Question: Develop a Public Relations Plan based on the company

Information about Razors Edge Company provided below. Be sure to find the correct objective(s), strategies, audiences, and themes. Once youve done that, create the general categories of tactics that will be used. If you like, you can fill in some of the details to those tactics using your own creative thinking. There is no need to worry about budgets or timeline. Format recommendation is given below, YOU DO NOT HAVE TO READ ALL OF IT

A typical PR plan has many parts, but it all starts with what some insiders refer to as the Upfront Section. It is here where you detail objectives, strategies, and other important things, like target audiences and themes, that will affect your implementation of later PR actions or tactics, basically your creative ideas. That part is simply called, The Tactics. Many gloss over of the Upfront to get to the exciting stuff: the actions and ideas The Tactics. Others spend ponderous amounts of time debating objectives and strategies and neglect The Tactics altogether. You need concentrated thinking on all aspects of a solid PR Plan. If you get the Objectives and Strategies right, it will make The Tactics flow that much more smoothly. Once youve covered the Upfront and Tactics sections, that last part is usually The Budget & Timeline, followed at the very end by a coda usually entitled, Next Steps. It should be noted that a written PR plan is not the same as what will be presented in a stand-up presentation. The plan outlined here are all about the written plan, and these are

just the basics. Once you understand these basics you can create variants. The stand up- presentation, that is, when you literally stand up in front of an audience or your customers in a room, requires an entirely different set of skills and techniques. For more information on how to create powerful presentations I suggest you visit the website www.boldpointnow.com for details and books, seminars, and courses on how to make your plan come to life and how to communicate with power. And we touch more upon this in our last two lessons. The PR Plans Upfront It all starts with the primary communications goal, generally referred to as the Objective. What is the definable goal of your plan? There is usually just one. This is the Objective. Its big picture stuff that can be measured, such as: We want to raise awareness 50 percent. Sell 1 million units in 12 months. To be the recognized leader in the market. To gain 10 market share points.

In PR, objectives are often a blend of business and communications objectives, but whenever possible look for an Objective that you can quantify, even if its just a percentage of growth in awareness. A Strategy, which comes after Objective, is how one is going to reach the Objective(s). These are military terms and so in keeping with that you can look at Strategies as the fronts of battle. Strategies are the categories of the battle plan, that is, the land, sea, and air attack plans, under which the later details will be revealed, that is, the Tactics of each. Strategies can also be intellectual stands or positionings, like lowest priced or service leader or the innovators. Under each Strategy, and you will have at least two to three Strategies, and you will eventually create a series of Tactics that will be deployed and make sense to that specific Strategy. So, for example, if one Strategy is Build Awareness, then all the tactical ideas dealing with building awareness will fall under this strategic section. In the Upfront section of your PR plan you also want to talk about your Audiences, which comes after Strategies.

There may be many audiences to choose from, but you want to break them out in as much detail as you can, and be as targeted as you can. The picture should be clear as to who you are going after, including the media, and should not be general. For example, you dont want to say in your plan: All men and women between the ages of 12 and 85. You want to say something very precise and targeted, such as: Women, 24 to 34 years of age, with post-college education, making over $50,000 per year. Detailing your target audiences can be complex, since your media is a tool to reach your end-user or customer, the target audience. Make sure you separate out customers from media in this section. When it comes to customers, you want to break out age, sex, income, education, and more. Paint a picture of your average target customer in words, but bullet them. The Strategies and resultant Tactics should zero-in on that profile customer, your Audiences. The next, and last, part of the Upfront section is the Theme, or themes lines, you will use to reach your audience and that will guide the tone of your PR tactics and ideas. This is where you can get creative, and creativity is important in PR. Maybe the Theme will be given to you, or maybe not. Nevertheless, all the materials you send out should have some kind of theme or message(s) running through them. Your headlines, quotes in press releases, brochures, and newsletters, should all be

trumpeting this single message, or positioning, much the same way an advertising message or slogan trumpets a company or products purpose. Again, the Theme(s) will run throughout all your Tactics. The reason you want a theme is so that when the media writes or covers your story they cannot help but get the point and relay that important theme/message in their stories about your product. If you dont have a focused message, or theme, then there is not a chance that the media will say what you want them to say in their stories.

The Tactics Weve now developed our Upfront Section and we are moving on to The Tactics of our plan. The Tactics are the real meat of the plan, where you show how you are going to generate publicity, awareness, and action. These are all the great and creative communications ideas we want to implement for our company or client. The Tactics are focused around the tools youve heard about, from press releases to press conferences to media alerts to social media to blogging. But Tactics need to be

structured to be effective in a plan. Lets take a closer look...but wait, heres a quick quiz to see if you can place the Objectives, Strategies and Tactics in the right place. Remember the first War in Iraq in 1991? There was one stated Objective to that war. What was it? There were two stated Strategies. What were they? Under each Strategy there were numerous military Tactics. What were they and under which Strategy would you place them? Its doubtful anyone remembers this, but here are the answers. Okay, before we get deep into Tactics, here are the Iraq War answers: Objective: Free Kuwait Strategies: Massive Force Build International Coalition Tactics Strategy #1: Massive Force Cruise Missile Strikes Special Operations Go Early Strategy #2: Build International Coalition UN Sanctions How many did you get right? Tactics and Actions Lets move out of the military world and back in to the world of communications and Public Relations.

With Tactics, one usually starts with packaging the product/company/service story. It is here where are all the details of how you package your story and the tools you use to set the communications foundation for that story. This may mean press kits, web site information centers, printed and online data sheets, white papers, event agendas, and so forth. But it will not include advertising. Remember, in Public Relations there is NO ADVERTISING ALLOWED (at least for what we are doing in this work). Advertising is left to the advertising agencies. Of course, there are gray areas between to the two. For example, if a big piece of your PR plan centers around an event, then you are allowed to promote that event with ads and posters and mailers. But, 90 percent of the time, all basic advertising is done by an ad agency, and not by a PR firm. The above stated items are the basic elements you need to package your story effectively to the outside world, specifically for media consumption. Once youve set the story foundation, using many of the tactical items illustrated above, you can now start doing Proactive Media Relations. Here are just some of the tactical tools you can use in this category of action. In detailed PR plans you will give specifics on each one of these actions. A good PR Plan can be very long, but when you present it to a group you have to distill it down to its essentials. This kind of distillation process becomes your presentation, and this requires an entirely different set of skills, which is discussed in other books, courses, and courses we offer.

You may want to give examples of headlines you expect to get from your actions. Its okay to put in mock ups of headlines as if they were real. The point is to show the story angles you are reaching for with each type of media. For example, business headline for business publications, health headlines for health publications, and so on. Every story can be merchandised in different ways to different sets of editors. Your plan should show how this works. Broadcast and electronic media demand experts and visuals for their stories. They have no words or headlines. So, if you are pitching television producers on the merits of your companys product or service (your pitch), you better have an expert spokesperson who is media savvy and media trained. Your company spokesperson has to deliver the message(s) in ten seconds or less. Thats about as long as any news bite or sound bite is these days. In any good PR plan the broadcast element is detailed out, that is, the shows are listed (such as television talk or news shows), the cities, and the story angles you will be pitching. This can get very creative, especially if you have show and tell items to present on-air, such as new gadgets or health products. You can also tie your experts appearances to local events, trade shows and book-signings. Of course, viewers can go to the company website for more information, too. The point is, in a PR plan you want to bring each tactic or action to life. You want to show in the plan and to your boss or customers how it will work in a simple, bulleted way. Do not use sentences at all, in fact, when presenting use one slide per idea/tactic, with basic details. If its a written presentation, use bullets and bolding of sections to make it easier to follow, scan, and read. In the slides below are more Proactive Media Relations tactics that should be worked into your plans. Use these tactics in all your future plans.

As you can see by the list of tactics above, Media Relations can go beyond traditional publicity tools. It can include newsletters, letters, books, annual reports and opinion pieces. Dont be afraid to explore the use of new tactics, whether in print, digital, video, web, or social media. But they should fit the strategies and the product or service you are trying to promote. Creating a coffee table book for a childrens toy product might not make sense strategically, since few children read coffee table books, but maybe a comic book is a better idea, or any online create it yourself animation book. Once youve created it, now you publicize it through the use of the media. Industry Jargon and Tech Talk Every industry has its own specialized language, media and way of doing business. The PR industry also has many specialties within it. Below is just a partial listing. When you create your PR plan you must be sensitive to the nuances of the industry you are communicate to. Talking to doctors is very different than talking to the entertainment community. Your plans have to reflect your market and its media.

The Brief: The Razors Edge Company The Razors Edge Company has, through ten years of research, developed a new mens shaving product that will revolutionize the way men shave. The companys first product, the new Ultra Razor, has five blades that continually re-sharpen after every shave. The device does away with the need to continually purchase new razors. The product has a patented system for rotating the blades (much like a miniature Ferris Wheel) and sharpens them each time a shaving stroke is made. The price point is $499.00. The company expects to sell 1 million units in the first year. The objective is to get the Ultra Razor product massive editorial coverage, both on television and in print. The company also thinks that another objective is to position it as a great gift item to high-wealth households, but also for savvy, Generation Y men. The strategies are to have events and write press releases using the theme, that, even though the Ultra Razor is expensive, its cheaper in the long run. The company wants to play up its patented system and the research that went behind it. The objective is to show that this is the best razor in the world. The company guarantees the product for life. It needs to be launched to the trade first (retailers) and then the public. The company needs help in knowing what audiences are right for the product and how to reach them. The great thing about the product is how it works. The theme is to

show how it works, while the strategy is to sell at least 1 million units in the first 12 months and to raise awareness high enough across the country to make that happen.