Do you do…PR?
Do you do…social media?
Do you do…website content?
Do you do…blogs?
Do you do…media relations?
Do you do…digital content?
These are all questions PR practitioners have heard over the years. And the list goes on and on in perpetuity.
It’s understandable that many professionals, including PR pros, get caught up in this approach.
Think about it – a business has a specific PR need, so they look for someone to fill that need, be it internal or external resources.
The problem: that approach hinders true strategic communications. Those questions are tactical and myopic by their very nature, not taking into consideration the larger picture.
To be clear, you can, and should, at times have a social media campaign, an earned media effort, a digital content plan, and so forth.
My challenge to everyone is to think beyond the individual instead focus on what value we as public relations experts can bring to the organization and how we can drive the business forward.
Ingredients of a PR Campaign
Forgive me for taking everyone back to introduction to Public Relations courses, but let’s set the stage for how we should look at PR campaigns.
Most of us know the basic ingredients of a great Public Relations plan are: Goals, Objectives, Strategies and Tactics.
Goals and Objectives provide the direction and outline the Key Performance Indicators, or KPIs, by which to measure the success of the campaign.
Strategic public relations, or strategies, are the very backbone of a public relations campaign and direct how you will achieve the overall goals or objectives that drive the business forward. These strategies, if outlined correctly, induce the tactical tools (i.e. tactics) to achieve the defined goal.
Time for Change
Thank you for allowing me a trip down memory lane to the public relations intro classes at the University of Florida, and now back to business.
Whether you’re a PR pro, or a business in need of PR services, it’s time we force ourselves to stop taking the “do you do…” approach and look at the bigger picture.
If you subscribe to the PESO integrated communications model, courtesy of our friends at Spin Sucks, there are four main buckets of the strategic communications campaign: Paid, Earned, Shared, and Owned.
Learn more about the Spin Sucks PESO model and a successful strategic communications campaign here: 5 Crucial Elements of the Strategic Communications Process You Need to Have
The “do you do…” approach takes into consideration only one of these elements at a time. Instead, let’s look at the bigger picture. Let’s take the PESO model and implement fully-integrated strategic communications campaigns.
Let’s stop thinking of these elements as individual efforts and start elevating the value that Public Relations can bring to organizational goals and showing that these efforts drive business forward and yield results.
As we get closer to New Year’s resolutions, let’s call 2019 the year of “do you do…” But as we all do, we can leave that behind and start fresh in 2020.
Instead of the “do you do…” approach, let 2020 be the year look at how we strategically combine all public relations elements to drive real business results.
Let 2020 be our year!
As you’re starting fresh and making your 2020 plans, here are some recently blogs to help guide your planning:
– Don’t Let Perfect Be The Enemy Of Effective
– Wake Up. Kick Ass. Repeat.
– Why Owned Media Is Vital In Your Communications Mix
– How to Create Content That Engages Audiences and Builds Brand Trust Quickly
– 7 Tips to Measure Your Strategic Communications Campaigns
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