7 Essential Steps for a Standout PR Campaign

Ensuring your PR campaign stands out from the crowd requires thought, planning and solid execution.

Good PR practitioners will understand the brand they’re working with, buy into their products, services or concepts and be clear on what the PR campaign needs to achieve.

There are factors to consider and steps to take to help achieve success including setting goals, being clear of key messages and measuring success.

Here we highlight areas to take into account when planning your PR campaign to ensure it stands out:

Understand the brand

Before you start, get under the skin of the brand you’re working with. Understand what they do and the products or services they offer, discuss their overall marketing plan and strategy so the PR element fits in and gauge what success looks like to them.

Planning

Spending time planning your campaign is essential. You need to factor in lots of elements - key times of the year for your client, product launches if they’re a product based business as well as factoring in things like media lead times. Think about how you’re going to generate coverage, increase brand awareness and visibility among their key audience. And consider how you can integrate different PR techniques and tools to ensure the campaign delivers.

Set goals

Setting clear goals at the outset with the client means you all understand what you’re working towards and what you hope to achieve. Be realistic about the goals - setting unrealistic goals will put you and your team under pressure.

Key messages

Your key messages need to summarise what you and the brand you’re working with want to get across. What do you want journalists and their readers / listeners / viewers to know and understand about the brand? Setting these will guide you in all content creation.

Identify your target audience

Knowing and understanding your target audience is vital. It will help a PR team determine which publications, website, blogs, influencers they should be targeting and reaching out to. It’ll also have a bearing in the content produced. For example, if your client operates in the luxury sector, budget friendly, money save opportunities won’t be for you.

Storytelling

A good PR campaign needs to tell a good story - whether this is through the written word, a reel or a broadcast interview. Be clear on your story and pitch it to appeal to your target audience. Think about its new value and relevance..

Measurement

Always measure the success of a campaign. Refer back to the goals set at the start and measure whether you’ve hit or exceeded. This is why setting realistic goals is important. Make sure you share that success with the client as you go through the campaign and once complete.