Brand reputation and brand awareness are key to your business’ success, and PR is essential to promote your business from the perspective of a third party, offering a strong layer of credibility – particularly if from a reputable source.
Through PR, you can tell a story about your business and your brand, as well as providing thought leadership pieces to enforce your status as an expert in your field – what you cannot achieve through advertising, you can achieve through PR.
And, in order to ensure your PR efforts are successful, you should have a comprehensive communications strategy in place that guarantees your content is relatable, relevant and topical to your brand, with the correct distribution methods to ensure your business name is being mentioned in all of the best places.
A communications strategy needs to adopt a certain amount of creativity in order to break through the vast sea of content in the media, so that publications pick up your ideas, and customers consume them.
Firstly, what is a PR strategy?
A PR strategy can allow your business to create, organise and measure your PR tactics, whether that’s a year’s worth of campaigns, or content around one singular event, such as a new service offering.
It’s a way to actively control what is said about your brand in the media, meaning you become the driver of conversation, rather than being passive to the general chatter and discussion of your brand.
PR can be a difficult strategy to master, which is why working with PR professionals can ensure your business is receiving the best possible coverage. A PR consultancy such as ours has experts on hand that dedicate their knowledge and experience to working with journalists and publications on your behalf.
Here are five top tips to create the perfect PR strategy...
1. Know your audience
When crafting your strategy, it is key to remember that it will only be effective if you establish who your audience is – tailoring your content to your target audience is pertinent to your success in achieving relevant brand awareness.
When planning the content that you plan to distribute, understanding the types of content that your audience prefers will dramatically help lead your strategy.
This entails thinking about the form of content and its style, along with smaller details such as preferred language, for example. Create your PR strategy with the interests of your audience in mind.
2. Identify the best platforms
After you have pinpointed your target audience, your strategy should then consider the media platform that would be best suited to your distribution methods in order to reach your potential customers.
Once these platforms have been discovered, you can consistently feed information and updates about your business in order to push your brand name into the media in places that are relevant.
This can be a very time-consuming job, and can often require certain software along with professional relationships in order to achieve success, which is where a consultancy such as ours has long-standing PR experience to provide a bespoke, effective service.
3. Be concise and to the point
Since journalists and publications are inundated with story ideas, reading long, overly complicated emails won’t appeal to them.
This is why 91% of journalists prefer pitches under 200 words – short and sweet for quicker communication.
In your communications strategy, you should consider the process of contacting your desired media outlets, ensuring that you are concise with your approach as to not overwhelm your recipients.
4. Make it newsworthy
Another factor to consider when it comes to your strategy is how newsworthy your content is. Of course, if you’re planning to distribute something that the media is already saturated with, or something that is an old finding, then it is unlikely your story will be picked up.
Therefore, the quality of what you’re pitching is vital, and being newsworthy, current and topical are key aspects of what should be included in your PR strategy.
Are you announcing a new product, or a different perspective on a current event? These are examples of how you can ensure newsworthy ideas in your strategy.
5. Follow up – but don’t be pushy
It is common with PR outreach to send a follow-up email to remind your recipients about your previous email, asking if they had any thoughts about the pitch.
This method can sometimes be viewed as risky, but 90% of journalists have stated that sending up to one follow-up email is fine – as long as your follow-up message isn’t pushy.
A gentle reminder can definitely ensure that your pitch hasn’t been forgotten about, and can save those emails from being dismissed without a second nudge.
Therefore, in your PR strategy, ensure to have a PR team that strives for active outreach, along with the suitable etiquette for follow-up emails to ensure your ideas are not ignored by potential media outlets.
In search of PR strategists?
With years of experience in communications, Champions has the resources and team of experts to push your PR efforts to success.
We aim for the best results for our clients, and with services to provide you with content writing and distribution, we can drive your brand awareness and brand reputation to new heights.
Contact us today to discover more about our PR and communications services.
We can help you tell your story...
Along with PR services, we have various departments that can help you tell your story and develop relationships with your customers to humanise your brand.
Whether you’re in search of video production, outreach, or content creation, Champions’ holistic service offering has the resources for your needs.