The Easy Street PR Strategy: Keep It Simple To Win

I’m always on the lookout for an easy street PR strategy.

I’ve been craft­ing vari­ous strategies for many organ­isa­tions since 2005.

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

Here we go:

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.

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.

“If you can­’t explain it simply, you don’t under­stand it well enough.”
— Albert Einstein

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:

How to Write a 1‑Page Strategy

My inspir­a­tion for writ­ing “no-bull­shit” strategies comes from the clas­sic Good Strategy, Bad Strategy by Richard Rumelt. The 1‑page strategy focuses on how to win.

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

1. Analysis

• David can­’t beat Goliath using his size or raw strength, but he has an advant­age in speed and accur­acy from a distance.

2. Guiding Principle

• David should­n’t engage in close com­bat but rather use tools that will allow him to strike from a distance.

3. Coherent Actions

• David should­n’t use any heavy armour because that would slow him down.
• David should use a sling­shot, a weapon he is famil­i­ar with and can strike from a distance.
• David should lever­age the sur­prise ele­ment and not advert­ise his advant­age beforehand.

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

Read also: The Easy Street PR Strategy: Keep It Simple To Win

💡 Subscribe and get a free ebook on how to get bet­ter PR ideas!

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.

PR Resource: Checklist for Communicative Leadership

PR Resource: More PR Strategies