Writing

What will the new year mean for PR pros and what skills should they bring with them. We ask 5 communicators what successful PR people will need.

No matter your industry or subject, creating a plan to reach goals that will help you arrive at your destination also can assist you to better understand the scope of your communications and marketing. A plan will help you stay organized and make adjustments in case you run into unforeseen challenges and obstacles. It also can help you reduce processes into small, achievable chunks for accomplishing tasks that you’ll need to do to overcome challenges. Here are five steps to help you write a strategic communications plan.

In PR, it’s crucial to get a point across without writing a sprawling essay; in this way, we can all learn from Dylan. Though he wrote many a long-winded song, he also had a way with a pithy one-liner that sticks with people. These are lines that could serve as epigrams to novels and slogans on protest signs—and 50 bucks says that all of the below have been tattooed on somebody at some point.

In a recent article in PR News Pro, pitching expert Michael Smart writes, “When I’m asked to review pitches, anxious clients generally start by inquiring about their subject line, their opening sentence, or their call to action. But there’s a factor that has way more influence on the likelihood of success than the language and phrasing of the actual pitch. That factor is what I call Message-to-Influencer Match. And that’s why the first thing I ask about when looking at any pitch is: Who is the target, and why?”

Top PR professionals know how to draft well worded material that lends an authoritative voice to their brand. When pressed for time, however, even the most talented communicators can be forced to sacrifice quality for quantity, using tired tropes where they might be better off expressing their brand’s voice in a simpler and more meaningful way. PR News shares its list of the 10 most overused terms in communications today.

In a situation where the reader automatically deletes messages from unknown senders, then nothing will help you get read. In other scenarios, well-crafted subject lines are crucial to get readers to at least open your message. At that point “the key,” says Sheri Johnson, president of Morningstar Communications, “lies in creating personalized, relevant content delivered at the right time to fit your prospects’ needs.”

Perhaps you’ve sent a pitch to Ms. Senior Editor only to remember that it’s Mr. Senior Editor. Or you’ve invited a reporter to a press conference on Monday the 3rd and received a message back saying, “The 3rd is a Tuesday. What day is your event?” So you know great content doesn’t mean anything if a document is poorly written or contains typos. Focusing on a process for writing can set you up for success. A thorough process means you have time for planning, drafting, reviewing, quality assurance (QA) and quality control (QC). Juggling multiple projects and deadlines can make it hard to set aside time for all of these steps, and the planning step often gets sacrificed. Still, taking a few minutes to plan your writing before you begin will make editing much easier.

Great stories—about medical breakthroughs, heroic acts by children, emerging infectious diseases—are relegated to the trash bin, while “Grumpy Cat” is featured on national evening news. There are plenty of reasons this happens. Newsrooms are shrinking. Reporters are more harried since they are asked to write, blog, tweet, appear on video, among other duties. Brand priorities change and resources are limited. But most likely the problem lies in the execution of the pitch.

For months you’ve been painstakingly pulling together interviews from senior leadership, creating graphics to showcase financial data and weaving a compelling story to give a picture of a company for an annual report. The hard copy version is on its way to the printers. And the digital version has been passed along to the developers to be posted online.

Now what?

Sure, celebrate the end of a well-executed project. But what can you do after that? The material you’ve compiled need not stay bound within the annual report’s pages.

How many times today did you click “send,” “post,” “tweet” or “publish” without submitting your work to a thorough read-through? Perhaps as many times as you clicked those buttons. You know you’re playing a dangerous game. You might as well be walking across a city street blindfolded. Try printing out and using this quality-control checklist for PR writing, and be sure to add your own writing peccadilloes to the list.