Ep 34. How to create the right PR plan for you

Today I am keeping it super simple for you. Maybe you are a smaller business or startup that needs some help putting together ideas on how to promote your business using PR or thinking of entering the PR world and wondering what a simple PR plan could include?

PR is an effective tool for building brand awareness. I’m one of only a few hundred chartered PR practitioners in the UK, and in this article, I’m going to walk you through how to start using public relations in your business, so you create content that makes the right impact.

I am covering some of the ‘big buckets’ in terms of activities and some of the strategic steps you need to consider to have a plan that hits the mark and achieves results.

Links mentioned in this episode:

Bitesize course! How To Find Customers And Help Them Buy

Ep 04. Is the comms working?

Full Transcript (unedited)

Hello, and welcome to this episode of Communication Strategy that Works, with me Emma Drake. Hi everyone, how are we all doing today? I hope everyone is doing okay. So today I’m keeping it super simple for you. So this is for you, maybe you’re a smaller business or startup that needs some help putting together ideas on how to promote your business using PR. Or maybe you’re thinking of entering the PR world and wondering what a simple PR plan could include.

PR or public relations is a really effective tool for building brand awareness for your business. And I am one of only a few hundred chartered public relations practitioners here in the UK with the Global chartered Institute of Public Relations. I’m going to walk you through today how to start using public relations for your business, so you can create content which makes the right impact. So I’m covering some of the big buckets today in terms of activities and some of the strategic steps that you need to consider to have a plan that hits the mark and achieves results. So let’s dive in.

So first of all, we want to start with a goal in mind. So you might have had a bit of PR success. Maybe you wrote a post which got a lot of engagement on LinkedIn or an article on your blog, which brings you traffic to your website. Maybe you’re having some success in some of those areas. You may even have had some press coverage. But when the chatter died down, you might’ve been left wondering what to do next. Now one press release will give you that kudos in the moment, but it won’t support and grow a business over time. So really a program of activity is the best way forward if you’re starting out. And you want this to support a particular business goal, otherwise it can be a little bit scatter gun and have really mixed results for you.

So what does success look like for you and how would the activity you are planning support it? So the next thing to think about is doing your research and making a plan. So if you’ve listened to podcasts for a while, you’ll know that I am a big advocate of understanding who you’re trying to reach and why before you start any program of activity. And this will help you pick the right activities for your PR program and develop the right message with the content to reach them. So, you know what you want to achieve and really now, what you want to do is start thinking about focusing on short bursts of activity to achieve that goal and what those activities could be, will be down to how much you’ve researched your audience and what they need to know and what you fix for them and how you can help inform them about the product or service. Or how you can help change their behavior or all of these things. But you need to understand what’s driving those people that you’re trying to talk to.

I would make a plan to do two or three activities each quarter at first and test the water. And see what works for you and track and monitor it. For example, if we just take media relations as an activity, I’ve worked with and for businesses where we’ve had 12 pieces of news a year, so 12 press releases or 12 announcements, let’s say to make it simple. But I’ve also worked in organizations where we’ve had three or four a week.

So it really depends on what you do and what sector you’re in and how many sectors you cover really. And there’s no real one size fits all here. So don’t let anyone tell you any differently there. I would always advocate really taking a campaign approach so that you can… What I mean by that is you identifying a goal. You’re setting a really intense period of time that you want to work on reaching people and you can gain a lot of impact, and it can be a very coherent plan of action. Making all your content work together towards one goal, like launching a website, for example, a new service offer or launching a new initiative. So if you’d like some tips on how to track and monitor what you’re doing, make sure you track back and listen to episode four of the podcast, to know how to know if your comms is working.

So the other thing is deciding what you want to be known for. What the hell are you going to talk about? You need to have a content plan that works and is crafted around what people really want to know. So think about what your industry is talking about. What are the big trends and topics that you could contribute to knowledgeably. Maybe make a list of the top three things let’s say, where you can contribute strongly, or have something to say and make this the basis of your content planning for your PR program. I like to call these content pillars, but you can call them whatever you like.

And next you could check out the publications you want to be in and talk to them. And this is about matching up your audience profiles with some of those publications. There’s a note, if you listen to the podcast right to the end today, I’ve got a bit of an announcement actually at the end of the podcast, about a really short bite-size course I’ve got about finding your audience and helping them buy for you. So listen to the podcast and at the end, and I’ll also put it in the show notes, there’s a link. But when you want to match up your publications too that you want to be in, if we just take media relations, for example. You want to be matching up your audience demographics to who reads those publications.

So scatter gun media relations and just sending press releases out is really not a very good strategy. So you want to be having a look at, well where is my target audience and where they most likely to read about me? And that’s where you want to keep your focus. And speak to them, speak to the publications. Are they going to be doing interviews around those topics? Are they doing special features? Sometimes they do regional features. Think of an angle or a particular standpoint you might have on this topic. It is important to have an opinion and not just talk about a topic in the same way that everybody else is talking about it. You want to stand out the crowd.

And I’ve talked about this next step in another episode actually, but are there any awards on the horizon? If you want to enter awards, you need to prepare. So as part of your PR program, you need to put that into your plan. Look at what awards are coming up in your sector, what you could enter which fits the content themes you’re working on. Make a list of one or two that fit the bill and schedule them in to work on because you’re going to need some time to write them. And you’re going to need content to support and award entry. And that can take a bit of time actually.

So I’d made sure that you work… I would work a year ahead on those really, because they tend to have a 12 month timeframe. So you should know when they’re happening and plan them into your PR program. So you would be working this year on something, for example, from a product that was released last year. So don’t forget, there is also some great awards for individuals in business. So as well as the business itself, products and services or processes in your business as well. So have a really good look around at what could really suit you and where you are in your business and where you could get most impact.

So the next thing is about speaking. And could you be a guest speaker really. This is a great way of raising your profile. So go back to your audience demographics and look at what podcasts they might be listening to in your sector. I’m a huge podcast advocate obviously, so look at approaching one or two and pitch a topic idea around one of your content pillars and see if they’re using guest experts for example. I was approached the other day about speaking on a podcast, a marketing podcast about communication strategy for example.

Alternatively, you could look to talk in other business groups or forums or industry events maybe. Maybe there’s a webinar where you can show off your expertise, but you need to do a bit of planning, as I said, and you need to plan these in and look at when they’re happening and plan in time to reach out to people in time for when your campaign is going live.

So you can see, just from the short episode today that with some planning and some consistent effort, you can build a reputation in your industry and among your customers. So let me know, you can contact me on social media, let me know what you think of this topic. I’ll be really interested to hear what you want to be known for in your industry.

Before you go today, and I mentioned this a little while ago, I wanted to tell you about an exciting new course I have for you. So if you’re new to comms or PR and want to understand the key steps to find your customers and help them buy from you, then this course is for you. I cover this simple four step roadmap to help you get results and enable you to create the content that hits the mark with those potential customers. Now, this is part of a seven step roadmap that I have, and I’m picking this one step because actually, it’s the one that most people stumble on. So I’ve created this bite-size course, and there’s a link in the show notes just to tackle this one step. So I’ll just say bye for now and see you next time.

So finally, thank you for listening to this episode of Communication Strategy that Works. Don’t forget to check my show notes for those links that I mentioned, and I’d really love it if you would subscribe to my podcast and leave me a review. And also if you think there’s someone that could benefit from listening to this podcast, please share this within your networks. So I’ll just say bye for now and see you next time.