Identifying the Objectives of Your Public Relations Campaign

Regardless of the marketing tactic you’re looking at, whether it’s email marketing, advertising, or even press and public relations, it’s essential to set goals and identify objectives. If you don’t know what you’re trying to accomplish, then how can you create an effective tactic?

While many organizations understand this concept for most marketing tools and tactics, press and public relations often gets overlooked. Instead of a defined objective, the idea is often to simply, “get good PR,” or “to improve media outreach.” That’s not enough. If you want your press and PR initiatives to be successful, it’s time to identify your objectives.

Marketing and public relations goals need to be aligned with overarching business goals. For example, if your business goal is to increase sales by 10 percent, then public relations goals should support that goal. The thing with most PR goals, however, is that they’re not directly measurable. It can be difficult to say that a press release increased sales. There are key components that you can track when you use a press release. These quantitative metrics include data like impressions, clicks, and you can also track conversions if you send readers to a specific URL.

Moving Beyond Metrics

There are other ways to align your PR goals with your business goals. Consider how press and publicity initiatives can support you in more realistic ways. For example, you might focus on awareness of a product or service, or of your company as a whole. Increased awareness can increase sales, and is thus aligned with that business goal. Ask yourself, what do you want your reader to see, hear or read that they haven’t before? What do you want them to understand that they did not before?  And of course, what do you want them to do once they’ve read the press or public relations message?

Identify Your Audience

With any public relations message, you want to take some time to identify your audience. That’s because your objective isn’t going to be attained if you’re not creating your message for the right group of people. So what groups of people are you targeting or who is your ideal audience? Create your PR message for them.

Assess the Situation

Press and publicity don’t happen in a vacuum. Either you’re responding to a situation or you’re creating a situation. Whether you’re responding to media coverage or you’re trying to create media coverage you want to have a solid understanding of the situation before you put anything out there.

As you begin to create your public relations strategy and campaigns for next year, remember that it all begins with your objectives and your overall business goals. Align them strategically and enjoy a stronger return on investment.

Call us today to speak to one of our PR specialists: 1-800-713-7278

Anthony Santiago

Anthony Santiago is Director of Marketing at Newswire. With over a decade of experience in PR, he helps ensure that clients understand the value of brand messaging and reach.