When you are looking to engage a PR firm, one of the documents you will need to develop is called a PR brief. It includes details about your company, your current situation, your objectives, and your public relations campaigns. Typically, you will only share this paper with the top 4–5 public relations firms you have selected based on their qualifications. After that, the chosen agencies will use this brief as a starting point to develop a unique proposal for the client. The contract will be awarded to the company with the most compelling proposal.
Writing a PR brief is more of a scientific endeavor than it is an art form. It should be concise and, most importantly, articulate. A PR Campaign brief is analogous to a job description at its most fundamental level. It offers details about your organization, the principles you uphold, the requirements you have at the moment, and the objectives you have for the future.
In your brief, you should not only provide specifics of your marketing goals and an overview of your communications plan, but you should also briefly describe exactly what you are seeking from the PR agency you have chosen.
In a nutshell, a PR Brief summarizes the goals a brand is attempting to achieve. The general scope, brand objectives, timetables, expected outcomes, key performance indicators, budget, and other crucial factors provide the agency with information on what the client is looking for and how they can accomplish the brand's overall goals. If the agency does not have access to this essential piece of information, they may experience a feeling of being "in the dark," and the brand may not get the response it was hoping for. This results in significant time savings for both parties!
The answer to these questions requires communication professionals to liaise with their CEOs to grasp the entire business strategy. This helps to explain what it is that you want. It is helpful to get input from the heads of other departments to better understand where the challenges lie across the customer and stakeholder lifecycle.
For instance, if you're having trouble attracting leads or closing leads, getting input from the heads of other departments can help you develop campaign objectives that aim to solve the problems you're currently dealing with. Consequently, answering the questions posed in the various sections of the brief contributes to the development of internal alignment. As a result, the brief can be utilized for internal public relations and marketing efforts and when employing businesses from the outside.
In addition to this, it will save you time. Even if a PR company researches your business sector and target market, only you will be able to answer their inquiries regarding your company's aims, obstacles, and successes. When you proactively disclose that information up front, you save hours addressing the same essential questions that each of the selected agencies will ask you before they submit a bid. This is because those questions are standard across all the agencies.
The process of selecting a PR agency might be simplified with the use of a PR brief. Now, rather than providing many agencies with ad hoc information dependent on who asks what questions, every firm that was shortlisted has the same information, which is sufficient. To compare the various agencies, it is helpful to begin with the same starting point for each. Therefore, the procedure assures that you hire the best firm available, not just the firm that might have an advantage over others, because it provides more information. This is because the procedure takes into account all of the relevant factors.
Even while the brief is one of the most crucial steps in the process, it is also the step that most individuals mess up. A dull and confusing brief will likely result in a just as dull and perplexing campaign. The briefing should take up as much time and resource as the search for the ideal agency since having a brief that is both crystal clear and motivating is the key to finding the proper partner for your company.
Here are 5 sections you must include to ensure your Public Relations Brief is comprehensive. Or if you don’t want to write it yourself, you can always use our tested PR template inside HolaBrief for free!
Give specifics about your business, including the most recent versions of vital company information, such as your position in the market, current turnover, key senior figures, brand ambassadors, and the companies that are your major competitors.
One of the most important questions is how long your campaign will last. Who exactly is it that you have in mind as your audience? What is your spending limit like? In its present iteration, what are the strengths and disadvantages of your brand? To ensure that your agency sees you as a professional brand that cares enough to provide information and values their time, all of these questions need to have their answers provided right from the start. It's not hard to understand: If you have an idea of what you're looking for, you'll have an easier time locating it.
envision your company's name is known? What's the point of PR and marketing? Outline the specifics of what you are looking for, such as whether or not you want to start from the ground up with your brand. Are you interested in introducing fresh ideas and moving on a different path with them? When you run a campaign to increase sales in a specific area, do you have a specific stakeholder group in mind that you want to focus on?
Include your brand's existing key messaging to spark the imagination as one piece of advice. These will provide a firm basis for agencies to tailor their proposals and pitches for you, so including them will be beneficial. If you are focused on giving this information, each PR agency you distribute your brief to will provide the most accurate communications solutions that suit your needs.
Who exactly makes up your ideal customer profile? The decision-making power here should not rest with the agency. When you determine your target audience for the campaign, you can ensure that every aspect of it is designed to appeal to that audience in particular.
Please share your buyer personas and/or customer avatars in this section. What are their aims, their ideals, the obstacles they face, their interests, and their demographics? Which online journals and communities do they frequent? Also, make this information available to the audience you prefer not to attract. Using this information, you can more effectively pitch your story to the relevant media outlets and partner with the influencers they already follow.
Did you know you can build your target audience very easily with HolaBrief? Try it for free!
When your audience reads your posts across social media or your coverage in the media, what are the three most important takeaways that you want them to have? It could revolve around the company's core beliefs, mission, or unique selling proposition.
Building trust with your target demographic through genuine and forthright communication is an essential component of public relations. Therefore, presenting particular data, information, or research to support those crucial statements is important. If one of your core themes is anything like "doing business with us will help you make an effect in the world."
When you hire a reliable marketing firm, they will inquire about your previous public relations ties and how successful they were for your company. We find that nine out of ten times, our prospective clients have had very challenging experiences and either has given up hope in the efficacy of PR or are ready for a serious, grown-up PR partnership that brings out the best in their business and knows them completely.
The measurements of success must be specified from the outset in your brief if you want the brand and the agency to feel like they have accomplished their goals. Ensure that the goals you set are attainable, and always encourage your agency to provide you with measurable metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs) to demonstrate return on investment. In addition, if there are any significant milestones or vital dates, such as the anniversary of the company or the day on which a new product will be released, please submit them here. It helps arrange marketing initiatives around those days.
It takes a great amount of time, effort, and collaboration from multiple people to produce a high-quality PR Brief for an agency. Due to years of study that we carried out with thousands of different businesses, you now have access to brief templates that have been tested and proven effective. By constructing your animation brief within a dynamic document using HolaBrief, you will dramatically reduce the amount of time spent on this process step.
Each department can simultaneously add to, comment on, and edit various aspects of the document before the brief is used as a template or presented to the client for evaluation. Collecting feedback from your consumers has never been easier than it is now because HolaBrief does not require them to have an account to use it. Try it for free now!
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