3 Key Elements for a Successful PR Campaign

The Marist College (my Alma Mater) PRSSA chapter recently entered the Bateman Case Study Competition and asked me to serve as a Professional Adviser.  The competition tests students’ skills, knowledge and creativity when it comes to public relations.  Students are required to produce a full-fledged PR campaign for an innovative personal payment system—which is an exciting and cutting-edge opportunity for any young person ready to embark on a career in PR.

Based on my experience, successful campaigns exceed client expectations, deliver results, and reach intended goals.  As the Professional Adviser, the students have already come to me with several questions and I’d like to pass along the tips I shared with them:

1. Ask Yourself: Who is the client? When you begin to work on a new project or campaign, due diligence is key. With any project in public relations, research is the foundation for success, so it is important to take the time to become immersed into researching the client’s history, industry and products/services.  This will help you to understand who they are and how to create an appropriate campaign. To take this step a bit further, getting to know the client’s competitors will shed light on industry trends as a whole.
2. Manage Goals and Expectations: Asking the client what their goals and expectations are is vital to understanding their overall needs. This is where you set the bar for realistic outcomes and identify your professional limits. Be as specific as you can when sketching out goals, and ensure that there are no questions left unanswered or ambiguity. Additionally, it is wise to establish deadlines in order to stay on track and make the client feel at ease with the strategy.
3. Strategize: Last but certainly not least, creating and implementing a detailed strategy will effectively lead you toward the goal-line.  Strategizing will help you to identify which media platforms and outlets you will use in order to get your client’s message in front of their target audience. You can’t expect to hit your marks and gain media attention unless an effective strategy is in place. In PR, the term “toolkit” is used often–and for good reason! Our team at EZG has various skills and we provide customized PR plans for each client based on which tactics will be most valuable for their brand.  It is important to remember that there isn’t a one size fits all strategy for PR; each campaign is unique.

Developing a creative PR campaign is a project within a project. And although each client’s goals are different, I can guarantee that the above tips will apply to every engagement. You can always count on research and strategic initiatives to guide you in the right direction.

What other steps do you think are important to take when developing a PR campaign? Let us know @ebben_zall.

I Know What You Are, But What Am I?

The holidays have always meant the same thing; my extended family comes over for an evening of food, fun, and a decent amount of wine. There are also the inevitable conversations about our careers, when I get the question, “what exactly do you do?”

Of course, I answer that I am a Public Relations professional for an array of clients in different industries. The response? Blank stares and someone says “Oh yeah! Like that Samantha Jones from ‘Sex and the City’.”

Uhm, not quite.

Explaining to my family what Public Relations is — and what I do on a day-to-day basis – is entertaining. I’m always surprised at how little some know and how on point others are. Most thought I spent my days planning lavish parties, or attending events with Boston’s elite. I pulled up the PRSA definition that was created earlier this year and read it aloud to my audience:

“Public relations is a strategic communication process that builds mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their publics.”

I think this definition hits the nail on the head. We PR Gurus are the storytellers. We shape and mold what you see from our clients. We ensure that the message we convey advances or protects our client’s image, audience, and goals.

After an enlightening conversation about public relations, I thought; if my family doesn’t know what PR is, what does the general community think? I was intrigued and compelled to find out! With the help of my fellow EZG’er-turned-camera-woman, Jenn, I hit the streets of Needham to ask average Joes two questions; what is public relations, and could they name someone or a company that needs public relations assistance?

Some of the participants we asked had answers that were in the ball park. I was surprised to find out that one woman was able to touch on key points of what a PR pro does and even named a hot topic in the news (General Patraeus).

Although I think the PRSA definition illustrates the profession of Public Relations well, it’s still missing the heart and soul. Public relations professionals know the story from the inside out and vice versa – we track the news and media, write pitches and releases, liaise with media, and yes, we utilize acronyms that were taught in school. We are smart and savvy, and are “people persons.” We have strong social media skills, and know that preparation, planning, and research are necessities to creating a successful PR campaign. When a crisis breaks out, we step in with strategies that have been carefully crafted to suit a client’s situation. We engage with the target audience, and tell the client’s story in the most compelling light.

The moral of the story?  As good as we are at telling our clients’ stories, we may need to upgrade the way we talk about our own profession.

Extreme Makeover: Public Relations Edition

Why are we here?

The Public Relations Society of America is making over its own definition of “public relations.” Its 1982 version still stands as the official wording, even with a few past attempts to update the look and feel of the profession: “Public relations helps an organization and its publics adapt mutually to each other.”  Yikes.

A call for entries from both industry pros and the public has been issued and submissions are being accepted via blog online form (deadline is Friday, December 2).

The results from most PR pros may stand to be the least shocking. After all, we love to manage the message, don’t we?  In our industry, we’re constantly tasked with defining ourselves and our clients, drawing on terms from day-to-day routines and global context. Expect to see familiar friends like “communicate”, “messaging”, “audience”, “media”, “effective”, “convey”.

Most curious, however, may be what non-PR audiences think of us.  Based on an outsider’s view, what is public relations and who are we as its representatives? If opinions are based on fictional depictions from  films and TV, expect terms that either flatter us as savvy trend-setters (“social”, “eloquent”, “notoriety”), or depict us as swaggering spin doctors (“schmooze”, “smear”, “pester”). Or suggestions might illustrate once again that a sizable audience actually has no idea what we do, supporting the notion that the definition of “Public Relations” has been ambiguous for far too long.

The results of the online form will appear in a “word cloud” on the PRSA’s PR Definition blog. While we’ll have fun guessing who submitted what, we may also get served a slice of humble pie.  Feel free to chime in: what IS public relations?