Blog courtesy of Bridge Global Strategies

One of the first things journalism students learn is to get sufficient information in an interview to answer six basic questions: the five W questions – who, what, where, when and why, and the one H question – how. For example, who shot the sheriff, what happened to the sheriff (and the shooter), why did the shooter do it, when and where did it happen, and how did the guy get into the sheriff’s office, anyway?

In the public relations consulting process, we ask the same questions but add one more H question: how much. For example, whom are we trying to reach – who is the audience? What do we want to tell them – what are the key messages? Where are they – in one city, all over the country or all over the world? When is the optimal time to reach them with our messages? Why do we want to reach them – what are the goals of PR? How can we reach them – in a newspaper article, the trade media, with social media, on TV, with content marketing, or at a live event – or all of the above?

In developing PR strategies, the second H question, how much, is as important as the others. How much budget do we have? How much time do we have? We can develop brilliant, on-target strategies that will meet clients’ goals, but if we don’t have enough budget or time to carry out the strategies, they’re worthless. If we come up with a great strategy that will take six months, but our client needs to make an announcement in four months, our strategy won’t work. As for budget, we can achieve goals with a relatively low budget, a medium budget or a relatively generous budget. But budget size greatly influences both selection of a strategy and the amount of time it will take to meet the goals.

In briefing potential agencies, most companies are forthcoming about the five W’s and the first H, and will talk openly with us about their optimal time frame. But there are many companies that are unwilling to provide an answer to the question of how much budget they have.

There are two reasons for this, and neither is based in sound logic. Some companies think that if they reveal the size of their budgets, the PR agencies they are considering hiring will simply charge the full amount of the budget. “Just tell us what the charges will be,” they tell us. However, as I just explained, we can work fast, faster or fastest, depending on the budget. If we don’t know the budget, we have to construct a strategy based on our best guess of how much the company is able to afford. Sometimes we guess too high and when the potential client finds out the costs of our proposal, they think we’re too expensive for them. If we guess too low, invariably the client will have caviar expectations but give us only a McDonald’s budget.

When a startup prepares to meet with potential investors, the five W’s and two H’s are just as crucial as they are in PR and journalism. The investors want to see a business plan and vision that answers:
• Who is in charge of running this company? The backgrounds and past accomplishments of the management team are a crucial factor in funding decisions.
• What is the company’s mission and what does success look like?
• When will we begin to see results? What is the timeline for success and what are the markers along that timeline?
• Where is the market – in which market sector, in which countries, among which demographics?
• Why should we choose your company to invest in? In what ways are you better or different you’re your competitors? Are those differences sufficient enough to convince customers to choose you instead of a competitor they may be more familiar with?
• How do you plan to achieve your objectives? What is the business model? This has to be answered in detail, covering the technologies, methods, staffing plan, realistic budget, etc.
• How much money are you looking for and how much running time will it give you?

It’s easy to write a business plan that includes all of the above yet doesn’t sufficiently or honestly answer one of these important questions. Similarly, in public relations, it’s easy to come up with a strategy that sounds great and appears to address all of the questions, but in reality one or more crucial questions are glossed over and given lofty-sounding but incorrect or incomplete answers.

Both in PR and in startup presentations to investors, the failure to answer these basic questions honestly and accurately is what prevents success. The reasons for incomplete or incorrect answers vary from insufficient research, to a lack of thorough understanding of what it will really take to succeed, to what is perhaps the most dangerous of all, planning based on hopes and dreams rather than reality.

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

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