Blog courtesy of Bridge Global Strategies

Under the constant pressure to manage resources efficiently, small businesses owners sometimes approach their marketing budgets as if they were wagers at the craps table. “Do I invest a little in each channel and risk spreading my resources too thin, or do I go all-in on a single marketing initiative and risk squandering my budget on a one-dimensional strategy?”  Enterprising entrepreneurs constantly face this dilemma, making tough choices about what to leave on the balance sheet and what to eliminate.

Alas, public relations seems to be an easy target for the chopping block, owing to the common misperception that it requires an exorbitant investment and that it is only viable for large established brands. The reality is that digital tools have begun to level the playing field, allowing small businesses to execute exemplary PR strategies without emptying the coffers.

In this three-part blog series, we’ll lay out a soup-to-nuts process for developing and implementing a PR strategy that can help your company gain valuable media exposure and raise your visibility in the marketplace. The first stage of the process is research and planning.

Stage One: Research & Planning

Before you start blasting off emails to reporters, you’ll need to do some preliminary research and planning to make sure you focus your efforts in the right direction. If you have a detailed business plan, you already have much of the information you’ll need to get started, including the company’s market segmentation, business model, competitive landscape and brand positioning. In addition to this information, you should research other areas that will shape the success of your PR strategy, including:

Target Audience – These are the people that you are trying to reach, which may include potential and existing customers, industry partners, the financial community and key opinion leaders. For most businesses, all of these groups are important, but it’s a good idea to prioritize your audiences in accordance with your business strategy so you don’t spread your resources too thin. A good way to analyze your target audience is by creating audience personas, descriptive profiles that identifies your audience’s demographics, personality attributes, desires, needs and other traits. It’s critical to consider this early in your PR strategy, as it will help you determine the right channels and messaging for building positive visibility of your company.

Media Channels – Once you’ve researched your target audience, it’s time to determine how to reach them. Based on your audience personas, you should be able to make reliable inferences about what types of media they consume. If one of your targets is moms-to-be, for instance, your media channels may include parenting blogs, women’s health magazines and daytime talk shows. While researching media channels, it’s a good idea to keep a record of any reporters that have written about topics relevant to your business, because at some point you will need to create a list of media contacts that you can reach out to when you’re ready to seize the limelight.

Story Angles – A key part of any successful PR strategy is introspection—examining every facet of your business through the lens of discerning reporters to determine what makes it interesting and relevant to their audiences. You’re goal here is to identify story angles that you can offer to the media in order to open the door for interviews and direct media exposure for your business. At this stage, it is a good idea to brainstorm with other members of your team to map out your future story angles. A good place to start is by looking at any anticipated company milestones (e.g. new product launch, acquisition of new management, industry partnerships, new funding, etc.). You should also consider any novelties about your company that could interest reporters (e.g. an unconventional history, unique business model or management style, etc.). The advantage of these kind of story angles is that they not only appeal to a wide audience, but they are also evergreen—you can time your media outreach around them as a way to keep the buzz going when you don’t have any major milestones to report.

In a small business environment, where there is a constant pressure to operate more efficiently, it may be tempting to forgo the research and planning phase outlined here in favor of a less-structured approach, such as slapping together a press release and spraying it out to reporters indiscriminately. But the reality is that allotting a little bit of time at the outset to planning and research is both more effective and efficient.

If you’re in healthcare, insurance, technology or other professional services industries, and need help with a PR, marketing or social media campaign, contact Scott Public Relations.

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