Build your PR strategy and the audience will come

The art of business is a Catch 22, isn’t it? You need sales to be able to invest in PR, but you’ve decided you need PR to get the traffic in the first place!

I hear this frustration most weeks when I meet with potential new clients, and my advice is always to start with a strategy. The rest will follow.

It can be overwhelming to discuss social media, website content, blogging, influencer outreach, media relations, community engagement, marketing and branding, stakeholder engagement, roadshow events, and government relations when you’re seeking PR support. While there’s nothing stopping you getting started straight away, a strategy will guide where the long-term focus should be, and will likely even change the course of direction you initially had. This happens a lot – a client might come to us for media relations to drive more traffic to the website, but the audit and recommendations reveal the website isn’t set up to convert into sales – rendering media relations ineffective for the goal which is actually to increase sales.

Communication is what will bring your business plan off the page and into reality

In agreeing to a comprehensive communications strategy, you get to cut through all market noise and learn where it is you need to be and what it is you need to say, to get the best of your PR investment.

Just like a business plan sets out how to get to your one year, three year and five year financial goals, and a marketing plan outlines the exact campaigns you will focus on over the coming year, so too does a communication plan show you how to get from where you are now to where you want to be, by consistently communicating the right messages to the right people. 

Strategies require unbiased, objective counsel

There’s no doubt you can create a communication strategy in-house; indeed, there are many brands that rely on an internal PR team to strategise and execute activities with an innate understanding of the brand and vision. But even with a gun PR manager on your books, a strategy is one area that I recommend seeking counsel on before embarking on a PR program. Like any business consultant, an external PR agency can offer unbiased, objective advice, with a thorough audit of your current communications activities and recommendations on how to get the best engagement with stakeholders. Would your PR manager tell you honestly that you need some presentation training or that the branding should be improved?

We know strategies

Last year, we completed more than 50 communications strategies at Elevate. Considering we closed down for two weeks over Christmas, that’s an average of one strategy every week we delivered to brands in manufacturing, travel and tourism, government, healthcare, retail, automotive, technology, not for profit and so many more industries – chances are, we’ve got a solid insight into your sector as well. Beyond an understanding of the industry itself, what makes a communications plan successful is the intricate knowledge of stakeholders, channels and key messages to get your message across in the best way possible. This is where an external PR agency comes into its own.

Elevate is unlike many other agencies in the market. Often when a client seeks a communications strategy from an agency, that agency will prepare the plan according to the scope of work confirmed from the initial proposal. This limits the strategy to only the agency-led activity, which is subject to time and financial resources and is not so much a strategy than a plan or guide while that agency is at the helm.

At Elevate, we give you the strategy first which is not bound by time or responsibility. It therefore gives you big picture thinking and the detailed tactics to help you achieve your goals, which you can then decide how best to incorporate. Perhaps you will take some activities in-house and outsource the rest. Perhaps you will manage the whole program yourself now that you have the tools. Or you might decide the findings require operational or HR changes first and hold off implementing the communications plan until you are ready. Whatever you choose to do with the strategy, the strategy is yours to keep and refer to whenever necessary.

Armed with key messages, a timeline of activities, tailored journalist names and an array of tactics, the suite of PR activities that follow will ensure you start attracting and engaging stakeholders. Build the strategy, and your audience will come.