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By Sydney Peterson

According to research by PRovoke Media, the PR industry grew by nearly 11% in 2021. Public relations can be powerful for your organization if you use PR to its full advantage. A strong and well-implemented PR strategy can help increase visibility and awareness and build trust and credibility with your key audiences. 

Whether you want to improve your business’s PR efforts or hope to get started, one of your first steps in moving forward will be drafting a PR plan. To prepare a PR plan to set your organization up for success, it is essential to consider these four elements.

1. Know Your Brand

Deeply knowing your brand is the first important step in your PR plan. Your brand must be consistent through your website, social media, marketing, and any other external messaging. Your brand is everything about the business: who you are, what you do, how you look, and who you appeal to. If your brand’s image doesn’t match the mission you want your organization to represent, now is the time to change it. It is never too late to give your brand a refresh. If you are already content with your brand, then your PR plan can focus on other areas. In this case, ensure your newly drafted plan aligns with your current brand.

2. Know Your Target Audience

Now, who do you want to appeal to? Who is your existing audience? When evaluating your target audience, you should first ask these questions. If you aren’t seeing the results you hoped for with your business, reassess whose attention you’re grabbing. For example, you should consider which media outlets your target audience would follow and strategically target those outlets to reach your audience. After cross-referencing your current audience and your target audience, make a list of who you’re missing. Then, you are ready to draft a strategic PR plan to reach your target audience.

3. Know Your Goals

When outlining your objectives and strategy, remember to keep the big picture in mind. When defining your goals, it can be beneficial to include input from different people at the organization. Employees from different departments, positions, and backgrounds can offer unique perspectives that can help inform your strategy and make it stronger.

4. Know How You Will Measure and Track Results

As we all know, there is always room for improvement in both business and personal life. There is no time like the present to assess performance benchmarks and identify critical metrics for your organization. Measurement is vital for understanding where to focus going forward. It helps to be selective when choosing targets for improvement to ensure a high achievement rate in these areas.

 

Once the plan has been developed with input from across the organization, you will be set up for success to begin implementing your strategy and, using PR to improve your brand’s standing in the marketplace. This will allow you to utilize the power offered by a strong PR strategy.