How to avert a PR crisis

A crisis can strike at any time, like the saying goes, “Time and tide wait for no one.” Similar to this, a catastrophe won’t wait for you to be prepared with all the required supplies. A brand looks to its PR team or PR agency to entirely prevent or undertake damage control in a crisis.

A public relations crisis happens when any negative news or event occurs that can damage the company’s brand image in a very critical way. So, it is important to take control of it by timely managing it. The company’s coverage in any media, including TVC, radio, print, and online, which may affect both their clients and consumers, is typically the main cause of the problem that occurred. What can be done afterward and how can we resolve the crisis? 

In situations like this, companies should always have a backup of plans and strategies ready to be deployed. The top things a company can do to restore its brand image are: 

• The issues should be identified together with the origin of the error and its previous occurrences. The first step is to identify the source of the issue, whether it is a controversial statement or an error of judgment, anything can have a high level of damage. 
• How serious are the issues that have been found? We must be proactive, responsible, and accountable since we have to effectively manage this situation. In cases like this, admitting your mistakes and responding humbly can go a long way, the key to this judgement is having a clear understanding of the circumstances.
• Once you’ve admitted guilt, you should immediately start acting strategically both internally and publicly. Since nothing in this world ever stops for anyone, proceed with the utmost caution at all times. For your action plan to properly handle your problem, make an effort to effectively monitor and communicate it.
• If you find a balance between the customer and the media when handling criticism on social media, you can handle this scenario more skillfully. Your PR strategies can benefit greatly from the use of social media.

The organization as a whole, not just a certain segment, should acquire insight from the overall experience. Reviewing the corporation’s rules, mechanisms, and regulations is deemed wise at this stage. The customer service team has to be involved since they can help prevent a future catastrophe. You will be vastly assisted by an enhanced communication plan if you incorporate new criteria for the adjustments made by the public relations team throughout every crisis.

Content Writing:

Small and medium businesses need content—but who has time to devote to creating it? Best PR Agency in Delhi are known to precisely fill this gap by writing content ranging from newsletters, blog posts, press releases, contributed articles, white papers, case studies and based on their experience and expertise; they can be a good resource in this sphere of the job.

Social media Promotions:

Social media is another area in which PR Professionals can work their wonders in. Their ability to research topics to find content that companies can post—in addition to brand content—can help maintain a steady stream of digital credibility and online traffic.

Event planning:

Some of the best PR consultants or Public Relations Consultancy excel at planning and executing trade shows, community events, and conferences for small and medium businesses that lack dedicated event or PR staff. Though this is termed as BTL or we can better term it as an activation, but investing on a showcase and not having a proganda attached to it with the public or your potential is a sheer waste effort; hence PR Event Planning over time becomes an acquired knowledge.

Reputation Management or Crisis communications:

It’s no secret that today’s brands can easily find themselves in hot water or we can say makers of bad news in the media. Anything from an accidental social media post that hurt sentiments or national tragedy can affect businesses, which can cause a negative impact to a line of business; and for this many enterprises do not have the capability to handle these situations. A top public relation company or PR consultants who specialize in brand reputation management can help assist steer the communication in the media in a way that brings businesses on track

Work With Media:

Many PR consultants begin their careers as journalists or in other mass media-associated jobs that are interconnected to public relations. The practice of media relations requires a particular skill set which is crucial part of a strong PR effort. The consultants that specialize in maintain cordial associations with the media editorial journalist and press editors are often found in the best public relation firms and these resources are able to effectively get their client’s brand and business in the news for the right reasons.

Coach Thought leadership:

Sometimes, PR consultants better serve the organization for which they work by creating and preparing for press meets in which the company presidents, city council members, board members or other high-profile leaders in the organization get face-to-face interaction with the media. Such large-scale PR Activities are controlled by internal PR consultants but normally outsourced to public relations agency / PR agencies or to a PR consultancy. These require PR consultants to be well informed to implement such initiatives as they would supervise the writing of the press note, q&a, speech script for the conferences and manage the timelines of the press event. In addition, public relations consultants also provide a list of talking points to the leader in the company before an interview or a statement. PRC’s may write speeches and prepare the leaders for the types of questions that might come their way from the media in an interview. Great engagement / positive engagement with the press in such a forum or program can feed other marketing initiatives as well.

Influencer Marketing:

A growing area of Public Relations is the new age influencer marketing involves how to best plug influencers into your PR and communication efforts. Normally best public relations consultants with a brand background can help hone in on key influencers and start to build relationships on behalf of the company in order for the brand to be represented by influencers on their channels .

So do you think you need one of these treasured PR professionals? If Yes, You may write us on pr@newtonpr.in

How do you account for the times your opponent does something that’s outside your game plan or when a media promotion move you’ve been working in and execution just doesn’t work?
It’s your public relations game plan that will eventually help you structure your PR activities, enabling you take the right strategic directions to best communicate with your target audience, customers, and stakeholders. Being experts in making several such game plans, we (Newtonites) rated as the Best Public Relations Agency in New Delhi. would love to share some of the best moves from our comprehensive PR game plan guide which will surely assist you to stay ahead of your competitors.

Lets GAME:

Determine PR Goals

Just like any other game, it’s imperative to know your goals and objectives for what you want to achieve.
These goals can be as few or as many as you need; micro or macro. Just make sure that these PR priorities are consistent in its deployment and aligned with the company’s focus area.
Examples of these goals include improving or enhancing your brand’s image or build general awareness of your product or service.
You may use Dr. Hongmei Shen’s (PR author and researcher) S.M.A.R.T. objectives i.e. Specific (purpose), Measurable (outcomes), Attainable (objective) Realistic (goal) and time (available and necessary).

Know your Target Audience

Once you’ve clearly defined your goals, you can funnel it down into your target audiences. These are the individuals, groups and communities that you are trying to attract and sell to – they are the people you want to communicate with by activating your Public Relations Consultant which in turn get your message to the editorial teams of publications or PR digital influencers

You can segment your media reach by understanding the TG of the medium / media in order to align the identified target audience who would be interested in hearing about your business; specially those who are key decision-makers and who will have the greatest influence on the business’ outcomes.
Sharing stories and editorial content with a targeted audience curated by the best PR consultants has proven to increase brand engagement and credibility. So it is essential to understand all aspects of your audience such as demographics, location and psychographics before creating your company public relations strategy and PR strategy content.

Such in-depth knowledge about your target audience in alignment to the media they consume will become an essential foundation for your PR Plan and will ultimately help you tailor your PR communication accordingly, thereby assisting in amplifying the effectiveness of your PR strategy.

Topicality & Core Messaging

• Now its time to Compile the list of key topics and craft the core messages that can articulate important information about your solutions, service or product in your public relations campaign or one can represent the desired communication with the help of an effective PR Event Planning. Core messages are the ones you want your audience to hear, recall and subliminally remember. Hence these should be direct, crisp, simple to understand and driven by specifics and data. The messages should communicate your uniqueness, core customer or consumer-connect propellers and the PR Content Strategy planned should be chosen consciously to create the desired brand image that enables one stand out from the competition.

PR Tactics

Tactics are the activities or communication methods that will help you to achieve your PR plan objectives.

You will need to research where your target audience consumes their information. Your target audiences have their communication preferences – email, social media platforms, blogs, newsletters, push notifications and so on. Analytics for Digital PR and NRS/ IRS, TAM and RAM for traditional media can help you identify your audience’s media preferences as well as for the digital PR aspect, one can track how well the TG could respond to your messaging whether you are reaching out to individuals or communicating with a group.
You can make a list of the publications your target audience reads, the events they go to and how they spend their time online.
You must ensure that your message reflects the preferred format, length, and tone of the selected media platform

PR Editorial Calendar

Public Relations Consultancy services are availed to curate an editorial calendar; which is a comprehensive document that lists the content and context that should be promoted to the press for publishing. In order to get this task action oriented the PR Team should have identified journalist and digital influencers responsible for editing and publishing the content. Most importantly the PR agency services must include and create editorial friendly content. The supplementing activity of the PR agency or the Media Relations Agency would be to understand the priorities of the beat journalist to adapt the topicality in the editorial calendar to be able to predict the date of the publishing dates in a particular media medium. It is a useful resource to build the foundation for your content based on the editorial tonality of a medium such that the content connects with the editorial mediums user. This process is the most key when it comes to a Public Relation Company or PR Agencies meeting their deliverables commitment to its clients. The Public Relations Agency must be able to connect to the tone of the medium and that’s how ideally a good Public Relation Firm creates their client’s PR calendar.

Time Frame

You should also put time frames around each tactic planned for the PR execution to ensure they are completed either right on time or just in time. Putting a time frame along with the task list will help you to keep track of who does what and when. A PR strategy is as good as PR project management process that entails having detailed time frames to help you to organize your task, allocate team responsibilities and ensures accountability. This is currently what lacks in most PR agencies as work is rather reactive than proactive unlike Newton’s PR. Newton being one of the best PR Agency in India is an example of delivery without excuses and does not miss any opportunity for its PR Clients.

PR Measurement Process

It’s important to measure the success of your PR Game Plan. Evaluate if you are reaching your objectives through careful measurement and observing the impact on the clients performance.
You could create your own PR measurement tools or set Key performance indicators (KPIs) that will make measurement easier.
One of the best advantage of digital communications, unlike most traditional marketing efforts is that it can be more comprehensively measured, making it much easier to know if your efforts have the desired effect, but what comes on the traditional media there is no better credible space for PR article akin a newspaper, magazine and television channel
You may start by understanding what media measurement categories are most important to your PR Clients organization. Is it Brand awareness, Return on investment or Leads or you could also measure your success by whether you achieved your goals in the set time ‘frame and delivered what is committed as a Public Relation Agency’s key result area.
It’s also a good idea to regularly review your PR strategy with your clients to ensure the progress is good and is working effectively. A tap on your back and great job done will be a great morale booster for a PR Agency whose PR Professionals has worked wonders. Client testimonials maximize the success of your PR Agencies efforts and help to grow your business.

How complete is your game plan? How do you deal with a situation where you just end up going by your instinct? Do give some examples of your PR game plan and stand a chance of being recruited by one of the best PR agencies in India.