As 2020 ends, many of us working in public relations and marketing are in the process of planning for the new year. Given this, I thought it would be helpful to revisit best practices around the analysis of past results and how to best plan for the future.

Look in the rearview mirror

One good way to begin the planning process is with analysis of past activity and results. We hold ourselves to high standards and this means we must have a good understanding of the outcome of our work. We often achieve strong results analysis by examining key performance indicators including:

• The number of positive articles generated. Often we’ll quantify the numbers of articles by domain authority or by publications we deem to be top tier.
• The number of articles per campaign or announcement. Knowing which campaigns or announcements performed well can be helpful as you look ahead and consider future activity.
• The quality of the articles. We’ll ascertain this by looking at message pull-through or assigning and measuring other criteria such as the number of quotes included from an executive.
• Growth rates. Many of our client engagements span years and, given our bias for continuous improvement, we strive to drive year-over-year growth in both coverage quality and quantity. Our account leaders are responsible for driving and tracking these results.

The bottom line is that as you begin planning you should have answers to the following questions:

• What worked in the past? Why did it work?
• How can we build on our success?
• What campaigns were less successful and what did we learn from them?
• What should we discontinue in the coming year?

Outline goals and objectives

To establish clear and measurable goals or objectives, consider this question that comes from my time working with Pam Edstrom, one of the cofounders of Waggener Edstrom, now WE Communications. Pam was known for asking: “What business problem are we trying to solve?” It is a simple, but important question to consider. You must have a clear sense of what you’re trying to achieve and how it will help the business.

Identify key audiences

Who are you trying to reach? A good plan will include information about the key audiences and the messages that they need to hear and understand. Please remember not all stakeholders have the same needs. They often have unique desires surrounding the promises that they want to see businesses make and keep. For more on this topic, I recommend checking out my blog “Understanding Trust and Why it Matters.”

Think critically

As part of the process, it’s also imperative to take a step back to think critically about the situation in which the company is operating in, especially in relation to the world, industry, and competitors as well as the perceptions of customers, partners and other key stakeholders.

Consider this example that I recently came across in an article about strategic planning in the Harvard Business Review. In it, Deanna Mulligan, the former CEO of the Guardian, recounts her experience at the helm of the company during Hurricane Sandy and how it further shaped her propensity for planning.

Specifically, Mulligan wrote that the experience taught her to “start thinking even longer-term: What were all the things that could go wrong, and how could we protect ourselves from them? Also, what could go right if we were poised to seize the opportunities presented?”

These are excellent questions that PR and marketing practitioners should ask themselves as they think critically about their specific objectives and begin planning to achieve them.

Strategies & tactics

The next part of a strong plan should outline the strategies and tactics that the team will employ to achieve the objectives. Many people confuse these terms. To explain the difference, I like to use the following military analogy.

In the Civil War, the Union had a strategy to control the Mississippi River. The military leaders believed if they could do this, they would have a better chance of achieving their goal of winning the war and preserving the union. To successfully implement this strategy, however, there were many specific and distinct steps that had to be taken. These smaller steps were the tactics that enabled them to implement the strategy.

In public relations, a strategy might be, for instance, to place five op-eds on a particular topic. The tactics would include outlining the article, gathering the proof points to support key claims, drafting the article, circulating it for approval, sharing it with the editorial board, etc. The individual steps the team will take are the tactics. A good plan will outline these in a sufficient manner.

Finally, it is important to consider the probability of success when formulating strategies. You don’t want to outline strategies with a low probability of success or ones that will require heroic action to achieve. Strategies need to be realistic and achievable.

Measuring success

How will we know we were successful in achieving our objectives? It is helpful to have a clear vision and alignment around how you’ll ascertain the achievement of your goals. Some of our clients correlate PR with sales. This is not always easy to do, but with the correct processes in place, it is possible to look at the relation between the volume of press coverage and other things such as the volume of traffic to the website or product sales, for instance. Many of our clients have seen that a year-over-year increase in press coverage correlates with an increase in revenue. Other factors have certainly influenced revenue, but there is a correlation that a statistician could help identify.

I hope this serves as a helpful reminder as you take stock of 2020 and think ahead to 2021.