Preparing your PR and communications for post-Covid

The end of the pandemic is in sight and now is the time to revisit your PR and communications strategy and tactics. Without a doubt, Covid-19 has changed how we interact with the world. Our lives moved online in 2020 and savvy businesses that took advantage of our digital lives reaped the rewards. 

The world is about to change again as an end to the pandemic is in sight. Preparing your business’s PR and communications now means you’re ready when the world opens up once more. There’s potential to find new opportunities to leverage, and even new customers with a little research and groundwork. 

Audit your PR and communications to date

Take stock of your work to date. Assess your PR and content activities to see what has worked and what hasn’t and then you can plan successful future campaigns. Start by digging into your website content to see how it’s performing using a tool such as Google Analytics. Consider:

• Which pages are ranking highly on your website? 
• Are they the right ones?
• What content topics does your audience enjoy the most?
• What content format does your audience enjoy the most?
• Which content generates leads?

Take an inventory of your content to see what you have and what is working. This way you can see if there are any gaps that need to be plugged in the content funnel. Identify if there are missing content formats that could engage your audience more. 

Next, check your PR and communications distribution channels. Where does your content go? Social media, news and industry outlets, etc. Again, check what the engagement is like per channel. You’ll find that some channels such as Twitter have less engagement but will be used as brand awareness or even as a customer service channel. 

Are visitors reading your content on outlets and blogging platforms such as Medium? Decide how you will use each channel in the future as this will affect the type of content you create. Audience intention is slightly different with each platform, for example, people visit Instagram for inspiration and beautiful imagery while they will use industry outlets to source leads and jobs. 

Put your audience first

Review your customer personas to ensure they’re still right for your business. There has been big changes over the past year, and you might have found that your customer base has changed as you adapted to the pandemic. 

Talk to your friendliest clients to get insight into why they purchase your goods or services. Understand their motivations, what key messages resonate with them, if they like your branding and what content has drawn them to you. All this is really useful insight. 

Ultimately, you’re creating content to attract and engage potential customers, so listen to them. Your customer’s perception of the brand and how it fits into their world may have changed. Their feedback may require a rebrand, new messages, and new content. 

Build out your email lists by encouraging people to sign up with great content. Regular emails with news and updates about you and your industry will keep you top of their mind. It can also help nudge them down the content funnel. Create a landing page with an enticing piece of content such as a white paper and encourage people to swap their email address for your content. 

Competitor and industry insights

There’s no harm in checking out your competitors to see what they’re doing. They’re in a similar position to you and will be looking at their PR and communication strategy and tactics. Are they trying different things on social media? What outlets are they appearing in? Has their branding changed? 

Use a SEO and content analyser such as Ahrefs or SEMRush to see what keywords they rank for, what backlinks they have, who their traffic is and identify gaps that you can fill. Review their output and see how people are engaging with them. Is there an image or key message that gets more attention?

Check out your industry generally to see the big and small things taking place. Most industries have been hit hard but plenty have pivoted and adopted new approaches. There might be something you can learn or use and share with as a piece of great content. 

Power up your PR 

Your reputation is what matters. In most cases, it persuades visitors to make their purchase. PR is your voice heard through key outlets such as news and industry to influence and sway audiences with their decisions. PR and communications have an immense impact on what, when, where and why people will purchase goods or services through telling your story. 

Once you’ve reviewed your customers, content and channels, it’s time to look at where to place your news and insights. Again, refer back to your customers, who they are and what they read. Has this shifted during the pandemic? 

Journalists and editors are looking for compelling content that will be interesting and/or useful to their audience. Run an analysis on their site and identify any key gaps in content that you could happily answer. Use this to pitch a great idea that you know will appeal to their audiences and get them the hits they need. 

Get tooled up

Technology has moved on quickly and there are plenty of new and established tools to take your PR and communications to the next level. Choose from advertising, customer services, revenue management and project management services that all have degrees of automation. By removing many of the basic tasks, your team is freed up to work on creating fantastic content that delivers excellent results. 

Book your strategy call with us to ensure your PR and communications are primed! Drop us a line at [email protected] and let’s work on your future together.