Taking a closer look at what a PR strategy really is, and why so many businesses don’t really have one.
Here’s a scenario that is more common than we’d like. A business owner sits down with us, cup of tea in hand, and says “We’ve tried PR before and it didn’t really do much.”
Then we ask what the PR strategy was. And there’s a stoney silence as they conjure up whatever content calendar or posting schedule they’ve had over the last few months.
What usually comes out is a list of some kind, or press releases about the new premises, and perhaps a few posts on LinkedIn. While none of that is bad, per say, it is not a strategy.
It’s a pile of activity…
And activity without a direction tends to fizzle out the moment the person doing it gets busy with something else. Which, in most small businesses, is about every other Tuesday.
What is a PR strategy?
It doesn’t need to be complicated; a strategy is really just a decision and a set of goals. What it does have is many layers and sections which requires a team who can deliver on different expertise.
To build your PR strategy, you first need to answer two questions. Who do you need to reach and what do you want them to believe about you? Everything else follows from that.
The tricky bit is that most businesses skip straight to the “how” (press releases! TikTok!) without ever settling those two questions first. So the activity happens, but nobody’s quite sure what it was for.
A proper PR strategy tends to cover a handful of things:
- An objective you can point at which is not just “raise awareness” – a soft expression of promotion.
Something like more enquiries from facilities managers in the North West, or being the name trade journalists ring when they need a comment on your sector. - Your target audiences (Yes, usually plural).
Customers, obviously, but also future staff, investors, the local council, the people who read your industry’s trade press. - Your key messages.
This is normally simpler than people expect. Think about what you want each target audience to walk away thinking. For example, instead of ‘we’re the biggest and best roofing company in the UK’ go for ‘hands-on advice to roofers’ - Channels and timing.
Where those people are actually paying attention. There’s a vast choice from social media, media coverage in print, digital comms, billboard advertising, traditional advertising to pay-per-click and e-newsletters. Then find out when it makes sense for you to turn up. - How you’ll know it’s working.
Coverage counts are fine, but enquiries, website visits from the right places and a sales team that stops having to explain who you are? Better.
Notice what isn’t on that list. Nothing about exactly which media title or communications channel you’ll feature. That comes later, and once the thinking’s been done it’s honestly the easy part.
It’s worth saying here that reputation is never built overnight. A good PR strategy is built to run for a year or more, not a fortnight, because people need to hear about you more than once before it sticks.
What is a PR campaign, then?
This is where people get muddled, and fair enough. The words get thrown around as if they mean the same thing. They don’t. If your strategy is the map, a public relations campaign is one particular journey across it.
So when someone asks us, “what is a PR campaign?”, the short answer is a focused burst of activity, often running for a few weeks or a couple of months, designed to push one part of your strategy forward.
An example helps here. Say a family-run bakery wants to be known for wedding cakes, not just its sourdough. That’s the strategic aim. One campaign might be a series of real wedding stories pitched to regional wedding magazines in the run-up to spring. Another, later in the year, might be a tasting evening with a couple of local venues. Different campaigns but the same strategy underneath.
And that’s the point really…campaigns without a strategy behind them are where most of the wasted money in PR ends up. You get a flurry of coverage, everyone’s chuffed for a week, and then… nothing much. Ask six months later what it did for the business and nobody can quite say.
Where PR strategies tend to go wrong
We’ve seen a lot of PR strategies over the years. Some brilliant. Some that were really just a wish list with a logo stuck on the front. The ones that struggle usually trip over the same few things.
Chasing the big name. Everyone wants the nationals, and we get it, it feels like the prize. But if most of your customers live within thirty miles of your front door, a proper feature in the local paper or a trade title they actually read will probably do far more for you than a passing mention somewhere they skim on the train.
Talking about yourselves too much. Journalists aren’t interested in what you’re “delighted to announce”. Readers even less so. The story needs to be about something bigger than your business, whether that’s a problem you solve or a trend you can speak about with some authority.
Going quiet.. (this one’s common). A big push, some decent coverage, then six months of silence because the busy season kicked in. If you disappear, so does the goodwill you built.
Expecting it to behave like advertising. You can’t switch PR on and count the clicks the next morning. It earns trust over time, which is exactly why it’s valuable, but this does require patience and a bit of faith.
The best PR strategies we’ve worked on look almost boring on paper. A clear aim and a short list of people who matter. That’s the foundation, and the creative ideas grow out of it rather than the other way round.
Getting a PR strategy that fits your business
If you’ve got this far and thought “right, we definitely don’t have one of those”, don’t worry. Most businesses we meet don’t. That’s not a failing, it’s just that nobody ever sat down and helped them work it out.
That’s the bit we love doing at Aura PR.
We start the same way every time. Before anyone mentions press releases, thought leadership, media outlets or social media platforms, we want to find out what makes your company tick: the people behind it and the customers you’d love more of. Only once we understand that do we choose the channels and the stories. It saves an awful lot of wasted effort later on. We’re glass half full sorts, so we’ll find the story in your business even if you’re convinced there isn’t one. There always is.
Sometimes it’s hiding in something you’d never think to mention, like how you started or a customer who wrote in to say thanks. And a PR plan isn’t something we write once and file away. When it’s up and running we keep looking for fresh angles, a bit like detectives, if detectives were mostly interested in getting you into the paper.
If you’d like a PR strategy that actually means something, or you’re wondering what a sensible public relations campaign could look like for you, get in touch with Aura PR. Pop the kettle on, tell us what you’re trying to achieve, and we’ll be straight with you about how PR can help.
