Implementing a successful PR strategy for your business can be a game-changer, no matter its size, bringing you closer to your industry competitors in terms of brand awareness and reputation. In this blog, we list our 10 top tips for creating a successful PR strategy for your SME that maximises your business potential.

1. Establish your key goal and objectives

First things first, establish the overarching goal of your PR campaign and subsequently, its key objectives. For example, your main PR goal could be to educate your target audience on a particular global issue, generate greater brand awareness or introduce a new product. 

This can feel overwhelming at first as many business owners find it difficult to hone in specifically on what they want their PR campaign to achieve. To make things easier, start by conducting a SWOT analysis of your brand or project, assessing your strengths, weaknesses and opportunities and threats from your competitors.

From here you can identify specific key objectives for your campaign. Be sure to make them SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Timely) to ensure their success. Consider who each objective is targeting, how you are going to go about doing it and when you plan on doing it.

2. Get to know your target audience

Sounds simple enough right? If you want your PR campaign to tick all the right boxes, you need to identify your target audience before doing anything else. This will allow you to make informed decisions when crafting your strategy such as your campaign’s core message, tone of voice, chosen platforms and timing of your campaign. 

Businesses that truly understand their target audience often deliver the most successful PR campaigns because they have clearly defined their target audience. Take the time if you haven’t already to deep dive into who your target audience is. What are their values, likes and dislikes? Where do they live? How old are they? What digital platforms do they use? 

Consider creating one or two customer profiles to help you visualise using a mixture of demographics and psychographics. You can find a number of templates and guides online to get you started.

3. Scope out your competitors

In the same way that you utilise research and data to identify your target audience, you can also do this to better understand your industry and competitors. Pinpoint what your competitors are doing well by looking at their current digital outputs such as their social media feed and press coverage and see if there is anything you can learn from this.

What publications did they target? What content and messages did they use which landed them coverage or a high engagement rate on social media? Then see if your business can fill a gap in the market, for example, are they neglecting to target a specific audience group or social media platform?

4. Ensure your campaign angle is compelling

The bread and butter of any successful PR strategy is having a compelling angle in your story. If you want to get the media’s attention, you’ll need to get creative! If you are announcing a new product, survey results, or a business award, consider if there is a unique angle to make it more newsworthy. A simple announcement often isn’t enough to get the press’ attention.

For example, is it the first product of its kind to cater to a specific audience need? Did the survey results reveal a shocking statistic? Whenever you’re crafting a PR strategy or press release, always try to see it from the perspective of the journalist or the public: what would make them want to click and find out more about your story? Make sure to also research the relevant media or publications you want to get coverage in and look at what sort of stories they run to increase your chances.

5. Create 2-4 key messages for your PR campaign 

Your PR campaign message should be concise, memorable and easy to understand to your audience. Identify the most crucial aspect of your campaign that your target audience needs to know about and create 1-4 key messages surrounding this. 

For example, was it when your brand launched, how your new product or service is going to change people’s lives for the better or why your brand is doing this particular campaign? If you aren’t sure if your core campaign message is achieving what I mentioned above, ask a friend or family member or someone outside of your project to give you feedback.

6. Maintain a consistent online presence 

Having a consistent online presence can mean the difference between your story getting picked up by the press or not, depending on your industry. Your blog, website and newsletter are all examples of owned media, which you are in complete control of, unlike all other forms of PR, earned and paid media. 

Social media is technically not an owned asset as social media sites can shut down or remove your content at any time, however, they are still worth maintaining an online presence on. Focus on one core long-form distribution channel such as your blog, and a couple of short-form channels like Instagram, LinkedIn and Twitter.

By ensuring that you have a consistent online presence you can boost your brand awareness, search visibility and reputation, as well as use it to share key industry insights, announce news and demonstrate thought leadership with your target audience. It’s valuable for developing relationships with your audience and it also shows journalists and even potential investors that your business is current and popular with your audience, depending on your engagement.

7. Build relationships with journalists and the media

It’s important to always think long-term when it comes to your PR strategy, and one way to ensure the longevity of your brand’s reputation and future success of PR campaigns is by building strong relationships with journalists and industry media.

Building a steady list of connections over time will not only increase the chances of your story getting noticed by high-profile media but will also make it more likely that the same journalists or publications will want to write about you or work with you again in the future. This will help you secure coverage more effectively. Try finding the names of journalists writing about relevant topics in your industry to add to your media lists or take to Twitter if you can’t find their email addresses. 

If you’re just starting out in your industry, focus on creating connections with local media as this will be invaluable to you, allowing you to build trust with your audience and reach new audiences. Getting coverage in national high-profile media might be a bit of a challenge at first, but having local press coverage will certainly help you get there.

8. Identify the right channels and tactics for your PR campaign

When identifying and researching your target audience for a PR campaign, it’s essential to find out what platforms and channels they use, how they use them and how often. If your target audience is mostly on TikTok for example, then the likelihood is you’re better off doing a paid partnership with an influencer that they relate to rather than a newspaper article.

There are so many digital and print channels to choose from to deliver your campaign as well as which formats to use such as press releases, press or news conferences, interviews, events, sponsorships and social media. When it comes to social media, it’s important to know which platform your audience is on and how they use it. For example, Twitter is the place for spreading breaking news whilst Instagram and TikTok is the place for fun, short and snappy entertaining videos and images. Take your time researching what channels and platforms are available to you and ensure that they line up with your target audience.

9. Craft partnerships with businesses and influencers

Depending on which industry your business operates in, working with a similar business or individual such as an influencer can help you maximise your brand awareness and credibility. For example, if you are a makeup brand, then having a celebrity or influencer promote your products can be extremely beneficial, or working with a media outlet that can distribute your product to influencers.

It’s important to note however that partnerships won't work for every business, so be sure to do your research and look into social media influencers, celebrities or businesses that you know have a very similar target audience to you. Remember, ‘everyone’ isn’t your target audience!

10. Regularly review your campaign progress

Keeping track of your PR campaign’s progress is essential as it allows you to improve by evaluating what is and isn’t working. If you have a pre-existing PR strategy in place or one from the past, review how well your PR efforts performed in the last year. Which story pitches saw the highest success rate with journalists or received the most attention on social media? From this, you can gather what you should change or improve on for your current PR campaign and set new goals for the year.

Set yourself SMART goals (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Timely) in order to see tangible results that can be measured easily to keep track of successes or pitfalls. If you have goals which are easily measurable, it will make it that much easier to guide future PR campaign strategies too.

By following these 10 top tips you will be well on your way to creating a successful PR strategy that will help you attract new customers, leads and sales, and improve your brand reputation and brand awareness all whilst meeting your campaign goals. 

To find out more about our bespoke PR services and how we can help you create a successful strategy for an upcoming PR campaign get in touch with us at hello@squirrelsandbears.com