PR professionals can learn something from Carl Sagan, who famously quipped, “if you wish to make apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe.”
The good news is that PR pros do not need to literally create the universe to craft an effective PR plan; however, each PR plan must be made from scratch because every situation is unique. There is a common process that can be implemented to guide their creation. One fundamental aspect of this process is to take the time to do your research, so that you can develop an informed opinion.
Certainly, crafting a PR plan is a research and development process. PR professionals often struggle with their plans because they skimp on the research, leaving themselves uninformed. In order to see the bigger picture, make sure you understand your company, your competition, and your partners.
There are many resources available to develop this picture, from discussions with internal stakeholders to content from third party thought leaders. The best PR plans are informed by as much of this research as possible.
Regardless of if you work in-house or for an agency, informational interviews are the most obvious place to begin. Your goal should be to understand the business model, its challenges and its objectives - who are you trying to reach, and what is your call to action? Ideally, you will be able to connect directly with the executive team, an exercise that occurs in many agency kick-off meetings, to discuss industry trends, product roadmap, partnerships, and events - all activities to develop a timeline for anchor announcements.
With this understanding, seek to better understand the competition. For technology PR professionals, the most direct approach is to leverage existing industry analyst reports. Not only does this quickly identify your competition, it also identifies key stakeholders for analyst relations and aligns with their broader industry vision.
Even without client access, anyone can search and review report titles, summaries and their table of contents. If your company is not included in any analyst research that should be addressed in your plan, but competitive intelligence can still be gained through review and recommendation sites. You can also call upon existing media relationships to learn who they consider your competition and what they think of them.
Equipped with a list of competitors, audit each of their websites and social media accounts to determine what sort of content they are producing and where they are placing it. Navigate their news to identify media targets and trends. Download their resources, such as research reports, to determine if you can produce correlated content. Visit their social media account to research relevant hashtags and see who they are following. You want to know your competitors messages - not to copy them, but to build upon them.
In Crossing the Chasm, Geoffrey Moore offers some pertinent advice, “In bringing this story to the business press, it is important to bring along as many of the other players in the market as possible.”
Practically, this means involving partners. Tap into customers to tell their story. Leverage business partners or investors to talk about bigger picture trends. Look for opportunities to engage with authors and academics that write about these trends. Repeat your media audit for each third party you identify.
Individually, each reference point has the potential to introduce another. Collectively, they provide the voice needed to discuss the bigger picture. For PR professionals that understand how to use their resources, the research and development of a PR plan is a piece of cake -- or an apple pie from scratch.