Now that 2017 is more than halfway finished, it’s a good time to take an objective assessment of your public relations strategy. Even if your company – like many others – reviewed your objectives, goals and solutions to ensure that your public relations were a better fit as the new year kicked off, it’s a good idea to perform this step again now that it’s been a few months since its implementation. Here’s what to look for when assessing your public relations strategy at the mid-point of the year.
1. How are you stacking up against your competition?
Whether you’re the leader in your industry or that’s a position that you aspire to, you need to know what your competition is doing. Holding your company’s performance up against other businesses within the industry is an effective measurement of the success of your public relations strategy. Knowing where your brand stands in terms of market share, online search results, and consumer loyalty shows you if and where you need to tweak your strategy.
2. Are you devoting enough time to public relations?
Boosting your brand to the kind of success you envision requires a long-range mindset. While there are exceptions to the rule, in most cases a brand doesn’t achieve household recognition from a single, well-placed mention in the media. Instead, it takes the creation of a long-term plan that’s built in realistic expectations and solutions, as well as plenty of time to implement it.
3. Do you know how your content, social media and SEO strategies are doing?
Public relations is all about getting the awareness of your brand out to as many people as possible. One of the most effective methods of doing so is by leveraging SEO, content marketing and social media. Evaluate the results of your content marketing and SEO strategy thus far this year to determine if you need to make some changes.
4. Are you measuring your results on a regular basis?
While it’s a great idea to assess your public relations strategy on a yearly – or even a twice a year – basis, it will be more effective if you do so regularly. Data such as website referral traffic, market share and increased brand engagement can be pulled as often as daily to give you updates on the effectiveness of your strategy. Before doing so, however, be sure to establish some benchmark figures so you can measure this type of data more efficiently. Plan to assess your findings at least monthly so you can gain a keener understanding of your strategy’s effectiveness.
With this list of four questions, your brand can start a mid-year public relations assessment that sets you up for better performance for the rest of 2017. Don’t feel like you have to be hemmed in by these suggestions either as they’ll likely bring up other questions that need to be addressed along the way.
