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PR Planning - back to basics

Written by: Veronica Hannon

Article Overview: Clients always look for creative ideas but many relationships falter on the rocks of bad campaign planning. Veronica Hannon of Beyond Public Relations (www.beyondpublicrelations.com) examines how the basics of good PR planning will deliver happy clients and successful campaigns.

PR Planning - back to basics

It might sound like the boring part of PR but planning can have a huge impact on the health of your relationships with clients. I have recently met with two clients both of whom were working with big national consultancies but were unhappy with the relationship. When I asked about their concerns they mentioned that they never knew what their PR consultancy was going to be delivering to them and what targets had been set. One however did comment that their agency was never shy in saying that they were currently overservicing and needed to cut back on the amount of time spent on the account. Surprisingly, said the client, they never let me know when I was being underserviced. Not the best sign of a healthy relationship.

Some PROs shy away from plans and targets perhaps believing that they will set themselves up for a fall, or that you cannot give targets as you work to the journalists' agenda. But these are lame excuses - without structured plans you cannot measure the true effectiveness of the campaign and whether you have met your objectives. Crucially, expectations will never be met - or exceeded - and when it comes to budget reevaluation you will be lucky to argue the case.

In this industry we spend a lot of time talking about measurement, but perhaps it is putting the cart before the horse. If professional PR companies are not doing the basic planning we will never be able to effectively measure and clients will not be able to gauge whether they are getting the campaign they were initially promised.

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Re: Google No-Follow Issue? - [quote="MichelleJ":1856udcj][quote="TannyL":1856udcj]I agree GT. The basics never change, and if you master the basics the small changes will not alert you.[/quote:1856udcj] I agree it is important to focus on the basics, just keep doing them consistently and everything else will fall into place. MichelleJ[/quote:1856udcj] I also noticed that no matter which new program or service is released I always go back to the basics and "forget" about the new stuff, unless they really work.
Re: Google No-Follow Issue? - [quote="TannyL":1cre6app]I agree GT. The basics never change, and if you master the basics the small changes will not alert you.[/quote:1cre6app] I agree it is important to focus on the basics, just keep doing them consistently and everything else will fall into place. MichelleJ
Re: Google No-Follow Issue? - I agree GT. The basics never change, and if you master the basics the small changes will not alert you.
Re: Search Engine Optimization - I personally would never pay someone to SEO my site. It's actually very easy to do yourself, provided you know the basics. The best way is to learn from a credible source who has experience and results to back up their SEO implementation. There are a couple of good sources that I know of that know the facts when it comes to SEO. If you're interested in knowing who or would like some resources just let me know. Alan
Re: How do you make the most of your day? - Planning, To Do lists, and deadlines all help me. Also being self critical of my own time management helps me raise the bar. I still check email too often though.


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