Seven Steps To Come Up With The Gosh-Darn Best PR Plan You’ll Ever See - 10 Yetis Insight Blog

Many people have an idea of how to come up with a PR plan, and most of them involve haphazardly slapping ideas into a grid and considering it a job well done. If this sounds like your PR agency, or you, then it’s time to shape up because you are likely doing yourself and your brand a real disservice when it comes to getting the results you want.

The reality is that a PR plan that is well thought out and properly scheduled can become the best and biggest tool in your armoury; equally, one that falls short can dampen even the best intentions, from leading to far less coverage than you’d like (and deserve) to leaving everyone involved feeling discombobulated and confused.

Don’t set it in stone

For those who like to fly by the seat of their pants and retain flexibility, that’s fine! In fact, being fluid to suit the day’s news agenda and quick to react is a great skill to master and can be very successful - but wanting to retain flexibility is not a reason to go without a plan. Even the most watertight, action packed plan should be kept flexible and treated as such; if the scheduled angle clashes with a news agenda, but another one would fit perfectly, adapt! Just make sure you keep it updated so you know what’s what.

Have your objectives in mind

It’s a good idea to think about activity plans when you have a clear understanding of what you want to achieve; there’s no point coming up with awesome ideas if they are something that your target media won’t be interested in, and therefore your relevant audience won’t read about. Instead, start from the beginning – who do you want to reach out to? What sort of things are they interested in? This will help you work out how you can connect with them and what kind of activity will suit them.

via GIPHY

Think about news agendas

Topicality is key to a lot of content; some may be evergreen and can be mixed in at any time, but online journalists are increasingly looking for content that matches up with google searches. This means that activity should be as timely as possible, and released while it’s still considered a hot (and searchable) topic by the audience. This is easier to predict at some times than others; keep an eye on the trends for inspiration and try and jump on board any opportunity that presents itself.

Be clear on your ideas

Everybody knows that misty feeling when trying to figure out exactly what you meant by that hurried short hand in last month’s meeting; it was a great idea, you’re sure, but now it seems a long time ago and the notes aren’t enough to spur your memory into action. On an equally annoying footing is when you know the idea in the plan is going to tick every box and deliver the best ROI you’ve ever seen, and yet it’s just not getting the nod from the senior management. Often, the cause of both of these is poor communication. Give your genius ideas the best chance of making it by including plenty of detail right from day one, and bring it to life in the plan as much as possible. This means that when you, or others, revisit them later, they will spark those same flashes of inspiration as they did when you first dreamt them up.

Plan in advance

Planning in advance makes life so, so much easier. Leaving it to the last minute and having to scrabble together ideas while under immense pressure to just come up with something, anything, is generally not the best way to go about seeking inspiration. Instead, make sure your next plan is lined up at least 4 weeks before the current one expires, depending on the activity you have scheduled. This will mean you have time for all the necessary sign offs, and prepping the activity to come, before the crunch.

Get the plan signed off on Day 1

Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that it’s easier to get assets and content ready before you take the concepts to the bosses, even if you think it might help your case. The last thing you want to do is waste precious time and resource, and look like a bit of a wally too, by getting everything ready to press send only to find that your lovely campaign is never going to make it out the door. Get the buy in of senior management, or whoever you need to be on board, from the ideas stage – this way you’ll know for sure that you’re on the right tracks and just have edits to make, rather than a whole do-over.

Use your feedback

Think about prior experience when coming up with your new plan and use any little nuggets of knowledge and wisdom that have been bestowed upon you. Think about what succeeded and what didn’t and, if you’ve done some decent follow ups, you should also have had insight direct from the source too. You’ll often find that stuff you’ve done that didn’t work ends up giving you the most insight for next time, and helps you boss the next campaign.