Planning a PR Strategy Plan

Some Steps for Completing Your Plan

Include Five Main Components

• What needs to be done?• How will it get done?• Who will do it?• When will it be done? • How will it be evaluated?

* Some clients will want to know about cost too!

Steps for Writing a PR Plan

• The following slides will walk you through steps you can take to write your client’s plan. Please note that you might skip some of these steps, add some, change the order, etc. That’s okay!

Step 1: Look at client’s mission statement

• Your PR plan needs to match the client’s mission.

• Start by familiarizing yourself with the values of the organization (and the people the organization serves).

Step 2: Identify organization strengths and weaknesses

• Figure out what the organization does best and what they need to do better. Be brutally honest (but don’t necessarily show this information to your client)!

• Think about ways you can leverage strengths and minimize weaknesses.

Step 3: Analyze competitors

• Find out what your client’s competitors are doing. Look at the areas in which they excel and the areas in which they struggle.

• Think about how you can propose a plan that will allow your client organization to set itself apart.

Step 4: List goals

• Figure out what you want your client to accomplish.

• Be clear about specific, achievable and measurable goals. – Note the difference between saying you want to

improve your public image and saying you want to decrease customer complaints by 25%. The second statement is specific and measurable. (You have to decide if it’s achievable.)

Step 4: List goals (cont.)

• After you list your goals, think about the following information for each one:– What can you measure?– What baseline can you measure against?– How much time do you need to accomplish the

goal?

Step 5: Come up with strategies

• Once you know what goals you want to achieve, you are ready to come up with methods for meeting them. Those methods are strategies.

• Think about the process or approach you will use to meet each goal. That’s your strategy.

Step 6: Target your personas

• You should have one persona for each segment of your target audience.

• Your strategies need to match the personas’ attitudes, values, emotions, needs, etc.

• Think about how you will need to massage your strategies for each segment.

Step 7: Write your message

• Note how far into the process we are before we begin to write.

• Now that you have a clear plan and process, you can figure out exactly what you want to say.

• This is the meat of your plan!

Step 8: Develop media strategy

• Think about how you are going to get those messages to your audience. What type of media will you use? Why?

Step 9: Create a schedule

• Figure out when you need to deliver your messages.

• Note who is going to do what task at what time.

Step 10: Figure out a system for monitoring and measuring

• You want to know if your solutions are working. – If you created measurable goals and clear

strategies, you should find this task easy to do. • Some people prefer to do this step

immediately after goals and strategies.

Easy, right?

• Those are the basics of a PR plan. • Think about how you might pitch a plan to a

client. Remember that you will want to be clear how this plan can solve a problem or prevent a crisis.

• Note that a PR plan for after a crisis occurs is pretty hard to do. You won’t have much time to act. The PR plan needs to be in place first.

Writing the Plan

• Once you’ve gone through the steps listed in this slides, you’re ready to decide what you want to present to the client.

• Focus on what will be most persuasive and usable to them. That’s what you want to highlight.