Spring is in the air and while you may be thinking about tackling your house this weekend for a good spring cleaning in preparation for the warmer months, it’s also a good time to consider spring cleaning your PR strategy as well.

Taking the time to review your PR plans on a regular basis helps you to determine how you can improve your strategy and generate better results. Now is a great time to do it, and it will help prepare you for coming months.

Here are a few tips to help you spruce up your PR strategy.

Review your key messages
Take a look at your key messages and determine whether they still communicate the right goals for your business. It is especially important to review these messages if the business has experienced significant change or a rebrand. If you’re not sure where to start, look at the key points you want your target audience to hear and recall. Do your key messages still communicate this?

Review your media coverage
Examine your media coverage from the past year and look at the target audiences in these outlets. Are you still reaching your key influencers, decision makers and buyers? During this time, also tally the average number of media pieces you gain a month and consider how you can increase this. This may involve sending out more pitches a month, ensuring your spokesperson is available or looking for unique story angles. Also, consider adopting one or more of these strategies:

  • Choose email over phone
  • Let them know you’re an expert/ or have an expert
  • Be accessible
  • Engage them on social media
  • Attend events where media may be present

Update your media lists
It seems like every few weeks journalists have either changed their role, publication or contact details. Thus is the nature of today’s media landscape and it’s important to make sure your media lists are up to date and that you are still reaching out to the appropriate journalists when you send them media materials or pitch a story idea.

Research new publications
While you are updating your media list and reviewing your coverage, take note of all the publications you pitched last year. Is it always the same publications? Every day, new media publications and blogs are being created, especially on the Internet. This is a great time to conduct some research into other media outlets your target audience reads or watches, add them to your media list and pitch to them in the future. A great place to start is by thinking about what other verticals you can pitch that are similar to the outlets you already pitch.

Is it time to hire an agency?
After you have applied these spring cleaning tips to your PR strategy, you will have a better understanding of the past year’s successes and failures. You then can use this knowledge to help determine the direction you want to take your PR activities.

If you are unsure about how to improve your PR strategy, it is probably time to hire a PR agency that can help you manage this and produce the desired results you seek. Inc.com provides some excellent insight on what you should consider before and even after you hire a PR agency.

So before you tackle the dreaded hall closet, grab a pen and spend some time reviewing your PR strategy to help your business make the most of its PR activities in the upcoming year. If you’re curious about how to kick your PR activities up a notch, the team at Cooksey Communications can help make that happen.

A Cooksey Staff Member