The Easy Street PR Strategy

I’m always on the lookout for an Easy Street PR Strategy.

I’ve been craft­ing PR strategies for organ­isa­tions since 2005.

This blog post will share my favour­ite approach to find­ing that power­ful strategy that will bene­fit a cli­ent for years.

Here we go:

The Easy Street PR Strategy

Complexity is allur­ing, but in the heat of the moment, or in the mundane existance of day-to-day oper­a­tions, favour­ing simple pro­cesses and solu­tions can save you from lots of trouble.

Easy street strategy (men­tal mod­el). This prin­ciple sug­gests that sim­pler solu­tions are often bet­ter and more effect­ive than com­plex ones. In decision-mak­ing and prob­lem-solv­ing, seek­ing straight­for­ward, clear-cut solu­tions can often lead to bet­ter out­comes than pur­su­ing overly com­plic­ated strategies. ¹Silfwer, J. (2021, January 27). The Easy Street PR Strategy: Keep It Simple To Win. Doctor Spin | The PR Blog. https://​doc​tor​spin​.net/​e​a​s​y​-​s​t​r​e​e​t​-​p​r​-​s​t​r​a​t​e​gy/

Keeping it simple comes with many tac­tic­al advant­ages. Bigger chance of suc­cess. Less chance of human error. Easier to remem­ber, harder to forget.

I strive to either avoid highly com­plic­ated PR strategies for this very reas­on. If the strategy must be com­plic­ated, I do everything I can to make it simpler.

The Mindset: Smooth Sailing is Sweet

When it comes to craft­ing power­ful strategies for dif­fer­ent types of organ­isa­tions, here’s what I’ve noticed:

For whatever reas­on, many freshly cre­ated strategies are chal­len­ging to imple­ment. Few new strategies are just “a breeze.”

But some new strategies work.

These breezy strategies are just smooth sail­ing from the start. They make every­one involved hap­pi­er. All you hear in every meet­ing or con­ver­sa­tion is “yes” and “of course.” 

While there might be lots of work involved, these easy-to-imple­ment strategies some­how attract good work as if they were magnets. 

And when you finally encounter untested or unex­pec­ted ter­rit­ory, these strategies keep mak­ing sense.

What kind of sor­cery is this?
I’ve come to call it the Easy Street PR Strategy.

Slow is smooth, smooth is fast (men­tal mod­el). — Often used in mil­it­ary and tac­tic­al train­ing, this phrase encap­su­lates the idea that some­times, slow­ing down can lead to faster over­all pro­gress. The prin­ciple is that tak­ing delib­er­ate, con­sidered actions reduces mis­takes and inef­fi­cien­cies, which can lead to faster out­comes in the long run. In prac­tice, it means plan­ning, train­ing, and execut­ing with care, lead­ing to smooth­er, more effi­cient oper­a­tions that achieve object­ives faster than rushed, less thought­ful efforts. ²Silfwer, J. (2020, April 24). Slow is Smooth, Smooth is Fast. Doctor Spin | The PR Blog. https://​doc​tor​spin​.net/​s​l​o​w​-​i​s​-​s​m​o​o​th/

How the Easy Street PR Strategy Works

I dis­covered the power of the Easy Street PR Strategy when I turned 40 years old. During some mid-life intro­spec­tion, I thought much about spend­ing my time bet­ter. Not just pro­fes­sion­ally but in my private life as well.

I real­ised I had oper­ated on a naïve assump­tion that any­thing worth­while must also be problematic.

I drew a dia­gram to illus­trate this mind shift:

I real­ised that I had spent two dec­ades in the imma­ture zone by focus­ing much of my energy where it was­n’t pos­sible to influ­ence the out­come. My accom­plish­ments were due to fix­ing quite a few tricky things to fix. But still.

I did waste quite a lot of energy on futile efforts.

Instead of tak­ing the mature route, I could still fix the same hard-to-tackle chal­lenges as before, but sud­denly, I had a sol­id base of easy wins to back everything up.

Maybe there’s a reas­on why some­thing comes easy to you or an organ­isa­tion. Perhaps it’s easy because it aligns with your or the organ­isa­tion’s nat­ur­al strengths and true Ikigai.

Going Easy Does Not Equal Weakness

As an example, I like the example of Apple’s mar­ket­ing philo­sophy as described below:

Apple’s mar­ket­ing philo­sophy is very clean and simple, almost basic and obvi­ous for Apple at first glance, but its clar­ity is a big part of what makes it so powerful.

How To Write an Easy Street PR Strategy

My insight about easy street strategies is that they tend to out­per­form oth­er strategies that tech­nic­ally ought to be super­i­or — but require lots of explain­ing, con­vin­cing, learn­ing, test­ing, coach­ing, etc. 

So, I’m always look­ing for an Easy Street PR Strategy.

Inspired by Richard Rumelt, here’s how to write your strategy on one single page:

Put in anoth­er way: 

Sometimes, a new strategy might work fine but must be con­stantly rein­forced and encour­aged. Whenever that situ­ation occurs, it indic­ates that we’ve chosen the wrong strategy and should rethink our approach before we’re too deep in complexity.

The 1‑Page PR Strategy

My inspir­a­tion for writ­ing “no-bull­shit” strategies comes from the clas­sic “Good Strategy, Bad Strategy: The Difference and Why It Matters” by Richard Rumelt. ³Rumelt, R. P. (2011). Good Strategy, Bad Strategy: The Difference and Why It Matters. Crown Business.

“The most basic idea of strategy is the applic­a­tion of strength against weak­ness. Or, if you prefer, strength applied to the most prom­ising oppor­tun­ity.”
Source: Good Strategy, Bad Strategy: The Difference and Why It Matters ⁴Rumelt, R. P. (2011). Good Strategy, Bad Strategy: The Difference and Why It Matters. Crown Business.

By apply­ing strength against weak­ness, the 1‑page PR strategy focuses on how to win.

The magic­al PR ques­tion: Do we know how to win and defeat our competitors?

It’s asym­met­ric warfare.

Asymmetric war­fare (men­tal mod­el). This refers to con­flict between parties of unequal strength, where the weak­er party uses uncon­ven­tion­al tac­tics to exploit the vul­ner­ab­il­it­ies of the stronger oppon­ent. It’s often dis­cussed in mil­it­ary and busi­ness contexts.

How To Write a 1‑Page PR Strategy

Here’s how you can write a 1‑page PR strategy that fits one page — using the myth­ic­al battle between David and Goliath as an analogy:

1. Diagnosis

2. Guiding Policy

3. Coherent Actions

If you write 1 – 2 clear sen­tences per bul­let, your strategy should fit nicely on one page.

Learn more: The 1‑Page PR Strategy

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Public Relations Strategy 101

• The Bad PR Strategy
• The Magical PR Question
• The 1‑Page PR Strategy
• How to Create a PR Strategy That Actually Works

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• Hidden Arena PR Strategy: Mobilising Change Agents
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• The Easy Street PR Strategy
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