Check Your PR Inventory

published 2001

Most companies have a range of PR opportunities that lie dormant because no one in the organisation thinks about them as other than operational items.

Put on a PR or communciations hat and each of them becomes an opportunity to raise the profile of the company and to reach your specifiers, trade and end customers in a way that positions the organisation superior to, and different from, your competitors.

1. What likely events do we have to leverage?

• New facilities.
• Anniversaries/milestones. Have these been seen as PR opportunities?

2. What is our new product release schedule?

• New products.

• Additions to a product range. There's probably an ad. budget for these, but is there a supporting PR plan for this schedule?

3. Do we have any VIP's visiting?

• Senior execs. from international Head Office.
• Overseas supplier/franchise principals. These offer potential events and media opportunities.

4. Are company structural changes or developments likely?

• Board or senior exec changes
• Company restructuring - expansion/contraction. Is there a communications plan to support these?

5. Are there trends or developments that are relevant?

• New R&D outputs.
• Trends that will impact on how customers do business. How will these fit within our marketing communication?

6. What about exhibitions and seminars?

• Key annual exhibitions.
• Seminars - our own or industry. Are we exploiting these as well as we should? Are we attending some that give doubtful returns?

7. Do we have customer product applications to use?

• Our products are being successfully used to solve problems and achieve outstanding results. Are we preparing case studies for media and general Marketing support use?

8. How do we present our corporate story?

• By regular company newsletter, magazine or video.
• Through Annual Report or a Corporate Profile.
• Through our own web site. Are we producing these as professionally as we could? Are they all integrated so they portray consistent messages?

9. Is there a need for some internal and/or customer morale building?

• A major employee conference.
• A customer conference. Would we benefit from a fresh perspective on the organisation and staging of these?

Note: The author of this article  is a senior Sydney-based independent corporate PR consultant who coaches or mentors PR Managers get the best out of their PR Department and to review or select a PR agency, as well as providing specialist corporate PR and communications advice where issues or change are impacting on an organisation. He also blogs regularly on PR and communications topics like the one in this article.