How to kick start your PR strategy for 2020
Christmas has been and gone and we’ve seen in the New Year… but it’s not all bad news! 2020 is now upon us and the buzz for creating a new plan and PR strategy has fully set in.
You’ve had your PR budget set for the year (yay!) and you’ve got your marketing team ready to put the PR strategy into action. But then you think… where should you start? This blog post sets out three things that you should consider before putting the PR wheels in motion.
1. Define your goals
What do you want to achieve from your PR campaign? Brand awareness? Lead generation? Boosting customer relationships? Press coverage or journalist interviews? An increase in social media metrics? Whatever your goal, make sure to define it before you begin forming the PR strategy. It is only with the goal in mind that you can make sure your PR strategy will fully deliver on what you want to achieve.
Make sure that you stay realistic with your goals, and that these goals are aligned to the budget you currently have to spend. Is your budget fixed, or flexible to scale up and add any additional options that your PR agency may present to you? Quite simply, the more budget you have available, the more opportunities you will get, and the more outcomes you will receive; the two go hand-in-hand. However, don’t be fooled by your PR agency into believing that less budget means less effort – your PR agency should put 100% effort into your PR campaign, regardless of how much you’re willing to spend.
2. Equip your team
Make sure your marketing or comms team is ready to execute a full-scale PR strategy. If they’re not, consider why. Too busy, not enough people or not enough PR experience? In our experience, none of these reasons should stop you putting your PR strategy in place this year. We have clients with no marketing team, a marketing team of one, or a marketing team of ten. Some of our clients have extensive PR experience, others have very little.
As for being too busy, there will always be other things that you ‘should’ be doing; but that doesn’t mean your PR strategy should go to the bottom of the pile. Working with a PR agency that will get to know you from day one, means that soon all you’ll have to do is leave a little bit of time for press interviews and copy approvals and the rest will be taken care of.
3. Connect the dots
Have you joined the dots between your dream PR strategy and your marketing plan? Do the two align? Will you look to collaborate with a whitepaper with the same publication on your PR media list, and will the topics outlined in your marketing plan work for PR thought leadership articles? If you’re unsure how the two should tie together, speak to your PR agency and they will help you to make sure your entire comms strategy is connected to get the best outcomes.
Ready to get started?
There is undoubtedly a lot of buzz around this year, but 2020 has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it? Let us help you kick start your PR strategy this year. Get in touch and let’s have a chat! Email prworks@neopr.co.uk or call +44 (0)1296 733 867.
We’ve done a bit of future-gazing into 2020 to see what it might hold – check out our blog!
