Creating a public relations plan takes time, knowledge, and understanding of your company or client needs and wants. Here are some steps to ensure you capture those wants and needs in the plan creation process and that you create a plan that is relevant and useful to your company or client.

1. Know your company’s or client’s current situation. This is essential to knowing where the company now stands, where the company is able to go, what the company’s market/industry looks like, and what direction the company is headed. This helps to put things in perspective.
2. Know your resources. This can be a part of the first step, as it is a part of the situational analysis needed to understand where your company or client currently stands. This can help you better build your tactics and strategies while considering the budget, time, and other resource limitations the company or client may have.
3. Know your objectives and goals. Also essential to the PR plan having success, you must know where the company hopes to go. Like driving with no directions, a PR plan with no goals or objectives is an aimless action with no knowledge of what could come, or even what results are desired. Be sure that the PR plan’s objectives are in line with the rest of the company’s overall objectives, and ensure that they are clear to all involved.
4. Know and define your target audience(s). This means that you’ve defined your target buyer audiences and target media audiences. Each audience will need a different message and a different approach. Knowing these audiences will help you to frame your strategies and tactics so that you can effectively reach the people you hope to reach.
5. List messages and strategies you will use to reach the target audiences you defined. These should be in line with the goals and objectives listed earlier; if they are not, the plan is already off to a somewhat bad start. Know that your strategies and messages also need to relate to one another, otherwise there is some disconnect happening that needs to be addressed.
6. Define the tactics you will use to make the strategies you’ve listed a reality. These tactics will take the messages and strategies listed and make them happen. If, for example, a strategy is to enhance a company’s brand awareness, tactics could include community outreach, social media use, press conferences, etc. There first needs to be a strategy defined before tactics can be addressed and assigned to a message.
7. Create a time-line for implementation. This needs to be realistic but also challenging. Remember that there should be no lapses in the PR plan where press releases are being sent out, events are taking place, or media are being engaged. There needs to be constant reminder to the public that the company is alive and well, and that can be done with constant information being sent out.
8. Delegate obligations and responsibilities to your team or your client’s team to ensure all parts of the PR plan are completed. This helps to ensure that everyone is on board and that everyone knows their own responsibilities and duties. This is crucial to seeing the PR plan come to fruition. This step should be done with everyone involved so that no one feels over-burdened, left out, or given too much responsibility. This can also help to give everyone the feeling of responsibility since the plan was created with everyone together and not just one person’s say.
9. Create measurements of results/ success. To know if your plan is effective, create measurements and benchmarks for the tactics you implement. This is a place for the PR team to gauge the success of the plan and to see if goals were realistic. Creating measurements can also help to show what could have been done with the expertise and estimations of a PR firm or team.
10. Review the plan after implementation and conclusion of the plan. This is the time when all who helped to create and carry-out the plan can come together and share their thoughts on what went well, what didn’t go so well, and what could be done differently in the future. This needs to be done to ensure that future plans have a chance of being successful. This step can help to encourage group members to continue working for the company’s success by giving everyone a chance to talk and contribute to the next planing.

The key to remember when creating a PR plan is that all plans are going to be unique and different for each company, and even within the same company, they will be different for each plan objective/goal. Do your homework before creating a plan, and be sure that you work closely with the company or client to make the plan a success.

As a business, non-profit or association manager, you’ll know it’s PR paydirt when you’re able to persuade your key external stakeholders to your way of thinking, then move them to take actions that lead to your department, division or subsidiary’s success.

Proof of the pudding will be outside stakeholder behaviors like increasing repeat purchases, more inquiries about strategic alliances, new specifiers of your components, more membership inquiries, or a jump in capital contributions.

But to realize such results, you’ll have to get personally involved with the public relations people assigned to your unit. Then shift their emphasis from communications tactics to a workable and comprehensive blueprint that will lead to your success as a unit manager.

A blueprint, for example, like this: people act on their own perception of the facts before them, which leads to predictable behaviors about which something can be done. When we create, change or reinforce that opinion by reaching, persuading and moving-to-desired-action the very people whose behaviors affect the organization the most, the public relations mission is accomplished.

What such a public relations blueprint will require of you, is a sharper focus on those outside groups of people who play a role in just how successful a manager you will be. In other words, the blueprint targets your most important external audiences.

Get your PR people on board early on. This should be an easy task as some of them, no doubt, are wondering if there may be more to public relations than press releases, special events and brochures.

Enlist them instead in a core public relations effort to determine how all of your crucial outside audiences really perceive your operation. I speak here of audiences with perceptions leading to behaviors that affect your organization the most. So discuss with your staff how you can gather those key audience perceptions in the most cost-effective manner.

Since retaining a professional opinion survey firm can be very expensive, you may well conclude that you and your PR staff can interact with members of your target audience and ask the necessary questions. And I would agree.

Among the questions: What do you know about us? Have we ever worked together? Was it a positive experience for you? Did you ever have a problem with our people? Watch for evasive or hesitant answers and, especially, for negativities such as inaccuracies, misconceptions, false assumptions or rumors.

The data you collect lets you set your public relations goal. For example, clarify that misconception, correct that inaccuracy, kill that rumor dead.

You are a manager fully aware that every good goal needs a good strategy to show you how to reach that goal. When it comes to matters of opinion or perception, you have just three strategy choices: create perception where there may be none, change existing perception/opinion, or reinforce it. But take care that the strategy you select fits nicely with your new public relations goal.

Now it’s message time – the special words you will use to alter what you discovered some of your target audience members have come to believe. This corrective message is crucial to the success of the program and, all at the same time, must be clear, believable and compelling.

The next step truly can be called “special delivery.” Here, you take steps to get your message before the eyes and ears of your target audience. Communications tactics will handle that chore for you, and there are dozens of them available like newsletters, brochures, press releases, media interviews, emails, facility tours and lots of others. Be sure that the tactics you select have a track record of reaching people like those who make up your target audience.

Your two-part bottom line? A workable and comprehensive public relations blueprint that (1) assists you as a manager in creating the external audience behaviors you need and (2), in so doing, helps you achieve your department’s business, non-profit or association objectives.

About The Author

Bob Kelly counsels, writes and speaks to business, non-profit and association managers about using the fundamental premise of public relations to achieve their operating objectives. He has been DPR, Pepsi-Cola Co.; AGM-PR, Texaco Inc.; VP-PR, Olin Corp.; VP-PR, Newport News Shipbuilding & Drydock Co.; director of communications, U.S. Department of the Interior, and deputy assistant press secretary, The White House. Visit his website here.

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Tags: tips for public relations, public relations plans, public relations

The payoff for business, non-profit or association managers can be a real assist towards meeting their department, division or subsidiary objectives.

Playing that public relations card means they’ve decided to pursue their objectives by reaching, persuading and moving those outside audiences whose behaviors most affect their organizations, to actions those managers desire.

Here’s a blueprint to help them do just that: people act on their own perception of the facts before them, which leads to predictable behaviors about which something can be done. When we create, change or reinforce that opinion by reaching, persuading and moving-to-desired- action the very people whose behaviors affect the organization the most, the public relations mission is accomplished.

In other words, here is the PR blueprint and tools you need to persuade your most important external stakeholders to your way of thinking. And then move them to take actions that lead to your success.

First step? Shift the attention of the PR team assigned to your unit away from communications tactics and over to a more effective action plan like the one outlined above.

You’ll know it’s worth the effort when you begin to see stakeholder behaviors like strong increases in inquiries, more repeat purchases, new proposals for strategic alliances or joint ventures, a fresh round of employment inquiries, or stronger contribution levels.

Lay it all out for the PR people who work for your unit, especially why it’s a must to list in priority order those key outside audiences whose behaviors impact your operation the most. Talk about the importance of discovering how your organization is perceived by those audience members. Particularly because such perceptions almost always result in predictable behaviors that can affect the success of your unit for better or for worse.

If you have a large, uncommitted budget, you can use professional survey counsel to interact with target audience members and ask the important questions. “Do you know anything about us? Do you have an opinion about our products or services? Have you ever had a transaction with us? Was it a positive experience?” Or, members of your public relations team can handle this crucial task since perception, persuasion and behavior are prime concerns of theirs, or certainly should be.

While handling the perception monitoring chore, keep an eye out for negative comment and voice inflections. Especially watch for inappropriate assumptions, misconceptions, inaccuracies, rumors and clearly negative attitudes.

Once you collect these data, you’re ready to establish your public relations goal. For example, torpedo those false assumptions, turn those misconceptions around, or correct that unfortunate inaccuracy.

The goal by itself is not much use without a strategy to show you how to reach it. As luck would have it, there are just three strategies available in the perception and opinion game: create perception/opinion where there simply isn’t any, change the existing perception, or reinforce it. Makes things simple, but be sure the strategy you select is an obvious fit with your new goal.

The meat on this bone is the actual message you will prepare should the perceptions you discovered require some alteration. This is not a simple writing job and the very best writing talent on your PR team will be required. The message must be both persuasive AND compelling. It must be very clear as to what is being corrected and why. Factual support, of course, must be above challenge if your message is to be believable as it works to alter perception in your direction.

And now to the easy part of this public relations problem solving sequence – getting that message to the right eyes and ears among the members of your target audience. The main limiting factor will be the size of your budget since there are dozens of communications tactics available to carry that message. They range from emails, speeches and private meetings to newsletters, media interviews, brochures and group briefings. Just be sure the tactics you decide to go with demonstrate that they can reach the same kind of folks that populate your target audience.

You’ll be best equipped to answer queries about program progress after you and your PR team again interact with those target audience members asking the same questions used in the initial perception monitoring session. Big difference in the two sessions? This time, all hands will be alert to any signs that the negative perception has actually been altered.

Want things to move faster? Add more communications tactics, increase their frequencies and take another look at your message to be certain it’s really persuasive and compelling.

The good news is, when managers play the PR card, they concentrate on persuading their most important external stakeholders to their way of thinking. And then moving those target audience members to take actions that lead to the managers on-the-job success.

About The Author

Bob Kelly counsels, writes and speaks to business, non-profit and association managers about using the fundamental premise of public relations to achieve their operating objectives. He has been DPR, Pepsi-Cola Co.; AGM-PR, Texaco Inc.; VP-PR, Olin Corp.; VP-PR, Newport News Shipbuilding & Drydock Co.; director of communications, U.S. Department of the Interior, and deputy assistant press secretary, The White House.

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Tags: public relations plans, public relations planning, public relations benefits

Public Relations Plan

Example of a real public relations plan – pieces involved.