How to Create a PR Strategy That Actually Works

How to cre­ate a PR strategy that actu­ally works?

When put­ting togeth­er a PR strategy, it’s easy to get overwhelmed.

In an attempt to cov­er all pos­sible bases, you might risk adding too many bells and whistles — while fail­ing to add the essen­tial parts.

The good news: You just need to get the basics right.

And this blog post can help you.

Here we go:

What Is a PR Strategy and Why Do You Need One?

A PR strategy is a guid­ing prin­ciple that helps your organ­isa­tion estab­lish and main­tain rela­tions with stake­hold­ers, influ­en­cers, and publics.

In con­crete terms, a PR strategy (also com­monly referred to as a com­mu­nic­a­tions strategy) is a doc­u­ment or present­a­tion out­lining how your organ­isa­tion is sup­posed to win three cru­cial PR assets in today’s com­pet­it­ive landscape:

Attention, trust, and loy­alty are the build­ing blocks of those rela­tion­ships the organ­isa­tion needs to sus­tain itself.

An organ­isa­tion, starved of atten­tion, trust, and loy­alty, is com­pelled to wage a per­petu­al struggle for its con­tin­ued existence.

The Cost of a Poor PR Strategy

A poor PR strategy will cost you:

Everything you do or say as an organ­isa­tion will add or sub­tract from those will­ing to listen, read, or view.

Everything you don’t do or say as an organ­isa­tion will add or sub­tract from those will­ing to listen, read, or view.

In short:

Everything com­mu­nic­ates.

Whether or not your organ­isa­tion is act­ively work­ing with PR, every inter­ac­tion and non-inter­ac­tion will add to (or detract from) your brand’s attention‑, trust- and loy­alty capital.

Some PR pro­fes­sion­als sub­scribe to the idea that PR activ­it­ies can be trans­lated into ROI. I think it’s an admir­able ambi­tion, but when push comes to shove, the actu­al cost of hav­ing poor pub­lic rela­tions is dwind­ling chances of survival:

Not even the greatest empires can last forever with a poor PR strategy. Over time, deteri­or­at­ing rela­tion­ships with stake­hold­ers, influ­en­cers, and pub­lics will pile up and bring even the migh­ti­est of powers down.

The Most Common PR Strategy Mistake

A PR strategy is basic­ally “a doc­u­ment or presentation.”

As such, it must­n’t be short. You can add bells and whistles to your PR strategy; per­haps you wish to include a long sec­tion describ­ing research on your stake­hold­ers, influ­en­cers, and pub­lics. Perhaps you wish to include a long sec­tion describ­ing each pri­or­it­ised media channel.

That’s fine. But a word to the wise:

Poor PR strategies typ­ic­ally lack sub­stance and clar­ity. Few notice this absence because all those “bells and whistles” seem impress­ive and well-documented.

Bells and whistles can be valu­able in their own right. But always make sure you get the basic PR strategy down first:

The Magical PR Question

Your PR strategy should answer one simple question:

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

If your PR strategy fails to answer this ques­tion in the affirm­at­ive, it also fails to provide a roadmap to suc­cess. Winning is a cul­ture and a struc­tur­al asset.

“Competitiveness is derived from per­man­ent infra­struc­tur­al char­ac­ter­ist­ics of organ­iz­a­tion­al design, rather than just rely­ing on tem­por­ary stra­tegic assets.”
Source: Strategic Change ¹Connor, T. (2007). A con­sid­er­a­tion of stra­tegic assets and the organ­iz­a­tion­al sources of com­pet­it­ive­ness. Strategic Change, 16, 127 – 136. https://​doi​.org/​1​0​.​1​0​0​2​/​J​S​C​.​789

Is win­ning that important? 

Yes, in com­pet­it­ive envir­on­ments and chan­ging soci­et­ies, win­ning is some­times the only way to keep up.

The Red Queen effect (men­tal mod­el). This meta­phor ori­gin­ates from Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass. It describes a situ­ation in which one must con­tinu­ously adapt, evolve, and work to main­tain one’s pos­i­tion. In the story, the Red Queen is a char­ac­ter who explains to Alice that in their world, run­ning as fast as one can is neces­sary just to stay in the same place. The meta­phor is often used in the con­text of busi­nesses that need to innov­ate con­stantly to stay com­pet­it­ive, high­light­ing the relent­less pres­sure to adapt in dynam­ic envir­on­ments where stag­na­tion can mean fall­ing behind. ²Red Queen hypo­thes­is. (2023, November 27). In Wikipedia. https://​en​.wiki​pe​dia​.org/​w​i​k​i​/​R​e​d​_​Q​u​e​e​n​_​h​y​p​o​t​h​e​sis ³Carroll, L. (2006). Through the look­ing-glass, and what Alice found there (R. D. Martin, Ed.). Penguin Classics. (Original work pub­lished 1871.)

Learn more: The Magical PR Question

How To Create a PR Strategy That Takes the Cake

A suc­cess­ful PR strategy should have three essen­tial com­pon­ents: ana­lys­is, guid­ing prin­ciple, and coher­ent actions:

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. ⁴Rumelt, 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 ⁵Rumelt, 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

Tips for Developing and Implementing an Effective PR Strategy

A help­ful approach to for­mu­late a robust PR strategy is to identi­fy a stu­pid major­ity and a smart minor­ity:

The Stupid Majority

From what the con­ver­sion the­ory teaches us, minor­it­ies tend to hold their opin­ions more firmly. This is reas­on­able since going against the major­ity comes at a high­er social cost. ⁶Silfwer, J. (2017, June 13). Conversion Theory — Disproportionate Minority Influence. Doctor Spin | The PR Blog. https://​doc​tor​spin​.net/​c​o​n​v​e​r​s​i​o​n​-​t​h​e​o​ry/

But some minor­it­ies have an addi­tion­al advantage:

Smart minor­ity = a minor­ity of today that will grow into a new major­ity of tomorrow.

In con­trast, some major­it­ies have an addi­tion­al disadvantage:

Stupid major­ity = a major­ity of today that will stead­ily decline into a minor­ity of tomorrow.

Identifying a stu­pid major­ity (and sid­ing with a smart minor­ity) will cla­ri­fy your core mes­sage and attract highly engaged minor­ity supporters.

Examples of Stupid Majorities

Stupid major­it­ies are to be found everywhere:

Now, here’s the 1,000,000 EUR question:

What’s a stu­pid major­ity in your industry?

Read also: The Stupid Majority PR Strategy

How to Evaluate and Adjust Your PR Strategy Over Time

It takes time for a new PR strategy to propag­ate through your eco­sys­tem of stake­hold­ers, influ­en­cers, and publics. 

Relationships are built on loy­alty, loy­alty is built on trust, and trust is built on atten­tion. It takes time.

Therefore, you shouldn’t strive to change your PR strategy for the sake of change itself. Only change your PR strategy if you’re sure it isn’t working.

How do you know the difference? 

Apart from the appar­ent lack of good res­ults, I find it help­ful to map out sev­er­al com­pet­it­ors and sum­mar­ise their PR efforts as 1‑page strategies. This exer­cise often demon­strates who wins and loses the war for atten­tion, trust, and loy­alty — right now.

PR Resource: More PR Strategies