Strategy

An important part of any PR campaign is the planning. Before anything can be done, we need to plan the strategy. What is strategy; it can be defined as “a plan designed to achieve a long-term aim”.

And why do we have a need for strategy, this long-term plan.
I guess it is because a PR campaign, like any other type of campaign, would have goals to achieve.

In order for them to achieve these goals, a plan or set of plans will be needed. You cannot just plunge into the water without knowing how deep it is, or what else is in the water. How about trying to swim to Australia from Singapore, and not knowing how far it is or even which direction to swim.

In the former, you might just give your head more than just a nasty bump if you jump into waters that are not deep enough. In the latter, you will end up sleeping with the fishes or be in Malaysia if you are lucky.

It can be the same for a PR campaign without a good strategy, it will struggle and drown.

One point that this chapter had revealed to me is the business element it PR. A PR practitioner might not have to deal with the daily in and outs of a company, but it is important for them to understand it. Another thing that I learned is that the entire process must be top-down, where the public relation role must operate within the decision making dominant coalition of the organization.
This ensures that the PR manager has a say in the planning and development of the strategy. Therefore, it is important for the decision makers in the organization to understand the values of PR.

This means that one part of the PR practitioner’s job is to educate the decision makers.