Six reasons for PR strategy
By Craig on Nov 9, 2011 in Public relations, Strategic communication | View Comments
Strategy is more than the glue that holds tactics together; it provides direction and rationale for everything that we do in public relations. Without it, we meander aimlessly through a darkened business forest and can be successfully challenged and undermined at every step by one simple question: why?
As hard as some may find it to believe, strategy is not always created before tactical articulation. Certainly, commercial pressures and/or a crisis may force an organisation’s or a PR professional’s hand at times. There is no reason why a strategic approach – or a strategy – cannot catch up to a tactic that is implemented at speed.
If this is a consistently applied methodology to business, however, it will lead to an overload of ‘wallpapering the cracks’, so that the end result is either an edifice of artifice with no substance or value, or a collapsing house of cards that occurs because the fantasy of value deliverance can no longer be sustained.
PR strategy provides a rationale
Logic must be inherent within all actions we take within business. This is not an emotional relationship. Following our heart is dumb. The organisation will have objectives. It will have values. It will have a mission.
What is your PR strategy doing to support – how connected is it? – to objectives, value and mission?
If it is connected, the rationale needs to be articulated. The conceptual underpinnings need to be explained. This doesn’t mean a one hundred page Word document. It could mean one or two simple PowerPoint graphics.
Strategy in PR facilitates cohesion, teamwork and effectiveness
Articulating strategy takes your public relations team on a journey. Both before and after its articulation. During its construction – because you are going to consult with your peers as it is developed and integrate their valuable insights, aren’t you? – and once it is completed an understanding of the work you are doing will aid individuals in implementing it.
No game plan ever won a match without those executing it understanding it.
Because strategy is a big picture, holistic entity, it provides an overview or a map of all its – sometimes disparate, sometimes crystal clear – elements. It illustrates how these elements complement each other and work together to achieve impact. This facilitates empathy between PR team members and helps build momentum between their actions.
Without strategy, chooks will run around with their heads cut off, to use an Australianism that will probably be opaque to some.!
Strategy helps reinforce PR credibility and professional self-esteem
There are some who view PR as media relations alone. Even worse, there are some who accord little credibility to public relations – it’s a flippant process and hardly a ‘discipline’, they might say.
Well, not articulating a strategy in writing is a fantastic way of ensuring this myth is perpetuated. Without the evidence of thought, planning and structure that is inherent in a worthwhile PR strategy, who can blame those in marketing, finance, HR and other areas of the business for disparaging PR?
Furthermore, and perhaps more importantly, without strategy PR professionals may not develop their professional self-esteem to its full potential. Self-esteem is necessary for bravery and creativity – both critical components of public relations as it seeks cut-through and return on investment.
Strategy and the evidence of impact
Any good PR strategy will be evidence-based and it will have KPIs.
Without some form of research, it will not be best practice and it will not be able to develop benchmarks (or indicators) against which it can be measured.
Creativity is important, but business-relevant impact needs to be illustrated. Otherwise public relations will be peripheral to the business. Once the rigour of evidence-based market research, for instance, is integrated into the strategy and strategic approach, measurement can occur. Transparency of financial and human resource allocation will then be made easier to explain and connect to organisational-relevant outcomes.
Public relations strategy relies on reflection and logic
The mere fact that strategy has been developed – if it’s any good, of course! – intimates that a great deal of thought has gone into its development. This ‘thinking’ process will add value to the approach being taken because it will canvass many options and ideas, expanding the palette of the PR professional.
Because of the expansive thinking that takes place with strategy, it will probably add value to other initiatives that require strategic thinking, both PR and non-PR specific. There is no greater value to an organisation than a thinker.
Of equal value is a ‘doer’, someone who delivers tactical outcomes, but without the former the latter will be one of those headless chooks, running and running but, ultimately, bleeding to death.
PR strategy is not a prison or a millstone
One of an excellent strategy’s most important elements is that, in practice, it can be iterated. It can evolve. It is not an untouchable entity that must be unquestionably respected.
The situation within which it is being implemented may change from when the planning took place. A crisis may materialise or a government decision may impact on the operating environment. These and other factors – perhaps even including an evolution of the resources able to be allocated to the strategy – occur all the time. This change can benefit the shape of the strategy and facilitate better quality outcomes.
This is nothing to be afraid of.
Certainly, these changes may prompt objectives being changed/refined, but this too is not the end of the world. What is certain, however, is that without strategy, public relations will not achieve impact and its credibility as a business discipline will be marginal at best.
Have you ever been frustrated by being asked to implement tactics without a strategic map in place? Do you think it’s okay to implement tactics without a strategy? What elements of public relations strategy do you think are always important to consider? Do you think there is enough collaboration in the development of strategy in your organisation?
