RPR&Co. had the pleasure of doing a workshop with PR and communication veteran Amanda Little to better understand how to formulate a strategic communications plan.
Amanda is an award-winning PR and communications professional with more than 20 years’ experience managing businesses and helping organizations develop and execute their PR programs and corporate reputation.
It was an informative and insightful session.
Here are our key takeaways:
CONTEXT FOR STRATEGY:
→ What are the media habits of your clients and their target audience?
→ Changes in tech will determine strategy.
→ AI increasingly important. Liken it to electricity in the 1800s when no one knew what electricity was or what it would mean for people – AI is the same. Embrace and experiment with it now.
→ Strategy underpins everything we do.
→ 20 years ago, PR was just about media relations and some issues management – now it’s much more evolved.
→ Strategies provide direction and tell you when you need to change.
CHANGING MEDIA:
→ Money/budget needs to be discussed from the outset.
→ Build advertising into budget as earned media getting increasingly hard.
→ People want to consume media in short and sharp bursts – video, tiktok etc.
→ We want shareable content – make it shareable and appealing, through lens of collabs and partnerships in min.
→ Need to be experts in media platforms – some agencies are hiring media planners just to deal with this.
→ Develop relations with media AND broad cross-section of people from all walks of life and industries.
→ “Chance favours the connected mind”.
WHAT IS STRATEGY?
→ Set of actions
→ Comes from ‘strategum’ which means General in Greek. The General during wartimes was at the top of the hill overseeing the battle, not on the ground in the thick of it. It is an overarching north star of everything we do.
→ It’s not a set-and-forget approach. It’s constantly evolving.
→ Strategy is the HOW and the WHY – this determines the WHAT and the WHO.
PITCHING/BRIEFING/BRAINSTORMING WITH CLIENTS
→ Send questions to them ahead of brainstorming strategy session.
→ Where are they now – and where do they want to be? Is this possible?
→ Get all the company involved in that strat sessions, not just the comms team and head honchos. The more touch points, the more perspectives and whole-of-company vision/narrative can be developed.
→ Business strategies should be reviewed AT least every six months. Most do every 90 days.
→ Must discuss budget at the very start.
MEASUREMENT AND EVALUATION
→ Should be a combo of quantitative (measurement) and qualitative (evaluation).
→ Translate the results to talk about the value of quantitative measures.
→ “This is great because XYX” e.g. photo with a Minister, got three of your stakeholders in a story etc.
→ Positioning is hard to measure e.g. people attending an event.
→ There is value beyond the measurement.
→ We need to explain this to client.
→ When we finish work with a client, ask yourself, what questions should we have asked.
WHAT DO I WANT TO TAKE FORWARD?
→ Incubate – take the time to decompress, think creatively, have a break, walk away from desk, take a lunch. Best ideas come when you’re relaxed and have space to ‘incubate’. “Boredom is the gateway to imagination.”
→ Explain to clients the value in the measurement. This is valuable because XYZ. There is value beyond quantitative measurement.
→ Find the right problem. Clients sometimes think that symptoms are the problem (e.g. “We’re getting bad PR. But why are you getting bad PR. E.g. Is it because there is an issue that HR needs to fix – that’s the problem, while bad PR is just a symptom of that problem). Get to the real problem. And work out a strategy to fix it (NB this may not be a PR problem).
→ Develop an overarching narrative through a refined strategy. Constantly review it. Always ask WHY are we doing this. What’s in it for the client? This will determine next steps.
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