public relations goals

Check it Off! The Importance of Goal Setting in your Public Relations Campaign

PR Goal Setting 101

PR Goal Setting

When you wrote your business plan, you probably laid out a variety of marketing and sales goals.

But did you set remember to set goals for your public relations campaign?

Writing a successful healthcare public relations plan starts with outlining your PR goals and objectives.

In this article, we will outline what PR goal setting is and share an example of a public relations plan tied to SMART goals.

Want to learn how to write PR goals for your business? Keep reading..

PR GOAL SETTING 101

In Public Relations, SMART goals keep you focused and motivated to achieve an end goal and desired outcome.

Building a PR strategy that will turn you into a media magnet for thought leadership starts with identifying your public relations goals. 

PR goal setting is also critical for measuring PR effectiveness with your NYC PR agency.

What is a PR goal?

A PR goal is the desired outcome you hope to achieve from distributing key messages about your brand to the media.

PR Goals typically include desired results in different forms of traditional and digital media including placement in print publications, digital outlets, podcasts, or interviews with the press on national TV.

Staples recently released the results of their small business survey, which showed that the leaders they surveyed were focused on getting results and setting goals. Those goals included increasing revenue, driving profits and gaining more customers. To achieve those goals, 46% of those surveyed said wanted to use promotional marketing techniques to meet their goals.

PR Goal Example: Secure publicity mentions to reach corporate executives & CMOs and build trust with key stakeholders.

Goals & Objectives in PR Campaigns

How to Set PR Goals for 2023 

What is public relations planning?

Public relations planning is the process of creating a strategy, roadmap and vision for campaign success. This includes editorial calendar mapping, pitch crafting, media list building and annual reviews.

How to set annual PR goals and OKRs 

If you are planning your annual marketing budget, you are most likely reviewing your PR spend. However, one area that is often overlooked is that PR planning is directly tied to campaign performance. Before you cut PR out of your marketing budget for 2023, review your OKRs and PR goals. Chances are, if you did not have clear alignment on the PR campaign goals, you set your agency up for failure.

Do not write off an entire industry or line item until you have had clarity on your public relations goals and OKRs. Additionally, it is not enough to write out PR OKRs and store them in a hidden folder on your desktop. For PR goal setting to be effective, they have to be shared with your agency and internal stakeholders.

When you are clear on your digital public relations goals, you can avoid costly B2B PR and marketing mistakes.

How to Write PR Goals

Before you can write your PR goals, you first need to spend some time understanding what they are.

At Ruby Media Group, every proposal starts with outlining a prospect’s PR goals and objectives for the campaign.

Goals and objectives are not the same things.

PR Goal Setting 101: Goals and Objectives in Public Relations Campaigns

How do you set PR goals?

The best way to set PR goals is to know what the objective of the campaign is and how it ties into your business goals. Are you looking to get media to increase referral relationships with other physicians? Are you looking to get media to increase sales volume? Do you need media to secure VC interest?

Start with the big picture. Why are you hiring a PR agency? What is the outcome you are looking to achieve, and how can they help you get there? Tie business intelligence to PR performance.

Revive. Innovate. Rinse. Repeat.

Idea generation. Creativity. New angles.

A public relations consultant will create digital PR ideas that are relevant, interesting, and have timely news angles.

The PR angle should drive press interest and generate new publicity mentions with the ultimate goal of driving brand awareness and name recognition.

What are some examples of PR goals?

  • Generate product and brand awareness
  • Drive interest to sell subscriptions/ software as a result of earned media.
  • Create consumer awareness.

Don’t have a new product to launch? A PR consultants’ job is to come up with new ways to reinvent what you already do have. What is old becomes new again.

The general formula should be:

  • Get X to achieve Y.
  • Media (X) will help our business achieve (Y).

Unfortunately, most people stop at X and do not fill in the Y. Media is a conduit to the larger business goal you want. Without understanding the Y factor, you are stopping too short at only getting the placement. For maximum impact, the placement must be leveraged to achieve a marketing or business goal.

For example, one C-suite client hired us to promote their book with a book publicity campaign. The end goal of the author’s publicity campaign was not getting placements to increase book sales, but rather, it was to secure press coverage for notoriety in executive business groups like YPO.

The press and media coverage helped the author to achieve his high-level goal of personal branding, executive introductions, and more business. It also led to new speaking engagements and a new role as a CMO at a global company. The press in and of itself wasn’t the end goal: the end goal was utilizing the press for career advancement. If you understand how someone wants to leverage the press you get them, you can help them go where they need to go.

How to Set Your PR Goals

How do you set PR goals? Setting Goals For Your Digital PR Campaign starts with knowing the desired end state before you kick off the execution. 

PR goals should be timely, themed, and relevant.

When it comes to public relations goal setting, it’s not the what, it’s the why.

You have to be able to justify the reason you pitched a media outlet. For example, I went after these publications because I know a mention in this outlet will help you achieve your business goal of reaching the big-time real estate players you are trying to reach.

PR goal setting without a high-level strategy is disjointed, disconnected, and useless.

“If we close these deals as a result of a PR interview, there is value for everybody.”

A strategic public relations consultant’s core role is to help the client solve large business problems. PR is more than doing press releases. PR is an integral part of a B2B marketing growth strategy and partner development.

What are the PR goals that you have always wanted to achieve?

  • Do you want to be on the cover of Time Magazine?
  • Do you dream of being a guest on The Doctors?
  • Do you want your practice to be mentioned on Dr. Oz? 

Write down what you want to accomplish in your healthcare public relations campaign.

What are your PR goals over the next 6 months?

For example, the goal of your healthcare PR strategy could be to increase your media exposure in the top 10 medical trade publications in dermatology over the next 12 months.

PR Pro tip: Getting featured in healthcare trade publications is a huge win for medical doctors and healthcare professionals if you are looking to build your brand as a doctor! You will often get way more ink in trade outlets than you will in consumer-facing outlets.

If you aren’t able to hire a healthcare PR firm, you can also Google Industry name + trade outlets to find relevant trade publications in your industry. For example, Google “plastic surgery trade outlets” or “plastic surgery podcasts” to see what comes up on page 1 of Google.

PR Strategy

  • Where do you want your business to be featured?
  • Who would your story resonate with?
  • In what media outlets?

Then, break down your press coverage goals into tactical steps such as:

Now, it’s time to break down those PR goals even further into PR tactics.

PR Tactics Examples:

  1. Pitching local bloggers & increasing social media buzz on roundtable discussion.
  2. Creating a targeted list of CEOs to offer comped membership of new digital platform to.
  3. Securing speaking engagements for key personnel at Company X to establish role as a thought leader in the aging services field.
  4. Drafting monthly press releases with new developments in the aging services field/news and distribute to trade publications and local media. 
  5. Approaching regional media outlets targeting health & lifestyle to secure press placements.
  6. After defining your business goals, outline your PR campaign tactics to achieve those goals.

PR PLAN TEMPLATE EXAMPLE:  

Target Audience

  • Target commuter audience in Scarsdale, NY

PR Goals

  • Market and promote a new medical practice
  • Increase exposure/ get my name out there so people know my new practice is open
  • Secure local press and influencer reviews
  • Generate PR worthy ideas to build buzz for a new practice

PR Tactics

  • Soft opening
  • Craft press release
  • Pitch media to attend

PR Goal Examples:

What are examples of public relations goals?

PR goals are not only limited to traditional publicity campaigns. You can also create PR goals for digital PR campaigns that include social audio, too.

PR Goals for community club launch:

Public Relations, SEO & Content Marketing Club

What are the goals of the activation? What do you hope to get out of it?

  • Create an educational community for content marketing, PR, and SEO professionals
  • Expand promotion of the events to other platforms beyond Clubhouse
  • Monetize the club with branded merchandise
  • Interview B2B thought leaders who are key opinion leaders
  • Transcribe the interviews and leverage the transcript to create new blog content

Mission:

What is the mission of the club? Why did you create it?

  • Host cutting-edge panel discussions and debates about new technology in all things AI-related.
  • Be positioned as the leader in digital PR. Convert leads to clients.
  • Establish market authority in the vertical.
  • Brand host as a leader beyond moderator/ traffic cop of discussions.

Target Audience:

Who are you hoping to reach with the launch?

  • Potential clients who could utilize the PR and content marketing services of Ruby Media Group.

PR Goals for Brands

How to Set Effective PR Goals: A Step-by-Step Guide

Promoting a Launch

The promotion of a new product launch.

STEP 1:

  • Identify the goal

STEP 2:

  • Develop a PR strategy.
  • Audience/ message/narrative building.
  • Communication channel identification.

STEP 3: Identify the tactics.

  • Timing & timeline.
  • Choose target media outlets.
  • Media list creation.
  • Identify the media outlets you want to pitch.
  • Create pitch angles.

How to set media goals for your business

PR Goal Setting: How to Create SMART Objectives for Your Business

SMART Objectives for PR Campaigns

Your public relations campaign should have clearly defined goals attached to expected business results. Executing a PR campaign can be overwhelming, but breaking it up into smaller tactics makes it more manageable. Most importantly, these PR goals should be SMART.

What does SMART stand for in PR?

  • Specific.
  • Measurable.
  • Action-oriented.
  • Realistic.
  • Time-specific.

How to create SMART objectives for PR campaigns

For example, in one year, you may want to double your profits, open a second location or triple your client or patient list. To achieve these SMART PR goals for your business or medical practice, you need to reverse engineer a PR strategy that will help you achieve each of these areas of business growth.

If you want to open a second location or increase clients, earned media can help to achieve these goals. Contact us today to learn how we can get you major press, fast!

PR Pro Tip: Your Business Goals Must Tie Into Your PR Goals. Media placements in trade magazines do serve a purpose. But if that purpose does not align with your business goals, then it will be irrelevant to what you want to do long term. 

Public Relations SMART Campaign Planning Example

Let’s say that you are a doctor and your healthcare PR goal is to double the size of your practice and appear on the cover of your local newspaper for a new procedure.

Your SMART public relations goals for this month could include the following PR ideas:

  1. Create a Contest: Give away a healthcare makeover to a community member. Entrants will submit essays telling their stories and what they would do if they achieved optimal health.
  2. Contact the Media: The media loves feel-good stories. Write a press release and announce your contest. Offer the media a chance to follow the winner from before to the ‘after’.
  3. Organize a Big Reveal: Create an event to announce the winner and invite the media to attend. Create another event for the big reveal.
  4. Network: Attend a local Chamber event each month where you offer to speak, provide tips, or be a guest on a local radio show.
  5. Tweet, Instagram, or Facebook: Get active on social media and let people know about your practice. Give out tips, share links to healthcare advice and post before and after pictures of the makeover contest winner (with consent of course). If you can’t do all of this yourself, your goal this month should be to hire a healthcare social media consultant who can.

Setting Measurable Public Relations Objectives

Goal Setting for PR: How to Create a Roadmap for Success

If you’ve accomplished your PR campaign goals to increase earned media exposure for your medical practice, the community should begin to chatter about the contest and entries should come pouring in. The media will hopefully contact you for an article and you may even land a feature interview in the local newspaper.

Finally, after seeing the transformation in the winner, potential patients will call to book a consultation with you- showing a direct lead conversion. Make sure that your monthly efforts continue to push you towards accomplishing your PR goals.

Examples of PR Campaign Objectives:

High-level PR objective: RMG will manage all outbound relations with the press, create a targeted media list, secure post-event coverage/ media placements and devise a strategic community relations plan to get the word out about the new digital membership platform with the goal of increasing membership. 

  • Create a Public Relations campaign to launch new digital properties & business membership.
  • Manage all social media content and promotion for the brand.
  • Secure editorial placements to keep Company X in the local media.
  • Pitch Company X to the media to secure placements and position Company X as a thought leader in the aging services field.

Goals & Objectives in PR Campaigns Key Takeaways:

  • Setting goals is vital to achieving success in business and in PR.
  • What can’t be measured, can’t be managed!

Timeless PR goals.

What are timeless PR goals?

Timeless PR goals include driving earned media results for brand exposure, awareness, name recognition and authority.

Non-measurable PR goals are just as critical as measurable PR goals.

Traditional measurable PR goals include number of press mentions, the AVE equivalency and increased backlinks and traffic.

PUBLIC RELATIONS CONSULTING | NYC

Need help building a PR strategy to achieve your brand goals through targeted earned media outreach?

Ready to Get Your PR Strategy Back On Track?

If you’re looking for help getting your PR strategy on track, look no further than Ruby Media Group.

Our public relations consultants have years of experience helping companies achieve their PR strategic PR goals and corporate initiatives. We’ll work with you to develop a strategic plan that considers your unique challenges around digital transformation.

A PR Strategy Planned For You By Industry Experts

At Ruby Media Group, we take the guesswork out of planning your PR strategy. Our experienced public relations consultants will work with you to develop goals that are tailored to your specific needs and help you execute a plan to achieve them.

Ready to build a PR strategy that will turn your personal brand into a media magnet?

If you have set measurable public relations objectives and you still aren’t seeing results from your campaign execution, it may be time to call a New York City public relations firm for a PR strategy audit. Contact us today for a strategy consultation to realign your PR campaign and get it moving in the right direction for maximum results.

ABOUT RUBY MEDIA GROUP

Ruby Media Group is a Public Relations and media relations agency founded by television commentator Kris Ruby.

The award-winning Public Relations agency is based in New York City and specializes in social media. RMG clients regularly appear on TV, radio, and in leading magazines and publications.

The top NY public relations agency specializes in legal, health, SaaS and medical PR.

Date last updated: March 2023