3 Key Principles for Success in Public Relations

Public relations is regularly misunderstood and it’s no surprise. On the face of it, anyone with a few journalist emails, and a willingness to hammer their inboxes should be able to develop hatfuls of free coverage, right? Not even close.

We present three key principles to help you to get to grips with the discipline and understand how to deploy public relations within your marketing strategy. As a result, you should instantly be able to weed out inefficiencies and allocate resources more appropriately.

The most critical principle within public relations is to ensure every story is relevant to the media. In reality, we should keep saying this over and over…

Media relevance can be developed using PR techniques, which, like cooking, require high-quality ingredients to begin with. All the tips and tricks that PR professionals use could fill up a book, so here we simplify this by explaining the main ways a journalist may develop an angle. The point we want to bed in, is that one or more of these don’t exist, then it’s perhaps best to consider other marketing channels instead.

a) Product innovation

Is an average toothbrush of media relevance? No, it’s not. Media are left with little or nothing to write about. However, this doesn't mean that working for a company that makes average toothbrushes isn't interesting. You can then apply this principle to most products in most industries.

b) A track record

A brand with a strong track record will naturally generate greater media interest, as it provides greater depth for a journalist covering the story. This doesn't mean that a great brand is enough to generate guaranteed coverage, however. Great brands often launch many products, which makes journalists more picky about what they write about.

c) A formidable team

The management team within a business can have a major influence on the success of its media strategy. This influence can either be inherent due to their stature, or it can be created by their ability to be controversial, thought-provoking, or inspiring Either way, this provides a journalist with an opportunity to develop a more compelling narrative.

d) A trending industry

At any time, some industries are ‘hotter’ than others, which is usually determined by their proximity to major societal trends. When this is in a business’ favour, it can generate much broader media interest.

e) Timing

Timing is everything in public relations. Whether a story is genuinely new is less important to whether it fits in with the current societal themes, which are more likely to have a major impact on pick up.

Engagement tactics can be thought of as touchpoints with the media. Not every interaction generates coverage. After all, what makes PR distinctive is that coverage is within ‘earned media’, which means that it takes work to receive it as journalists are the ultimate guardians of what they write and publish. Here we cover the main ways to generate media interest.

We mention three engagement tactics that constitute the vast majority of activities performed by PR agencies, but they don’t cover the broader PR tactics that can also sit within other marketing disciplines. For example, PR and social media are very closely linked, as are events. Therefore, to truly understand PR, it has to be placed in context with every other marketing activity within a business.

a) Press releases

Press releases are the most well-known PR tactic. They are also the most simple to understand. They are short-form written announcements that are typically emailed to journalists. Cheap and easy to create, it's easy to see why they excite business leaders. This same can't be said for journalists however, who get inundated with them. This is why Principle 1 is so important before going to the trouble of creating them.

b) Thought leadership

Thought leadership articles are typically pitched by PR people in the first instance and then developed by senior business leaders to show industry leadership around trending topics. To increase their media value, they may refer to recent research a business has conducted or data that the business holds. They are then accompanied by a short description or 'by-line' of the author.

However, not all publications will take thought leadership articles. Understandably, mainstream press prefer to write their own. For this reason, this tactic is more popular within blogs, and SEO related content.

c) Comments and interviews

A great spokesperson can be invaluable in PR. They can be pitched speculatively, but most interest is generated from responses to journalists requests. The media reach out to PR professionals using various services to ask for information for stories and sometimes TV interviews. They then sift through a plethora of responses they receive before adding them into their articles.

The third and final principle underpins the first two principles we’ve mentioned. This is because media insight informs every aspect of media relevance and engagement. To discover how and why this is the case, we can break this principle down to several constituent parts.

a) Performance insights

As in every other marketing discipline, data can be used to evaluate most aspects of PR performance. For example, a team may consider the ratio of coverage received to the number of press releases created or the number of pitches sent. They may also evaluate the level of coverage based on the business’ share of voice compared to its competition, or the relative coverage generated by every major announcement.

b) Industry insights

Media monitoring tools can also provide invaluable information to formulate a broader media strategy and build a media narrative. For example, they may be used to identify the prevalence of societal trends across a publication or industry. By turning trends into data, both PR people and marketing teams can add greater objectivity to strategic decision-making. This information can then help craft a story or identify suitable journalists.

Mastering the discipline

These three principles clearly explain how a PR strategy can be made more effective. However, mastering the discipline requires understanding how to balance their respective qualities. Every challenge is different, which requires a depth of experience to know what the likely outcomes may be.

If you take away anything from this piece, we hope that you can use these principles to shape how you think about public relations and, particularly, how you can fit it within a broader marketing strategy. As with every other marketing discipline, PR can transform the success of a business, but only if the challenge at hand warrants it.

If you have any further questions, please do get in touch. We look forward to hearing from you.