A great PR strategy is obviously a vital component to brand health. As the frontline of the brand, making sure your public relations team is prepared to act proactively and reactively on behalf of your brand is a no-brainer.

Corporate communication impacts every part of a business and PR crises are known to shake entire industries so, as more of the business becomes invested in PR, campaigns must demonstrate their goals are aligned with those of the wider company.

Increasingly, PR teams are expected to go beyond the role of brand spokesperson and manage the corporate voice, standardize employee processes, and prove their PR campaign can impact the company’s bottom line.

This ain’t easy, so our very own public relations experts created this handy guide to making sure any and all PR campaigns are aligned with wider company objectives:

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PR guide: 5 steps to aligning your goals to business objectives

Discover how you can use PR as an essential tool for achieving important business goals

This article will take you briefly through the five steps in the guide, but to learn exactly how to enact these steps at your organization, get your hands on the full thing.

1. Understand your organization’s mission and objectives

The best place to begin is at the beginning. Before anything else, you’ve got to make sure your PR team is aware of the company’s core objectives.

On the flip-side, these conversations with company leaders will help ensure PR work is visible, getting more buy-in, and could help increase the impact of future campaigns.

2. Develop a PR campaign with the organization’s goals in mind

Once you’re clued up on the business’ goals and strategy, build your PR campaign around them. For instance, if the objective is doubling revenue in the next six months, then that’s exactly where you should be starting when planning your upcoming campaigns.

“PR is notoriously difficult to measure, but it’s critical to boost accountability by measuring tangibles that reflect the organization’s overall marketing goals. For example, you can set up dedicated links that gauge web traffic stemming from online media coverage or influencer mentions, or conduct an audit of consumers to measure an increased awareness of the product and intent to use.”

Rachel Kay, President of Rachel Kay Relations

3. Get closer to other teams within your business

The easiest way to continue to ensure your PR campaign isn’t stuck in a silo is to create regular communications with the wider marketing, advertising and sales teams, as well as other parts of the business tasked with speaking to customers in some way.

Is your PR campaign speaking the same language as your sales teams on the ground, or your advertising campaigns? Do you have access to the voice of your customer? Breaking down in-organization barriers can help build campaigns that are more valuable and impactful.

4. Measure your campaign’s results

The ROI of PR is not a myth. However, as Rachel Kay said above, it is notoriously difficult to measure.

Less than a decade ago, PR campaigns were measured on the volume of print media, TV and radio coverage. Now, the amount of media channels that can affect a brand’s health or can be incorporated into the measurement of a PR campaign is extensive.

Luckily, with the right technology stack PR practitioners have the opportunity to dig a little deeper and take their KPI measurement to the next level.

In our guide, we dive into four key technologies that are helping PR practitioners measure their impact every day.

5. Continue to monitor and adapt

Industries, customers and businesses are all in constant flux. As companies get acquired, strategies become more digital, and consumer preferences change and shift, a company’s strategies are bound to change.

As your business strategy changes, so should your PR goals. Not only should your PR campaign and messaging change in tandem with your overall business strategy, but the tools you use and the KPIs you benchmark yourselves against should be changing too.

This guide explores these five steps in more detail to help your PR campaigns generate real business results. To learn more and apply these steps to your next PR campaign, read more below: