It might sound and feel daunting, but it is absolutely possible to create and implement your own PR plan. Be aware that it’s not easy and will take a lot of time and energy but, when done right, you will greatly benefit from it in the long run. To help you get started successfully, we have outlined three important steps to take when you’re drawing up your company’s campaign.

Set Clear Goals

Why do you want to do PR? What do you want to achieve with it? By answering these questions, you will get a clear idea in which direction to move and whom to address with your campaign. To give you an idea, here are some common things businesspeople hope to get out of a PR campaign.

A goal many companies share is the desire to build customer or investor awareness. By getting the word out about what you offer, you spark people’s interest and are able to create demand for your brand and attract potential investors who will help your company grow. Boosting a brand’s image is also something many people want to achieve via PR. This is important because it leads to more trust in your name and potentially increased sales.

Choose a Target Audience

By deciding what you want to achieve with PR you make it possible to choose a target audience and a message you want to convey to them. Be very clear when you define this group because it will help you know where to find them and how to address them later on.

Take the time to understand who exactly your target audience is. While an age group, country of origin and annual income are interesting metrics, they tell you too little about the person behind these facts and figures. Do your homework and discover exactly what makes them click, what they are struggling with and how you can best address this need.

Depending on whom you will be speaking to, your message will change as well as the tools and outlets you use to communicate it. For example, if you are talking to sales managers of multinational companies, your approach will likely be very different than if your main market is college students and recent graduates.

Choose Your Approach

Once you have a very clear idea of whom you want to reach, you can start getting more concrete with details of your campaign. Because there are so many things you can do to get the word out about your company, it can feel a bit overwhelming to try to choose which ones are best suited for you.

Most companies decide to start with a classic approach. They create news releases and news stories which they submit to publications in which they would like to be featured. Knowing your audience will help you here because you will easily be able to choose which newspapers, magazines and websites to which to pitch and which ones to skip.

Social media is another key ingredient to a modern PR strategy. Again, with the countless available channels, it can be hard to select the ones that are right for you. Look at the group of people you are trying to reach. Where do they spend their time? For starters, focus only on one or two of these platforms. If you are doing all the social media work yourself, you will want to limit the number of channels you use so you don’t get overwhelmed. Remember, it’s better to do only one well than doing them all half-heartedly.

Content marketing can also help you build credibility and trust in your field. Again, depending on your market and product, different types of content will be best suited to you. Maybe a regularly updated blog can best draw in your followers? Or would YouTube videos help potential customers better understand your product and let them use it more effectively? There are just as many different types of content you can create as there are ways to promote it. By knowing how your audience likes to get information and to what they respond best, you can cater to them in a way that touches them and helps build a relationship of trust.

With the countless possibilities to fashion your PR campaign, it’s important to remember to choose carefully which approach will work best for your product or service. Just because one approach worked for a competitor, doesn’t mean it’s right for you. To build a solid brand, create an atmosphere of trust and be easily recognized, you should embrace a PR style that’s as unique as your company is.