PR Planning: Mapping Out Your Strategies, Tactics

With all due respect to all those stereotypical males out there who hate to ask for directions, the fact is that even if the territory is somewhat familiar, if you don't have a roadmap and follow its directions, you're going to get hopelessly lost.

So it goes with your PR program. If you truly intend to have a proactive media relations program, rather than one that just reacts to news developments, a plan is essential to ensure you stay on track with not just with tactical details, but with your organization's overriding business goals and objectives.

Here are some guidelines to establishing a plan that will put and keep you on track:

Start by analyzing your organization's positioning and how it is perceived by the markets you serve, particularly vis a vis your competitors. Look at your menu of offerings, in terms of products, services or areas of expertise, or at the underlying challenges your organization faces.

Identify and prioritize your key imperatives according to your organization's most pressing business needs. Your mandates from management, for example, might be to develop PR approaches to help support the trial and launch of a new product or service, to support an existing specialty that may have been neglected for past lack of resources, and to generally help bolster the business' brand.

A mini plan of attack should be designed for each imperative that incorporates the overall strategy for the project, how it will be supported tactically (audience and media markets targeted, vehicles used, such as news releases, surveys, or bylined articles), implementation timelines and assigned responsibilities, and, ideally, how the PR tactics will dovetail with marketing tactics in terms of everything from messaging to timelines.

To better support an existing specialty service, for example, perhaps the strategy is to develop a program that underscores your expertise and thought-leadership in that arena. You'd identify markets of your buyers, media markets that cater to their interests, ideas for a series of bylined articles on issues or trends tying in with that service to be positioned with those media outlets, a timeframe and responsibilities for article development and pitching, and a plan for how the placed articles should be used (e.g. links to a PDF incorporated into a direct mail piece or client newsletter).

You should also figure out estimated costs, in terms of internal staff time, PR agency fees (if you use one) and ancillary costs (reprint permissions/PDFs, clipping service, etc.), as part of the plan. You may, in fact, have to pare back ? or bolster ? your initiatives depending on what the numbers tell you.

Moreover, those numbers tie into another important component of the plan: how you anticipate measuring the effectiveness of the program. Return on investment is one (though not the only) way to go ? for which you'll need total spendings as well as a way to tie those spendings to such measurable results, like more business coming over the transom.

Developing a PR plan takes time and energy, but is essential to bringing focus to your PR program. Ideally, you'll get the structure in place so that each year, the planning gets easier, the metrics help prove out where refinements are needed, and your value is substantially demonstrated to management.

Sally Saville Hodge is president of Hodge Communications, Inc., specializing in strategic public relations and marketing communications for businesses, entrepreneurs and professional associations. Formerly an award-winning financial journalist, she brings over 30 years experience to client engagements. Subscribe today to Communic@te! our free bimonthly e-newsletter and get a free special report: "Using Buzz To Create a Groundswell For Your Business." Visit http://www.hodgecommunications.com

---

Media Relations: What To Do When Youre Misquoted

When ABC News anchor Peter Jennings announced he had lung... Read More

Why PR Can be Effective Medicine

When properly applied by business, non-profit and association managers, public... Read More

Think Like a Reader, Viewer, or Listener to Get Great Publicity

About a year ago I read a feature story in... Read More

3 Essential Elements For Turning Your PR Pitch Into Publicity Exposure

1) Establish Rapport, then get the editor/producer excited.There's not a... Read More

Can Newbies Avoid The Pitfalls?

Yes indeed! If you are a young person who has... Read More

Dont Use PR

?lose the confidence of your key target audiences? discourage them... Read More

Take the High Ground With Quality PR

Quality public relations does something positive for business, non-profit and... Read More

What You Dont Know About PR Can Hurt You

And hurt bad if you are a business, non-profit or... Read More

How to Get Some of Paris Hilton?s TV Time

When your book is mentioned on television, sales go up.... Read More

When Tactics Are Not Enough

Your public relations people are busy. The buzz is all... Read More

How To Make Time For Public Relations

"Don't say you don't have enough time. You have exactly... Read More

Effective Media Relations ? You Won?t be Talking to the Media Without It!

The media's role is to package and spread news, current... Read More

Is PR Right for You? 6 Questions to Ask

When most people think about marketing, they think advertising. While... Read More

Publicity: Polls and Surveys Are a Great Path Free Publicity

When I search Google News for "surveys," I get nearly... Read More

16 Publicity tips for Restaurants

With a dismal failure rate of more than 75 percent... Read More

Talk Radio Success

You do not have to hire a publicist or advertise... Read More

How Real PR Works

For some, public relations works well when their news release... Read More

PR tips for business

Question: Why should your business issue a press release? Answer:... Read More

Do I Really Need a Publicist?

Are you hesitating about hiring a publicist or, if you... Read More

VIP Database; Does Your Company Have One?

The VIP databases are fun to create and can be... Read More

What Some Pros Know About PR

They know they had better do something positive about those... Read More

Yes, There is a PR Sweet Spot

And here it is: public relations alters individual perception leading... Read More

Free Radio Publicity for Marketing-Minded Financial Planners

Radio is a powerful publicity tool. Most stations offer news... Read More

How Marketing-Minded Financial Planners Get Publicity

You've probably noticed, if you live on this planet, that... Read More

Want to Light a Fire Under Your PR?

Yes? Then do something positive about the behaviors of those... Read More

Managers Need Basic PR

True, because department, division or subsidiary managers for a business,... Read More

Publicity Tips from the Pros

If you want to know the best way to approach... Read More

Ill Alert The Media

There is something newsworthy happening at your organization right now.... Read More

Press Releases

How do press releases or interest stories have an effect... Read More

Make Front Page News By NOT Inviting The Media

Not a single reporter showed up at our news event.... Read More

Financial Planners, Why Advertise When Free Publicity and Marketing Is Better?

Commit this to memory, please: To get in the media,... Read More

There Is No Such Thing as Competition

A wise friend of mine has often said, "There is... Read More

Photographs - Ten Tips For Getting Good Shots

Photographs are essential for getting good publicity in the print... Read More