Times are challenging for many businesses right now. The focus is on cost once again. That means every penny that you spend on PR has to work. And you have to be able to show the value that your activity brings to your business.
Here are a few tips on how to get the most from your PR budget
It may sound basic but you can’t afford to have a vague end goal anymore. Results are more important than ever so, before anything else, establish what you ultimately want to happen as a result of your PR activity. For example, much of modern PR is focused on supporting account-based marketing in the identification of qualified leads for sales teams. Being absolutely clear on what you want to achieve will also help identify the metrics that you choose to measure your PR outputs and the KPIs for your campaign.
We used to have an old phrase in PR. “Spray and pray”. In media relations it meant issuing a press release to media far and wide in the hope that a potential customer would read it somewhere and get in touch. That can still be a valuable tactic for raising awareness, but nowadays we have access to highly sophisticated measurement and analytics platforms that allow us to identify exactly the kind of people you want to reach.
It’s important to be as specific as possible about who you’re aiming for. Spending time on creating target personas and really thinking about how these people access content can help focus your activity to make sure your message lands with the right people. You can target locations, companies and job titles among other things.
This should form part of your work on personas and help focus your PR budget and activity. There’s little point in putting all your effort and money into, say, creating content for one channel when your target audience uses another. When considering channels always test them against your ultimate goal. Will this or that channel help you get there?
Keeping control of your PR campaign through a structured, date driven plan is a great way to manage activity and budgets. Ring fencing your finances in such a way should prevent you from the temptation of spending money on left field last minute opportunities that may not generate the most value for you.
Measurement allows you to gauge how effective your campaign has been in helping you achieve your goals. Account-based marketing automation gives access to measurement and analytics platforms that provide insight into hundreds of data points. Make sure you choose metrics that best reflect the value of the investment you have made in your PR campaign.
We’ve nearly 30 years’ experience in providing clients with valuable outcomes-based PR support. If you’d like to get started, let us know.