A public relations campaign is a mammoth task that is impossible to get perfectly right. It requires tremendous effort in planning, creativity, and execution, and even then your efforts are always subject to events. But there are several things that can be done while planning which will help prepare you for the unexpected. Here are three important goals identified by Cision in their article, “3 Ways to Prepare Your Brand for a Major PR Campaign.”

  1. The goal of a PR campaign is to present your brand to a wider audience, and your website is often the best place to draw attention back to for representing your brand. To help make sure your website is available to anyone who’s interested, it’s important that your content and landing pages are optimized with the current rankings for search engine optimization (SEO). The nature of your campaign can provide you an idea of what people who are interested will search for online. Use a tool like Uber suggest to search a topic related to your campaign and then sprinkle the resulting keywords into your website content. Making your site user-friendly and intuitive gives the double benefit of improving the visitor experience and improving your performance in search engines.
  2. The modern non-stop news cycle requires content that is both timely and relevant to make an impact. Timely material is great for current events, and relevant content that stays relevant is ideal for as low news period. But to make the greatest impact, it’s important to vary the format of your content as well. Digital marketing is an ever-changing zone, and that means different formats perform better on different platforms—on Facebook,for example, videos perform the best. In fact, it’s estimated that 80% of content will be videos as soon as 2020. Textual material such as blogs, quick posts, and press releases work well for timely purposes, while the production effort required nudges video towards the relevant category.

A key element of a successful PR campaign is maintaining a consistent image, to avoid confusing people with mixed or unclear messages. Consistency does not mean that risks must be avoided, however. Don’t be too afraid to seize opportunities like hot button topics or potentially controversial issues if you think you can make them work within the context of your campaign—many major PR initiatives utilize controversy to boost their own visibility. While the specific content and messages of your campaign will change with circumstances, the basic image should stay consistent. Always take time to consider what your central brand and values are, and how each step of your campaign contributes to enforcing and promoting them to the public.

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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