The Surround Message PR Strategy: Make the Box Smaller To Win

The sur­round mes­sage PR strategy is one of my favour­ite PR strategies.

I was in Italy in the middle of summer.

I was meet­ing up with an Italian fash­ion brand. They had thought adding some “PR and digit­al mar­ket­ing” would be great for their new col­lec­tion launch. 

The prob­lem was that the launch was less than a week away. I wanted to help them get the word out, but how?

Let’s dive right in:

A PR Strategy for When You’re Out of Options

The Italian-fash­ioned brand had brought me on board late in the pro­cess. The cam­paign was less than two weeks away. No PR and no digit­al activ­a­tions were prepared.

The only thing that stuck with me was a single item in the col­lec­tion — an icon­ic hand­bag being re-launched.

Since there was­n’t enough time to cre­ate fancy cam­paigns, I decided to stick with the handbag.

So, I pro­posed anoth­er strategy:

“In all digit­al chan­nels at your dis­pos­al, you won’t talk about any­thing except for your icon­ic hand­bag for four con­sec­ut­ive weeks. No talk­ing about the rest of the col­lec­tion, okay?”

Not a single tweet, not a single post on Instagram, not a single press release, not a single inter­view with the media, not a single blog post, not a single Facebook update, not a single live event, not a single influ­en­cer activ­a­tion, not a single email list send-out, abso­lutely noth­ing went live dur­ing these four weeks unless it was about the product.

The reg­u­lar mar­ket­ing cal­en­dar had to be wiped clean, and for four weeks, the mar­ket­ing team had to come up with whatever — as long as it was only about the product. We even added product mes­saging to every employ­ee’s email signature. 

We put all reg­u­lar brand mes­sages on hold, which took quite some con­vin­cing on my part, until the end of those four weeks.

The strategy worked like a charm. The mes­sage got through to their com­munity without adding any spe­cif­ic online cam­paign activ­it­ies, and people star­ted talk­ing and shar­ing about the brand’s icon­ic product again. 

I’ve since tried this approach many times with much suc­cess, call­ing it the sur­round mes­sage PR strategy.

The Art of Relevant Variation

“But won’t people get sick and tired of repeatedly being exposed to the same mes­sage? And in every chan­nel, no less? I know I would be.”

Yes and no.

Bombarding the email list with the same mes­sage repeatedly (spray-and-pray) would­n’t work.

However, the Italian fash­ion brand was­n’t send­ing out the same tweet five times a day for four weeks; it always had dif­fer­ent types of updates with dif­fer­ent images, copy, and call-to-actions. The only thing these updates had in com­mon was that they all dis­cussed re-launch­ing their icon­ic product.

Putting togeth­er many vari­ations of the Surround PR Message can be a cre­at­ive chal­lenge, espe­cially if the brand has­n’t tried this strategy before. But I’ve also seen how adding these con­straints can spark cre­ativ­ity.

The Surround Message PR Strategy: A Tight Ship

It’s not as if every per­son in a brand’s online com­munity is exposed to every brand update. Most online cam­paigns end before most of the com­munity has even seen them.

Only a tiny per­cent­age of a brand’s online com­munity is exposed to single updates. 

As it turns out, most online cam­paigns are too short:

Due to algorithms and social graphs, a brand com­munity often has zero chance to keep up before the brand decides to talk about some­thing else — or sev­er­al things at once.

The real chal­lenge, there­fore, was to stop the brand from talk­ing about the things they, accord­ing to the strategy, should­n’t be talk­ing about.

The prob­lem­at­ic aspect of this strategy is being dis­cip­lined enough to go dark on everything but the top­ic you want to push. Communicators like to com­mu­nic­ate, and some­times over-com­mu­nic­a­tion can be a problem.

The Surround Message PR Workshop

I’ve tried the sur­round PR strategy many times for dif­fer­ent brands. To get star­ted, I like to run a sur­round mes­sage PR work­shop. It sounds fancy, but it’s a coördin­ated brain­storm to find some­thing spe­cial with­in a more extens­ive campaign.

It’s not help­ful to think out­side the box in com­mu­nic­a­tion — some­times, you must make that box incred­ibly small instead.

Focusing on one sur­round mes­sage for a set peri­od is closely related to using con­tent themes in your con­tent strategy. Getting every­one onboard with the sur­round mes­sage PR strategy can be chal­len­ging, but the res­ults make it worth it. 

PR Resource: The 1‑Page Strategy

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

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How to Write a 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. The 1‑Page PR Strategy focuses on how to win. ¹Rumelt, 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 ²Rumelt, R. P. (2011). Good Strategy, Bad Strategy: The Difference and Why It Matters. Crown Business.

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. 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

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PR Resource: How To Identify a Good PR Strategy

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The Magical PR Strategy Question

Your PR strategy should answer one simple question:

• Does this strategy provide a guid­ing prin­ciple for how your organ­isa­tion should defeat com­pet­it­ors in the battle for atten­tion, trust, and support?

Whenever your PR strategy fails to answer this ques­tion, it also fails to provide a roadmap to success.

“Competitiveness is derived from per­man­ent infra­struc­tur­al char­ac­ter­ist­ics of organ­iz­a­tion­al design, rather than just rely­ing on tem­por­ary stra­tegic assets.”
Source: Strategic Change ³Connor, 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

Learn more: The Magical PR Strategy Question

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PR Resource: More PR Strategies

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Doctor Spin’s PR School: Free Strategy PR Course

Unlock the power of stra­tegic pub­lic rela­tions with this free Strategy PR Course. Elevate your skills and boost your career today.

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

Public Relations Strategies

• The Thought Leadership PR Strategy: Rule Your Domain
• The Extra Mile PR Strategy: Wow Your Customers
• The Hidden Arena PR Strategy: Mobilising Change Agents
• The Superhero Solution PR Strategy: Be the Obvious Answer
• The Easy Street PR Strategy: Keep It Simple To Win
• The Surround Message PR Strategy: Make the Box Smaller
• The Stupid Majority PR Strategy: How Underdogs Dominate
• The Rebel Yell PR Strategy: Picking a Fight To Get Recognised
• The Wisdom Whisperer PR Strategy: Educate Your Industry
• The Deep Content PR Strategy: Win By Going Deeper
• The Evergreen Content PR Strategy: Forever Is a Long Time
• The Content Themes PR Strategy: Focused Birds Gets Worms
• The Honeymoon Outreach PR Strategy: Influencer Relations 2.0
• The Inbound Shift PR Strategy: The Beauty From Within

“The under­ly­ing prin­ciples of strategy are endur­ing, regard­less of tech­no­logy or the pace of change.”
— Michael Porter

Learn more: All Free PR Courses

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