PR Made Simple: 5 Essential Basics to Kickstart Your Strategy

Before you start, there are some key things you need to get into place to ensure everything is consistent and where to put your communication energy.  In today’s fast-paced media landscape, including print, online and social media, it is so important to be consistent to make sure you build confidence with your audience and attract the right customers for you.

When it comes to your brand identity, you need to make sure that you are singing the same tune across all internal and external comms. 

Before you draft your PR plan or hire a specialist to do it for you, it’s time to ask yourself the following questions.

• What is your brand mission statement?
• What is your brand vision 1-3 years?
• Who is your target audience?
• What is your tone of voice?
• What are your key messages?

Let’s break that down and go into some more detail.

What is your brand mission statement?

This needs to be a short paragraph outlining what you offer, either a product or service, and what is different about you and your business, so, in essence, why should people choose to work with you and your business?  It is also great to use a strapline – which is a short sentence to describe you and what you offer and include this wherever possible.

What is your brand vision for 1-3 years?

Writing this into your PR/Brand strategy will keep you focused.  It may be growth, the number of customers, a type of customer or a specific customer; whatever your motivation is – you need a short- to mid-term vision.    

This can be constantly updated and additional plans added. It will help keep you on track, and more importantly, it will make you think about what you want from your business.

Know Your Audience

Effective communication starts with understanding who you are talking to. How do you effectively deliver your brand to customers if you don’t know who they are?

• Make a list of the target audience or business sectors.  
  • Do you offer a business-to-business service or product, or does your business need to connect with consumers?  Or maybe it is both.
• Research your audience based on demographics, geography, business type or interests.
  • Again, this will be very different if you work with B2B and B2C. 
• Your messaging will need to resonate with each audience effectively, so ensure you include all that are relevant.
• Anticipate your audience's concerns or objections and know how to address them.

The better you know your audience, the more impactful your PR and Communications will be.  Perhaps you can do this in stages and target one segment at a time.  

Develop Your Tone of Voice

A brand's tone of voice is the style used to communicate with the audience.  You need to consider the choice of words to develop a brand personality.  You can make this fun and informative and build in emotional tones or straight-talking and business-like. However, it should reflect you and how you want to be perceived.  This will run through all communication, including your website, socials, emails and PR content, so you need to be genuine to keep it consistent. 

What are your Key Messages?

In the early stages of a business, as you develop your ideas of what you are offering, you will know what your point of difference is, otherwise known as your USP (Unique Selling Point).  What makes you different from other people offering the same or similar services or products?  

Make a list of the five key points you would want to get across in all communications, and make sure you include them to keep reiterating why customers should work with you. 

Once you have these foundations in place, you can revisit them and adjust accordingly every few months as your business develops. This will give you a clear outline of where to start, how you want to be perceived, what you are offering, who you want to engage with and a clear goal in sight. 

Now, you are ready to embark on your PR journey.