One might assume that the most important factor in establishing a successful business is having novel products or services or a stand out venture, but there’s another vital element to consider; a great brand reputation. If your brand is unknown or worse, untrustworthy, this will hamper your chances of success. Building brand loyalty takes time and effort and PR is all about reputation building and management. It’s beneficial to put PR at the heart of your business from the outset as it will help to clarify and define what you want to say, when and where you want to say it, how you say it and to whom.
You may need multiple PR strategies, for example, internal, corporate and product PR strategies to tell your story consistently and to build awareness, knowledge, understanding and eventually loyalty (or repeat business). For the best chance of successful communications through PR, the strategy must be based on a sound understanding of your market, so planning and preparation is important; don’t just plunge with promotional activity that is not pegged to strategic goal. You need a clear plan with desired outcomes and targets to get from A to B. Assuming that you have distinguished your business from competitors and you know there is demand for your offering, here are some key steps for creating the PR strategy to support the growth of your company.
What are your goals?
Do develop your goals; you could start with the mission, defining specific goals to achieve that mission. Say your goal is to become the country’s leading bohemian shoe store, a goal might be to achieve mass awareness of the brand amongst a particular demographic. The more specific your goals, the more precise you can be about the PR actions that can take you towards the goal. A common business goal is to stimulate interest/enquiries for a company’s new product or service, and the PR goals usually involve building awareness and creating desire for those products or services. The strategy will reflect what you are trying to achieve and should be informed by market and customer insights. The key thing is to be very clear about that goal and to ensure that the actions to get to the end point are do-able, relevant and measurable. Set milestones and realistic time frames so that you can monitor progress and keep your and the team’s motivation high.
How well do you know your audiences?
Before you work on the messaging to promote the business, it’s important to really know the audience you’re targeting. Who are they, what are their decision making processes, who influences them and what are their current buying habits? What will excite them or turn them off? Audience analysis takes time and patience, but it will deliver good results in the long term. As well as communicating with prospective customers directly, reaching influencers for your target demographic is important – if influencers are persuaded by your story, they can help to spread your messages to a wider group of people who trust them. Once you know exactly who your direct prospects and influencers are, devote time to finding out the best communications channels to reach them (where do the audiences go, what do they read, watch, listen to). This can range from direct interaction with audiences to traditional and social media. Tailor and prioritise the communications channels so that you make the best use of your resources rather than trying to cover every channel.
What do you want to say to your target audiences?
By knowing your goals, your audience and which communication channels to target, you will be in a much stronger position to create credible messages. Determine what you want to communicate about your brand or product, and then tailor the messages to the particular demographic and communications channel. It takes time to tailor messages for different groups of people and channels, but the reward for doing this is that they will truly resonate with the people you want to engage with – ultimately helping you to achieve your goals.
How can you tell if it’s working?
Regularly reviewing and measuring the outcomes and impact of PR will enable you to make informed decisions about future PR and promotion, and help with management decisions. The more you’re able to measure your PR strategy with tangible metrics, the more effective you will be, today and in future campaigns. Tangible metrics include increased awareness (tested through pre and post campaign research), new customer acquisitions, turnover, customer attrition, organic site traffic and more.
Who is in charge?
The more extensive your PR strategy, the more important it is that you delegate specific tasks to employees. If you’ve hired an outsourced agency, they will work with you to manage a lot of the aforementioned tasks. If you’re handling the PR internally, it’s best to have no ambiguity over who is doing what. This ensures that the strategy runs smoothly, helping you to reach your goals efficiently and effectively.
If you’re seeking help with your PR strategy drop us an email. You can also get hold of our free E-book, Getting to the Route of PR by visiting this page.
Tags: goals, metrics, PR strategy, target audience
