PR Insights

Have you ever wondered how organizations maintain their reputation in the face of adversity? The answer often lies in their ability to manage crises effectively through a well-structured crisis communication plan. Such plans are essential in today’s fast-paced and information-rich environment, where a single negative event can escalate into a full-blown PR crisis if handled incorrectly. But what exactly is a crisis communication plan, and why is it so crucial for organizations?

What Is a Crisis Communication Plan?

A crisis communication plan is a detailed strategy specifying an organization’s approach to communicate with its stakeholders during a crisis. It includes detailed procedures and guidelines for the timely and effective dissemination of information to minimize damage. This simple plan is an integral part of broader crisis management efforts, ensuring that all communications are consistent, accurate, and strategically aligned with the organization’s core values and objectives.

Key Elements of a Crisis Communication Plan

The vital elements of a crisis communication plan typically include the identification of key spokespersons, communication channels, stakeholder mapping, messaging guidelines, and monitoring and evaluation processes. These minor yet vital components ensure that an organization can respond quickly and efficiently, maintaining control over the narrative during a PR crisis.

The Importance of a Crisis Communication Plan

In today’s rapidly evolving digital landscape, where a single incident can escalate into a full-blown crisis within hours, the need for a well-structured crisis communication plan has never been more critical. Such a plan serves as a blueprint for navigating through turbulent times and as a tool for safeguarding an organization’s reputation, maintaining stakeholder trust, and ensuring operational resilience. So, here’s why having a robust crisis communication plan is important:

Preparedness: Having a crisis communication plan ensures organizations are prepared to handle unexpected events. Outlining specific actions and protocols guides the crisis management team in addressing the situation. This minimizes the time taken to respond, ensuring that the organization can quickly communicate with stakeholders, manage the flow of information, and address the crisis effectively, thereby maintaining control over the narrative and reducing the potential for chaos.

Consistency: A crisis communication plan helps maintain message consistency across all platforms and stakeholders, preventing misinformation and confusion. Consistency in messaging is crucial for ensuring that all stakeholders, from employees to the public, receive the same information. This helps reinforce the company’s credibility during a crisis. By having a predefined strategy, organizations can avoid contradictory statements that could exacerbate the situation and lead to a loss of trust.

Reputation Management: Effectively managing a PR crisis can protect and even enhance an organization’s reputation in the long term. A well-executed plan demonstrates an organization’s responsiveness, transparency, and responsibility. Such proactive management can transform a damaging situation into an opportunity to showcase the company’s values and commitment to its stakeholders, preserving and potentially enhancing its public image and stakeholder trust.

Stakeholder Trust: Transparent and timely communication builds trust with stakeholders, showing commitment to accountability. A crisis communication plan ensures that organizations communicate effectively with stakeholders during critical times, maintaining an open line of communication. This transparency during a crisis demonstrates the organization’s dedication to honesty, fostering trust that can preserve stakeholder loyalty and confidence through turbulent periods.

Mitigating Financial Impact: A swift and effective response can minimize the financial repercussions of a crisis. An effective crisis communication plan is vital in managing the narrative and minimizing panic, which can help stabilize the market’s response. By quickly addressing the concerns of potential customers, investors, and partners, organizations can prevent a significant loss of revenue, safeguarding the financial stability and prospects of the overall business.

Legal Compliance: Ensures that communications during a crisis comply with legal and regulatory requirements. A comprehensive crisis communication plan includes guidelines to ensure that all communications align with legal obligations, helping avoid potential legal ramifications. Adhering to these regulations protects the organization from legal jeopardy and reinforces its commitment to ethical standards, further strengthening stakeholder trust.

Operational Continuity: Helps maintain operational continuity by outlining communication priorities and responsibilities. Amid a crisis, it’s essential to keep the business running. A crisis communication plan delineates clear roles and communication lines, ensuring that key operations continue with minimal disruption. This continuity is critical for sustaining the delivery of services or products, thereby preserving customer trust and the organization’s operational viability.

Employee Morale: Protects employee morale and engagement by providing clear communication and direction. During a crisis, employees look to their leaders for guidance and reassurance. A well-defined crisis communication plan ensures that internal communications are handled carefully, keeping employees informed and engaged. This transparency helps maintain a positive environment, bolstering employee confidence in the organization’s management and their own job security.

Customer Retention: Effective communication can help retain customers by demonstrating reliability and responsibility. In the face of a crisis, customers appreciate timely and honest communication about how it impacts them and what is being done to address it. A crisis communication plan that includes customer-focused communication strategies can strengthen customer relationships, demonstrating the organization’s commitment to their well-being.

Competitive Advantage: Organizations with robust crisis communications plans can recover more quickly, gaining a competitive advantage. The ability to navigate a crisis effectively mitigates immediate damages and positions the organization as reliable and resilient. This resilience can be a significant differentiator, attracting customers and partners who value stability and responsibility, thus providing a competitive edge over those slower to respond or recover.

Media Relations: Manages media relations effectively, controlling the narrative and minimizing negative exposure. A strategic plan includes protocols for engaging with the media, ensuring the organization can swiftly provide accurate and coherent information. This control over the narrative helps prevent the spread of misinformation and allows the organization to shape public perception, reducing the potential for reputational damage from sensationalized or inaccurate reporting.

Public Safety: In public safety crises, timely and accurate information can prevent harm. A crisis communication plan that prioritizes the strategic dissemination of critical information to the public can play an important role in safeguarding the community. By providing clear instructions and timely updates, organizations can help minimize panic and confusion, facilitating a more effective and coordinated response to the crisis and underscoring their strong commitment to public welfare.

Global Reach: For organizations with a presence worldwide, it ensures that messages are appropriately tailored for different regions. A strategic crisis communication plan accounts for cultural and linguistic differences, ensuring that communications are effective and sensitive to the needs of diverse audiences. This global approach enhances the effectiveness of the crisis response and reinforces the organization’s reputation as an inclusive and culturally aware entity.

Social Media Management: It addresses the challenges of social media, where information spreads rapidly, by providing guidelines for online communication. In today’s digital age, a crisis communication plan must include strategies for managing social media narratives. By monitoring and engaging on social media platforms, organizations can correct misinformation, address concerns, and maintain a positive presence, effectively leveraging these channels to support their efforts.

Learning and Improvement: Post-crisis analysis helps refine the crisis communication plan, ensuring better preparedness for future crises. A thorough review of the crisis response allows organizations to recognize strengths and areas for improvement. This continuous improvement process is essential for adapting to new challenges and evolving crisis management strategies, ensuring the organization remains well-equipped to handle future crises more efficiently.

Steps for Developing a Crisis Communication Plan

Developing a crisis communication plan involves several key steps:

Step 1: Form a Crisis Communication Team

The initial step in developing a crisis communication plan involves assembling a dedicated team responsible for all communications during a crisis. This team should include members from various departments, such as PR, legal, HR, and operations. Each member should have a clear role with a designated leader to ensure cohesive and coordinated crisis communications. The team’s diversity will bring different perspectives and expertise essential for comprehensive crisis management.

Step 2: Conduct a Risk Assessment

After forming a team, conduct a thorough risk assessment to identify potential crises that could impact the organization. This involves analyzing internal and external threats, ranging from natural disasters and technological failures to financial scandals and social media backlashes. Understanding the types of crises the organization might face enables the team to anticipate and prepare for various scenarios, making this step a cornerstone of effective crisis management.

Step 3: Perform a Stakeholder Analysis

Identifying and understanding the needs and perceptions of stakeholders are vital. Stakeholders include employees, customers, investors, partners, and the community. Each group may have different concerns. A detailed analysis ensures that the crisis communication plan addresses the needs of all relevant parties, facilitating targeted and effective communication strategies.

Step 4: Develop Key Messages

Developing key messages for various crisis scenarios is essential to the planning process. These messages should be clear, concise, and adaptable to the specifics of each crisis, ensuring consistency across all communications. Key messages should convey transparency and commitment to resolving the situation and upholding the organization’s reputation and values during a PR crisis.

Step 5: Train Spokespersons

Designated spokespersons are the organization’s voice during a crisis. Properly training these individuals on how to communicate effectively under pressure is critical. They should be well-versed in the key messages, able to handle tough questions, and able to maintain composure in the face of scrutiny. Effective spokesperson training enhances the credibility and effectiveness of crisis communications.

Step 6: Select Communication Channels

Choosing the right communication channels is important for reaching stakeholders. This includes traditional media, social media, email, and internal communication systems. The selection should be based on where stakeholders are most likely to seek information during a crisis. The right mix of channels ensures that the organization can disseminate information quickly and efficiently.

Step 7: Conduct Simulations and Testing

Simulations and testing are vital for assessing the crisis communication plan’s effectiveness. Conducting drills based on various scenarios allows the crisis communication team to practice their roles, refine the communication strategies, and identify any gaps in the plan. Regular testing ensures that the team members are always prepared and that the plan remains highly effective and relevant.

Step 8: Review and Update the Plan Regularly

The final step in developing a crisis communication plan is to stay current. This involves regularly reviewing and revising the plan to reflect new threats, lessons learned from past crises, and changes in the organization or its environment. An up-to-date plan is essential for maintaining an agile and responsive crisis management strategy, ensuring preparedness for any future events.

Why Hire a PR Agency?

Hiring a PR agency, especially one specializing in crisis management, can provide several benefits. They bring expertise, offering strategic guidance and execution that can significantly improve an organization’s ability to navigate a PR crisis. Their understanding of media relations, stakeholder engagement, and effective messaging can be invaluable in protecting an organization’s reputation.

To conclude, the importance of a crisis communication plan cannot be overstated. In an era where information spreads like wildfire, being prepared to manage a PR crisis effectively is essential. Organizations must recognize the value of these plans and invest the necessary resources into developing and maintaining them. By doing so, they can protect their reputation, maintain stakeholder trust, mitigate potential damages, and ensure long-term success in a competitive landscape.

Is your organization prepared to handle a PR crisis? Avaans Media, with its 100% executive-level team, provides exceptional boutique PR services for emerging industries and hyper-growth companies. Our expertise in crisis management and crisis communications can help you steer even the toughest situations, protecting and enhancing your reputation. So, why wait? Contact us today to ensure your organization is prepared for whatever challenges lie ahead.

We’re living in a post-ChatGPT world. One place where we’re seeing a lot of discussion is around content. So what does AI mean for content marketing and content creators? The discussions I’m having with colleagues and clients are two-fold. First, what will AI mean for owned content like blogs? And second, how do search engines using AI affect SEO? In short, AI won’t drive out innovative ideas, or interesting content, and it’s certainly not currently an SEO threat to quality content.

3.5.2024 Update

Once again, Google’s Core update isn’t explicitly banning AI content, in fact, Google seems to be going out of their way to NOT ban AI content. But it is clarifying the signals that they consider spammy in the latest update. Specifically: “Scaled Content Abuse.” Google saying that websites posting hundreds of articles a day aren’t contributing anything to the conversation. Google doesn’t care HOW you create valuable content, it cares that there IS valuable content. It isn’t “just” AI content their flagging, either. Here’s their update:

  • Using generative AI tools or other similar tools to generate many pages without adding value for users
  • Scraping feeds, search results, or other content to generate many pages (including through automated transformations like synonymizing, translating, or other obfuscation techniques), where little value is provided to users
  • Stitching or combining content from different web pages without adding value
  • Creating multiple sites with the intent of hiding the scaled nature of the content
  • Creating many pages where the content makes little or no sense to a reader but contains search keywords

Stay Focused on Quality Content

From an SEO and digital PR perspective, it’s not as straightforward as “Google is penalizing AI content” because there’s no signal that they are explicitly targeting AI content. But a lot of ChatGPT content is iterative or not very insightful and, sometimes, flat-out false.

I’ve been testing searches out on Bing, Google, and other AI search engines, and my observations are consistent with Google’s long-touted philosophy for content that drives dividends. Google has long said that it will prioritize content that is “helpful, reliable, and people-first.

Google knows the internet needs no more “stuff,” and it wants people searching to find genuinely helpful content. If you’re a reader and you’ve tested out ChatGPT content, you’ve probably noticed it’s not all that insightful. That’s because, for all the talk of a sentient AI, it is not actually sentient. My Dad, who worked at IBM, used to say “junk in, junk out” about computers, which is so true about AI. And since there is a lot of junk content, there will always be a lot of junk AI content. The world’s greatest thinkers aren’t teaching AI, because there aren’t enough of them to teach AI at the scale currently necessary. Most AI-generated content would not (now) be categorized as quality. Could that change? Sure.

“I use it, but I edit it,” 

Well, that will undoubtedly help. Be sure to fact-check. Until about a year ago, I was testing long-form writing with a well-known AI content engine. I once had a blog post with a completely made-up source, including an author, a book, and a quote. It was fascinating but fake. Plus, my human content team generates better content that performs way better in search, so using AI didn’t pay off in my case, even for SEO content.

I know lots of people using ChatGPT for their blog posts. I can only imagine the rate at which this stuff is going up on the internet. But great content, like the world’s greatest thinkers, is rare, and there’s only room in every search for a #1 position – and it’s extremely unlikely that AI-generated content will surpass everything else out there anytime soon. In short, you CAN use ChatGPT to write a blog post, but I won’t recommend it.

3.7.2024 Update: 

Google’s Core Update on March 5, 2024 makes it abundantly clear that Google wants person-first “helpful” content. And it’s evaluating content for quality:

  • Does the content present information in a way that makes you want to trust it, such as clear sourcing, evidence of the expertise involved, background about the author or the site that publishes it, such as through links to an author page or a site’s About page?
  • If someone researched the site producing the content, would they come away with an impression that it is well-trusted or widely-recognized as an authority on its topic?
  • Is this content written or reviewed by an expert or enthusiast who demonstrably knows the topic well?
  • Does the content have any easily-verified factual errors?

AI-Generated Content for Thought Leadership

The more technical or expert content, the less likely these generative engines can create value.

Plus, the entire point of creating thought leadership content is to provide your insights – and that’s something ChatGPT can’t do. Only you can provide your ideas and perspectives. As a leader, you’ve spent so much time becoming an expert; why would you threaten that reputation to save 30 minutes?

Repeatedly, automation has let me down. That’s why the content on this site with my name is written by me. The only person who writes my content is me. Now, do I think executive ghostwriters are valuable? You bet I do, but ghostwriters take the time to learn an executive’s voice, and adhere to the point of view, so that’s very different from using AI to create a “thought leadership” piece. But regarding my reputation, there is a clear delineation on this blog of my content and content written by my (human) content team, and that’s because, as an entrepreneur, my reputation is valuable, and I bet yours is too.

Is creating quality content difficult? Yes. Does quality content pay off? Yes. I believe actual thought leadership content, like this article, will increase in value, while ChatGPT content will decrease in value. So since creating content is an investment, why not invest in improving returns?

Where Generative AI is Useful for Content

Is AI-generated content useless? No. But it’s essential to consider the context.

ChatGPT and content platforms like Jasper can be most helpful in triggering ideas. ChatGPT is a pretty good communicator and excellent for creating outlines. I recently used ChatGPT to create a book outline, which triggered some ideas. Ultimately, I’ll probably view those suggestions much like my first drafts – part of the process but distanced from the result.

I also think ChatGPT can be useful in creating questions that create many results. Testing your questions on ChatGPT will give you a sense of the content that’s out there on the web and the depth of that content and help you decide if you want to add to that body of thought or not.

In conclusion

Like a calculator, or Excel, using AI will make creating content smoother and faster, but it won’t be a substitute for creativity or critical thinking for content. If you’re writing to improve your reputation, increase awareness, or improve SEO, there isn’t much reason to use ChatGPT to create content right now.

Can you operate in a place where you don’t have a corporate reputation but still sell products? Absolutely. We see companies like that selling products on Amazon all the time. They’re usually the cheapest and accompanied by less-than-credible reviews. Companies like this might sell luxury fakes at the farmer’s market. If you look at these companies, you will find dubious backgrounds or thin reputations. And yet, many of those companies are not trying to change that. This article is not for those companies. This article is for ambitious brands who want to be the premier brand in their category. If you are an ambitious company – how important is company reputation? Investors care about a corporate reputation. They care a lot – and investors dig deeper and look for signals of success when there is economic uncertainty or capital is constrained. So what do investors look for when they consider a company’s reputation?

 

What Are The Benefits of a Positive Corporate Reputation

 

Brand Loyalty

My Dad worked for IBM for many years – and during that time, there was a saying, “No one ever got fired for hiring IBM.” IBM really set the standard for B2B Tech PR. That is a reputation goal. Having that kind of brand trust is invaluable. According to investors, brand loyalty is the number one benefit of a positive reputation.
Consumers see product or service reviews as the #1 type of content most effectively enhancing a company’s corporate reputation. Consumers know there’s no way to run from a bad product, and they also know that people love to crow about a good product – it makes people feel “in the know.” And customers eat up content that confirms their ideas about a particular product and brand, so there is good reason for media outlets and journalists to create this type of content.

Another reason customers love to see your product in the news is that it reconfirms their choices. It appeals to their ego and triggers their confirmation bias. This is especially when the person or brand confirming their choice is one they admire or respect. This is why influencer relations and media relations are two of the most powerful arsenals in your reputation management toolbox.

Investors also noted that a positive corporate reputation positively impacts crisis management as well. Brand trust is also a powerful tool during a crisis. When you have a PR crisis, the loyalty of your customers and their trust in your response will ultimately decide its impact. If customers aren’t buying it, that’s an indication of trust, and it means you’ll have to earn back their loyalty. Securing and maintaining trust is increasingly difficult in our media-savvy and highly volatile world. And it’s true – it is far easier to lose trust than to gain it. But that’s the reason why reputation management and PR are so important to growing companies. What type of content do you believe is most effective in enhancing a company’s corporate reputation?USC Annenberg Global Communication Report

Employee Moral and Retention.

Coming in at #3 was employee morale and retention. Top tier employees want to feel good about where they work, and they don’t want their own personal reputations sullied by bad actors. Great media coverage, from CEO thought leadership to statements about important issues, sends signals to employees that their employers are engaged with the world around them.

It’s not just that  – positive media coverage also excites ambitious employees for another reason: they think they may have a chance to improve their reputations through media opportunities. That could be anything from appearing in a brand video to being interviewed about a new product.

The more employees feel proud of where they work, the more likely they are to be committed to the company and its mission.

USC Annenberg Global Communications Report 2023 - What type of content do you believe is most effective in enhancing your current company’s corporate reputation for employees?
USC Annenberg Global Communication Report

Product Sales

Why would investors consider product sales last? Because sales are something that can be changed reasonably easily with the right investment. Employee morale and stock performance are harder to change; those two are not nimble. Plus, a good corporate reputation might not have a direct line to the purchasing cycle, but trusted companies do better in sales, can charge more, and have longer lifespans than untrusted companies and brands. So if your goal is increased revenue, trust needs to be one of your most critical strategies.

 

Purpose Driven and ESG – Where Do We Stand Today?

During the pandemic, there were some fascinating corporate shifts in purpose, value-driven messaging and sustainability, and it lead to all-time highs of customer trust in companies. People were looking to companies for the moral guidance that was missing from established sources, the CDC, the FDA. Everyone seemed to be ham-fisted, and the only ones communicating clearly were companies. Besides the fact that this underscores the importance of solid communication, it was also a new era in purpose-driven PR. But today, we’re seeing a bit of public backlash and businesses are wondering whether they should continue to social impact, ESG, and purpose driven initiatives.

Well, it turns out,  everyone from investors to customers are watching companies and want to support companies with a good compass. In the same report – customers and investors downgraded the idea that companies need to take a stand on important social issues. What this tells us, is people want companies to walk-the-walk and do it without crowing about it all the time – but they DO want to find it and it will impact their buying process, especially when there is a competitor.

USC Annenberg Global Communications Report 2023 - Purpose Driven and ESG in the eyes of consumers and investors.

Reputation building is THE most important outcome for PR, because with a positive reputation, all things are possible. The doors of opportunity open faster, and stay open longer. Contact us today for a reputation assessment that provides you with insights that give you the competitive edge you need to reimagine the future of your company.

I have a friend who once described PR as the “dark arts,” and while I completely disagree with that assessment, what he was getting at is he really didn’t understand how PR works. Reputable PR firms are the opposite of “dark arts”; they’re very transparent. There are some tools of the trade that PR agencies keep close to themselves, but really, there isn’t anything magical about HOW PR works; it’s just a specific combination of relationships, hard work, strategy, and culture. And that specific combination takes a long time to acquire, requiring commitment to the craft. But why PR is expensive isn’t because of human hours worked. Ultimately, there is a price to the human capital, but that’s not really why PR is expensive.

So, Why Is PR Expensive?

PR is expensive because the outcomes are so important and relevant. PR’s lasting value is in improving a brand’s reputation like no other marketing lever can. For companies wanting to be acquired or IPO, your PR investment ROI could be hundreds of millions of dollars.  PR outcomes range from high valuations at IPO or during capital raises to making advertising more efficient and reducing time to sale for both B2B and B2C customers. In short, it’s not unusual for PR outcomes to be more than 10X the investment. To 10X investment, the most impactful PR aligns with trust and loyalty, which requires consistency.

For many ambitious companies, the long-term benefits of PR are sometimes forgotten, and yet that can be considerable. Due in part to high marketing budgets during the pandemic, brand valuations increased dramatically in 2023 – from 6.3% growth to 9.7% growth.

Your reputation is your most valuable asset.

Why is PR so expensive research

Data from USC Anneberg Communications Report 2023

What is a Good PR Budget?

When considering your PR agency budget, your budget should match your goals. If you’re trying to grow your business, your overall marketing budget and PR should increase.

As of the fall of 2023, according to The CMO Survey, the average marketing budget was 10.6% of budget and 9.2% of revenues. For companies with $10-$25 million in revenue, the average spend was 15.5% of revenues. So, if you’re looking to be above average, your overall marketing budget should be higher than that. For companies under $10 million in revenue, the number was 19% of revenue. And consumer packaged goods reported spending 25% of their budget on marketing and PR.

If you’re an ambitious brand or fast-growing company, your budget could be 25% of revenue – is that aggressive? Yes. It is. Again, that’s a budget to grow considerably. A good rule of thumb for your budget might break down like this: 20% content, 20% advertising, 20% PR, 20% SEO, 20% activations.

While your distribution might vary depending on your goals – for example, if you’re raising money or looking for a M/A event, you might skip advertising all altogether and move that to PR and content. Alternatively, if you’re a consumer brand,  you might increase the content and advertising portions and focus your PR budget on certain campaigns. Emerging industries may need larger PR budgets because they need to create public and investor trust.

Based on the rates of PR agencies your budget may be higher or lower based on the experience level of your agency team. Naturally, less seasoned agency teams will be less expensive. But it’s probably more important for you to budget based on your goals.

If you’re ambitious or seeking investment or pre-IPO, your marketing budget should match those very important objectives and allocate 12%-17% of revenues or target valuations to marketing, with a third of that, at least, going to PR. Depending on whether you’re a B2B or B2C company.

How Does PR Make a Company More Competitive?

68% of CMOs reported expecting more intense customer rivalry in the coming year. In B2B segments, that number increased to 73%, with 61% expecting more innovation. By themselves, even new products don’t excite people without a story. If your company is new, you need to define a compelling story, and you need to tell it over and over. Whether you’re a tech company, or a consumer product company, PR is a key part of how people discover new products.

According to Nielson, global CMOs said brand recall was the #1 most important goal in media. Advertising is ubiquitous, and advertising is an important part of any marketing budget. After a while, ads blend in a social feed or even on TV. But if your product or CEO is in a magazine, people remember that. They might not even remember WHAT was said, they’ll remember that they saw it there. Brand recall is critical to the sales funnel. If people can’t remember your company, how will they purchase from it?

PR’s lasting impact is its value, including the fact that earned media lives forever. Less than 1% of companies ever get PR for their company, so by being in that top 1%, you’ve already differentiated yourself. Can you start a company without PR? Absolutely. Can your company thrive without PR? No. There are no household names without PR at the table, period. There are no industry leaders without PR.

What makes someone a public relations expert? In a world where the definition of PR  can be wildly vast, how can one person be an expert in everything? I would propose there are many types of experts, and you need them all in your ecosystem because they support one another and you in different ways. This identification methodology works for any agency. Fundamentally, it’s why agencies exist: to connect you to experts. Finding an agency can be a real drag – and ultimately, what’s most important is who will be on your team. An expert team is the difference between PR success and PR flops. But if you’ve never hired a PR agency, you might be confused about what to look for in a PR agency. Ultimately, an agency is only as good as its team. So, what should you be looking for in an outstanding PR agency team, and what defines a public relations expert?

 

PR Strategist Experts

This is the most senior of PR experts. They’ve probably worked their way through multitudes of specializations from B2B Tech PR to Consumer PR and verticals. They’ve seen content platforms come and go, understand the ebb and flow of media, and dialed in enough to ideate on the spot while having a big enough picture to discuss plans a year or more in advance.  Because they know today’s dynamic communication environment, strategists are typically fans of data-informed strategies.

PR Strategists can also evaluate time/trends/budget to provide insights on what to expect and how to improve outcomes. No one likes it when I say, “Anything is possible with the right combination of time and trends,” because it makes it sound like things are out of your control. They are and aren’t – PR strategists are excellent at reading the tea leaves and providing recommendations that mitigate risk and optimize opportunity.

In short, your PR strategist expert has a 100,000-foot view of the media landscape and how a particular company can stand out.

PR Strategies Experts are defined by these attributes:

  • uses data to inform strategies
  • defines metrics and KPIs within the context of time and budget
  • maintains knowledge of current and upcoming platforms
  • understands the impact of current news, economy, and policy on an array of verticals 
  • has extensive business experience with a variety of outcomes, from raising capital to increasing awareness to IPO and investor relations

Account PR Experts

Account experts see the big picture of multiple moving parts and know how they fit into the strategy. As a more on-the-ground PR expert, they’re funneling up day-to-day information and news to make sure everyone is engaged in changes that may require shifts in the plan. PR Account experts are also most engaged with the client’s brand – they’re the de facto voice for the client in an agency. They should have the clearest understanding of who the brand is and isn’t and can articulate brand guardrails to ensure any work represents the brand. Account PR experts will also likely identify brand inconsistencies and recommend corrective actions.  As strategic implementors, they will be the first to identify impracticalities and challenges to a strategy and will work directly with a PR strategist to develop a pivot where it’s needed.  PR Account experts are outstanding communicators and are proactive with ideas and collaboration, as well as managing timelines and campaign calendars.

PR Account Experts are defined by these attributes:

  • understand how daily indicators may impact strategy
  • identifies and mediates day-to-day challenges in the implementation
  • acts as a brand defender within the agency
  • can identify brand inconsistencies and recommend remedies

Specialist PR Experts

There is a perception that specialists aren’t as experienced as strategists. That isn’t necessarily the case. Our 100% executive-level team includes specialists with 10 and 15 years of experience in their specialty. Specialists love a specific part of PR and communications and focus on it exclusively. Whether that specialty is something like influencer management, ghostwriting, media relations, or social media, the PR and marketing world needs expert PR specialists. They’re the most engaged on the ground, and they can tell you things like emerging topics over the last 24 hours, trending hashtags, or whether anyone is even using emojis anymore. Experienced PR specialist experts understand the ebb and flow of tech; they know how to navigate the details and have tactical solutions and ideas on ways to polish outputs for the audience, platform, or trend. Without PR specialist experts, everything would feel less personalized, on-trend, and ham-fisted. The specialist takes strategy and gives it life.

Your agency team may have numerous specialist PR experts. For example, you could have a technical SEO specialist, a media relations specialist, a social media or community management specialist, or a cyber security mitigation specialist who helps you plan for a PR crisis.

Specialist PR Experts are defined by these attributes:

  • deep understanding of platform communication intricacies
  • deep understanding of the key players within a topic
  • can identify trends and articulate their importance to the strategy
  • can quickly navigate multiple technology platforms

Having a team of PR experts at your disposal is critical to PR success. Every member of your team has an important role to play, and every role adds perspective to the strategy and implementation. Part of the Avaans Media white glove experience is tailoring your team to your strategy from startup through IPO. Talk to us today about your specific PR expert needs.