5 steps to bring clarity to your PR efforts
First posted in 2012 and recently updated, this post gets at the core of what Clarity does:
Having worked in marketing public relations and issue communications for more than 20 years now, I tend to forget that my craft is still a mystery/missed opportunity to many. A prospective client brought that home for me recently as I considered how to answer her question, “So where do we begin?”
Here’s a five-step guide to help bring clarity (love that word!) to your marketing PR communications efforts. These turn-by-turn directions will help you develop a thoughtful marcomm plan to get where you want to go, and to keep you on path and within budget along the way.
1. ID your destination. You can’t start a trip without knowing where you want to end up, right? So first off, huddle with your strategic communications counsel to identify your goals and objectives to them – that is, stake out your destination. Then they can consider how to harness marketing PR resources to help you get there. Skipping this first step is akin to asking your comms team to drive you aimlessly, at night, without headlights – they’ll have slim to no chance of getting you where you want to go.
(To define terms: Goals and/or objectives define your destination. Goals tend to focus on “whats”, while objectives focus on the “hows” to achieve those “whats”. They provide the vision to guide the rest of your travel planning.)
2. Identify your passengers. Now your comms counsel can help you ID who you want/need on the ride to reach that destination with you — in communications-speak, they can help you suss out the audiences that you need to target. These could be customers, or influencers who can reach your customers.
Let’s say you want to grow sales of a high-end specialty produce item to fine food retailers. Then your communications will want to target that sector’s produce buyers (and, I’ll argue, the VPs who direct them). These folks are influenced in part by what they read in their industry’s news media. So buyers and VPs of produce are primary target audiences, and their sector’s news media outlets are a secondary audience.
3. Plot your course. Now that you know where you want to go, your comms counsel can identify related marketing PR strategies, tactics and activities. These are the many routes and modes of transportation that you can use to reach your destination - think trains, planes and automobiles.
(More terms: Strategies and their tactics define how you plan to achieve an objective. Activities are the step-by-step how-tos to execute them.)
For example, if you have a new fruit or vegetable that will appeal especially to kids, then one audience you’ll want to target is their grocery-shopping moms to grow your sales, to create product pull. You can deploy a range of comms strategies to reach moms, including going direct to moms via their beloved social media. Then Facebook would be a required tactic, as it is still the leading social media platform for reaching women. Your activity plan will outline how you’ll execute a Facebook presence that will generate ROI, such as establishing a style guide to help your social team take on your desired online persona, and laying out an editorial calendar to ensure you’re post new, helpful content regularly to capture moms’ attention.
4. Draw up your itinerary. By this point, your comms team can now draw up an itinerary or map for your trip, by documenting your communications goals, objectives, strategies, tactics, activities and calendar in a written plan.
Of course that plan has to be drawn with your budget in mind. We may want to travel to a dream destination and fly first class and stay in 5-star hotels along the way, but few of us can afford to do that. So your comms counsel will focus the resources you do have on achieving your highest priorities, as defined by your plan.
Like any good travel itinerary, your plan will also identify the travel supplies or tools that you’ll need to successfully make the trip. The first tool I urge my clients to develop is a message platform (aka key messages, talking points, message map, etc.). Codifying and prioritizing the messages you want to convey to your target audiences will bring valuable focus to your work, as I’ve previously blogged here.
5. Check your progress mid-course. Any journey can be beset by bumps in the road, travel delays or outright road closures. The key is to be on the watch to identify them as soon as possible, so you can change course if needed. You and your communications counsel should conduct periodic course checks and alter your roadmap as needed to ensure you can still reach at your destination.
For example, if you’re foraying into a certain flavor of social media for the first time, you’ll want to closely analyze your data. Don’t be satisfied with just tracking likes and follows, look at engagement. Similarly, if you’re engaging in trade media relations, evaluate any coverage you receive to determine what your target audience is deeming newsworthy and what it’s not, and whether that coverage is including your key messages. Then, is that coverage catching the attention of your customers? (Hint: Don’t leave that to chance - share coverage with your customers to ensure they saw it.) Or do you need to take a different route, such as pitching exclusive content to an influential media outlet?
Disciplined marketing PR planning and execution helps you focus limited communications resources where you can get the highest ROI – just as preplanning your travel helps you get the most out of your trip. That said, travel plans should always have some flexibility built in for the unexpected, good and bad. Should an opportunity to take a side trip pop up along your route, you can evaluate that communications opportunity against the clear vision of your plan. While a side trip might sound exciting, if it won’t help you reach a target audience or doesn’t fit your budget, then you’ll know to stay your course.
Good PR counsel can work with you to design a program to achieve maximum results for your budget, and then execute that program with clarity of focus and discipline. Think of us as your expert, outsource travel agents, dedicated to helping you reach your destination as efficiently as possible – and to enjoy the trip along the way.