PR Plan Content Essentials
The world of public relations is constantly shifting and evolving, what used to be templated press releases distributed to every email address relating to a news outlet, has turned into a variety of strategies and efforts.
Nowadays, public relations is more closely related to marketing than ever, as the two work better together than alone. They are able to amplify brand messages and make each strategy more effective when they’re used alongside each other, instead of on their own.
A great PR campaign is going to have press releases, articles, and press mentions, which all serve different purposes. All three of these should be combined in a campaign to achieve the best results.
Press Releases
A press release is a statement that brand issues to media outlets to announce a certain event, situation, achievement, milestone, or award. These pieces of content should answer the main questions of who, what, when, where, and why, along with a quote from a company insider, and should include the basic contact information for the company.
A press release is a great tool that companies can utilize whenever they’ve done something that’s newsworthy and should inform the public. It’s also great for creating more buzz around a specific event because they’re relatively simple to create and send out. However, they’re only used as promotional tools, which means they can’t be used as a trust-building tool that engages the target audience.
Articles
Articles, more specifically, bylined articles place the company and its executive as a thought leader in the industry, especially when the content shares educational or valuable information with the target audience. This type of high-quality content can introduce a company’s expertise to a bigger audience as well as build trust with the existing one.
On the other hand, bylined articles can’t be used as promotional content, as their main goal is to reach target audiences and share valuable and engaging information with these people – not to promote the company or its products and services. Additionally, this type of content is created by the company’s executives, and not by someone outside the company.
Mentions
Press mentions are different from press releases, as these are pieces of content where the company is mentioned in them. This can be a quote from someone inside the company, that’s then included in an article of an outlet that reaches the target audience. Or, it can be an article that describes something that the company has been doing as an example, from the journalist’s perspective. The main goal of mentions is that they talk about the company and are published in reputable outlets.
These press mentions are a great way to improve a company’s trust and validation, as it comes from third parties, however, mentions don’t work on their own. They have to be published in relevant and reputable outlets and be sourced from content by the brand that’s already of high-quality.
