This document outlines 10 steps for creating a public relations (PR) strategy plan: 1) Review the client's mission statement, 2) Identify organizational strengths and weaknesses, 3) Analyze competitors, 4) List goals and how they will be measured, 5) Develop strategies to meet each goal, 6) Target personas in the audience, 7) Develop messaging, 8) Choose appropriate media, 9) Create a schedule, and 10) Establish a system to monitor results. The plan should clearly explain how the strategies will address client problems or prevent crises.

1. Planning a PR Strategy Plan
Some Steps for Completing Your Plan

2. Include Five Main Components
• What needs to be done?
• How will it get done?
• Who will do it?
• When will it be done?
• How will it be evaluated?
* Some clients will want to know about cost too!

3. Steps for Writing a PR Plan
• The following slides will walk you through
steps you can take to write your client’s plan.
Please note that you might skip some of these
steps, add some, change the order, etc. That’s
okay!

4. Step 1: Look at client’s mission
statement
• Your PR plan needs to match the client’s
mission.
• Start by familiarizing yourself with the values
of the organization (and the people the
organization serves).

5. Step 2: Identify organization strengths
and weaknesses
• Figure out what the organization does best
and what they need to do better. Be brutally
honest (but don’t necessarily show this
information to your client)!
• Think about ways you can leverage strengths
and minimize weaknesses.

6. Step 3: Analyze competitors
• Find out what your client’s competitors are
doing. Look at the areas in which they excel
and the areas in which they struggle.
• Think about how you can propose a plan that
will allow your client organization to set itself
apart.

7. Step 4: List goals
• Figure out what you want your client to
accomplish.
• Be clear about specific, achievable and
measurable goals.
– Note the difference between saying you want to
improve your public image and saying you want to
decrease customer complaints by 25%. The second
statement is specific and measurable. (You have to
decide if it’s achievable.)

8. Step 4: List goals (cont.)
• After you list your goals, think about the
following information for each one:
– What can you measure?
– What baseline can you measure against?
– How much time do you need to accomplish the
goal?

9. Step 5: Come up with strategies
• Once you know what goals you want to
achieve, you are ready to come up with
methods for meeting them. Those methods
are strategies.
• Think about the process or approach you will
use to meet each goal. That’s your strategy.

10. Step 6: Target your personas
• You should have one persona for each
segment of your target audience.
• Your strategies need to match the personas’
attitudes, values, emotions, needs, etc.
• Think about how you will need to massage
your strategies for each segment.

11. Step 7: Write your message
• Note how far into the process we are before
we begin to write.
• Now that you have a clear plan and process,
you can figure out exactly what you want to
say.
• This is the meat of your plan!

12. Step 8: Develop media strategy
• Think about how you are going to get those
messages to your audience. What type of
media will you use? Why?

13. Step 9: Create a schedule
• Figure out when you need to deliver your
messages.
• Note who is going to do what task at what
time.

14. Step 10: Figure out a system for
monitoring and measuring
• You want to know if your solutions are
working.
– If you created measurable goals and clear
strategies, you should find this task easy to do.
• Some people prefer to do this step
immediately after goals and strategies.

15. Easy, right?
• Those are the basics of a PR plan.
• Think about how you might pitch a plan to a
client. Remember that you will want to be
clear how this plan can solve a problem or
prevent a crisis.
• Note that a PR plan for after a crisis occurs is
pretty hard to do. You won’t have much time
to act. The PR plan needs to be in place first.

16. Writing the Plan
• Once you’ve gone through the steps listed in
this slides, you’re ready to decide what you
want to present to the client.
• Focus on what will be most persuasive and
usable to them. That’s what you want to
highlight.