The basics of strategic PR writing: First point, it isn’t easy!
By Don Bates, APR, Fellow PRSA
Let’s start with the conclusion: Strategic PR writing isn’t easy. It requires a lot of grounding in an employer’s or client’s essential business, and appreciation of the larger PR and marketing intentions. PR writers must learn these things without unnecessarily imposing themselves in areas for which they’re not responsible.
Consider the following keys to success: More access results in more inside knowledge. More inside knowledge results in more insight into what needs to be written and why. And more insight results in a better understanding of what information needs to be incorporated and how. A better understanding of this process leads to greater success and greater satisfaction all around.
In addition, PR writers must know about their audiences: Who are they specifically, where are they, what do they want to know, what do they need to know and, most importantly, what information or arguments will most likely lead them to favorable action on behalf of the employer or client? This is a highly selective task. PR documents have prescribed lengths, and audiences have limited attention spans. The writers should ask themselves how much detail is appropriate or adequate before what they are writing becomes repetitious, boring and/or ineffective: What facts do they need, what evidence, whom do they reference, whom do they quote?
The answers become the framework for the writers’ words, nuanced and aligned in keeping with the purposes of the communications in question. Writers shouldn’t be slapping words together. They should be painting them carefully to cover the critical touchpoints of a document. Most conspicuously in the case of a news release are the headline, lead paragraphs, quotes, descriptions, and boilerplate. The writers want each part to help generate acceptance and understanding of the final communication. Lastly, they should use language that credibly achieves what employers and clients desire or require.
Strategic writing is how PR writers distinctively achieve the goals of what they’re writing.
About the author: Don Bates, APR, Fellow PRSA, is an award-winning public relations executive, writer, trainer and consultant. During his career, he has worked for major international corporations, nonprofits and consulting firms. He has also taught part-time—to give back—in graduate PR programs at Columbia, The New School University, New York University and the George Washington University Graduate School of Political Management.
