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Having a good public relations plan will be the spearhead of any business that wants to achieve its business goals. Designing an ideal public relations plan will help the brand reach its customers, position itself well in the networks and create its own identity.
However, before designing any PR plan, it is essential to know the company well. Analyzing its weaknesses and strengths, as well as its threats, strengths and objectives will be key.
Why is it important to have a good company image?
A good brand image will be one of the things you will achieve by drawing up a good public relations plan. The corporate image is a key pillar to achieve the success of a business.
A good corporate image must transmit the values of your company, the ideas behind it and the objectives to which it aspires.
Image goes far beyond logos. An image is sustained by every detail that you transmit to your audience, such as your publications on the web or your customer service. With a good image you will gain reputation, trust and importance within the sector in which you develop your business.
Every detail matters, and with each one you are transmitting an image. Therefore, do not neglect any aspect.
Commitments, values, mission and vision of a company
Consumers increasingly demand to know the values and purposes of companies. It has been proven that those brands that are committed to social issues have a greater acceptance among the public and a higher number of sales.
Therefore, transmitting the objectives, values and purposes of a brand will be fundamental in the current era.
Thanks to a good public relations plan drawn up by a good communications agency or internal team, this objective can be achieved.
In addition, it is also very important to transmit these values internally. Employees will have a greater sense of belonging and will feel more fulfilled knowing that what they do has a greater purpose.
Storytelling, crucial for differentiation
Throughout this article we have been mentioning the importance of connecting with the public in any public relations plan. Well, storytelling will be the perfect tool to achieve that connection.
Storytelling is the art of telling stories. Every day the public receives more and more messages. They are bombarded by an immensity of information that they cannot even process. Therefore, it is increasingly difficult to get their attention.
A good storytelling will be the key to stand out from the crowd. And in that sense, the important thing is to know how to tell your own story, narrate the very existence of the brand, its objectives, values and manage to convey its unique personality.
Creating stories has the great power to create emotional bonds between consumer and brand, therefore, in your public relations plan, you can not miss a good storytelling strategy.
How to design your PR plan?
Taking into account all the above mentioned, it is time to give you some more concrete advice on how to design a public relations plan.
Know the company and its customers
As we said at the beginning, you cannot begin to outline a strategy if you do not know your company in depth, and much less if you do not have your buyer persona well defined.
Defining our ideal customer will be essential to choose the tone and content with which we want to address them. It is not the same if our brand is focused on teenage women than on adult women.
Once we have well defined our buyer persona, it will be time to analyze those details of our company that we want to be part of our communication strategy, beyond the products or services we offer. For example, telling the values on which it is based, the work dynamics or the social work in which it collaborates can be interesting points to transmit.
Set specific objectives
In any job, if you don’t set objectives, it is like going around in circles. Setting goals in our public relations strategy will be vital to get to the point we want.
It is advisable to set both long-term and short-term objectives. The more imminent ones will help us get further step by step and the bigger goals will help motivate and encourage the whole team.
What do you want to achieve with your PR strategy? Short-term goals could be to convey more closeness to the customer, improve customer service or get more visits on social media. These will help you achieve larger, long-term goals such as increasing your sales.
Tactics, tools and strategies to follow
Among the most important tactics to include in the dynamics of any public relations strategy are: being prepared for any situation that arises, time organization, being flexible to adapt to changes, and monitoring the steps that are being taken.
Just as there are tactics that are highly desirable, there are tactics that, although they have been used for many years, should cease to exist, such as: sending excessive spam to journalists, focusing only on large media or ignoring storytelling.
For their part, tools are fundamental to any public relations strategy in order to execute it effectively. Thanks to certain instruments, the road will be easier and we will be able to reach our goal faster. There are a multitude of tools for an infinite number of objectives, from programs focused on making it easier for you to publish on social networks, to software that makes reports on the results that your campaigns are obtaining.
Finally, as for strategies, we have already talked about some of them, such as storytelling. However, there are many more that we can put into practice. Strategic alliances or generating experiences around the brand are very good strategies to put into practice.
Budget
When designing our public relations plan, this is a very important point to take into account. Our strategy will depend a lot on it, because depending on the amount, we will be able to increase or reduce actions. In addition, we will also have to think about whether it is more convenient to hire an external public relations agency or to incorporate professionals to the staff.
Divide up the tasks and get down to it
To guarantee a good organization of the work and to be effective, it is essential to create different departments that are connected and coordinated with each other to carry out the public relations plan.
Verify and evaluate the results, successes and failures
Finally, the results obtained from the plan should always be analyzed in order to take the next step in the best possible way. With a good evaluation of the performance, it will be possible to know what the weak points of the campaign have been and to try to improve them. It will also be possible to identify and correct them for the next campaign. In short, a detailed report of the results will help to continue growing.
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