Written by Julie Jackson, PR and communications specialist for Hampshire’s third sector and mission-led SMEs
Follow our eight stage plan for producing a public relations strategy that will get you where you want to be.
Take a look at other local charities - what’s their offer, how are they promoting their services
Analyse the wider environment within which you are operating
What do you know about your customers
What’s happening at a local, national and, if relevant, global level
Analyse the information to create a SWOT analysis. This is a useful way for seeing at a glance what you consider to be your internal strengths and weaknesses and the external opportunities and threats facing your organisation.
Write down the long term goal for your organisation. A public relations strategy is not a standalone document – it should contribute towards getting your organisation where you want it to be.
Optimise your PR opportunities and make the most of your marketing spend with our eight stage plan on how to write a PR strategy that will help achieve your corporate goals.
Set yourself specific PR objectives so you can measure whether your marketing communications activity is helping you to achieve your long term goal.
Public relations objectives are the incremental steps that will get you closer to where you want to be. They should be SMART
Identify the people who are going to help or hinder you from getting where you want your organisation to be. It can help to group people in generic groups such as past customers, funders, suppliers, competitors etc.
Once you have this information, work out which groups of people you need to communicate. Categorise by the amount of power each group has to influence others and the level of interest they may have in a particular issue.
The more power and interest they have, the more likely their actions are to impact on your business.
Doing this exercise is a really useful way to inform where you should concentrate your resources.
Decide upon your main key message – this is what you want to be known for and is the message you will communicate at every opportunity. You may also have some supporting key messages that are aimed at a specific target audience.
Based on the information you have gathered, you should now have an idea of what your overall strategy needs to be, for example, you may decide you need to focus on a social media campaign that is supported by traditional media or, concentrate on creating opportunities to build relationships. At this stage, you are making a statement about what your overall approach will be.
You now know the weaknesses and opportunities that need to be addressed, where you want to be, with whom you need to communicate, your key messages and your approach. At this stage you can put together your action plan identifying what needs to be done, how it is going to be done, who is going to do it and when.
When you implement your action plan, make a note of what worked well and what didn’t work so well. This information will really help when you come to put together your next action plan.
Content updated 6 June 2023