectives can be a matter of discipline. It is often to put in everything that you would like to achieve about your organisation – tempting but mot very realistic. A practical example would be – to achieve six positive articles in identified media within one month. That is easily measured and the success or failure rate can be logged without reference to a complex computer programme.

Key Messages

What is it that you really need to say about your organisation, its products, services, people, locations, policies, investments, successes etc.

Target Audiences

Who needs to know your key messages? Most organisations can sit down and dash off a list of all the usual suspects – media, press, government, shareholders, investors, the community, academia etc. many however will forget one key audience – their own employees. This is probably the hardest audience of all and one which is very easy to get wrong – but, if you do, the chances of communicating successfully externally are minimal.

Strategy

This section really separates the sheep from the goats; if PR practitioners can write a good strategy, they are immediately established as being rather better than the average PR fluffy. How are you going to carry out the plan? What broad methods are you going to use to communicate the messages to the audiences? How are you going to leave a lasting value once the campaign is completed?

Costing

Many finance managers are of the strange persuasion that budget drives strategy. This is a very stupid viewpoint. The strategy is right – or wrong – whether you have £100,000 to spend or £10,000; all that needs to change is the methodology, the detail. If the ideas are right, they are right and no financial constraint can make them wrong.

Staffing

Many organisations have far too many PR people. Often one or two good people can achieve more than a vast army of not highly motivated staff. One of the worst PR departments ever seen had over 200 staff, none of whom knew what was happening at any given time on any given topic. The function requires creativity, energy, common sense, an ability to write, an ability to be a self-starter working in an autonomous position and an appetite for hard work. When someone fits this type of bill, they can make a very strong contribution.

Evaluating

No plan is worth its weight in washers unless it can be evaluated at reasonable intervals such as annually. We will look at evaluation later, but review periods and methods by which to measure achievement need to be built into any PR plan from the start; otherwise the momentum can run away with the task and the plan may not be followed.

On paper, it’s all smooth sailing but what does a real live practical PR plan look like? In the free eBook “Practical PR” you can find a few real-life examples of PR plans and other material. The book is written by Tony Greener.

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