Public affairs play an essential role in developing the company’s brand image. It helps shape the image so that it caters to the expectations of the top brass, including the stakeholders and company officials.
It is a way to bridge the gap between the public eye and the business’s aspect of dealing with varying situations.
This article will discuss the basics of public affairs, how to create a public affairs strategy and the benefits of having a public affairs strategy.
Guide to Developing a Public Affairs Strategy
Public affair is a department that handles the general public and deals with legislation, policy-making, and the law side of the business. In addition, it shapes the consumers’ and potential investors’ opinions of the brand itself.
It is more politically involved and ensures the business relationship with the client is kept intact; they also are responsible for ensuring that the stakeholders and company officials are kept up to date on government policies and legislation.
Public affairs help present information to stakeholders to shape public policy and support the organization’s agenda. In contrast, public relations deals with creating positive publicity to help build loyal support for the organization.
How to Create It
Here are six steps through which you can create an effective public affairs strategy:
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Outline Public Affairs Goals
You are outlining the goals you want to achieve through public affairs need to be highlighted first. What you’re expecting from a good public affairs strategy is essential to figure out what your outcome is required to be.
It can range from creating an entrée for increased sales, improving employee productivity and morale, increasing recruitment and retention, improving relationships [s with the surrounding communities that your business interacts with, finding allies against future crises, launching a product, or entering a new geographic market.
Once it’s clear what your goals are through the use of the strategy, you can achieve the desired goals you want.
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Research
To reach the outlined goals, you first need to do the required research and analysis to develop an in-depth understanding of your company’s information. Finding trends and patterns in media narratives and audience sentiments allows your big data to do your research.
By following a SWOT analysis which is Strengths, weaknesses, Opportunities, and threats, you can raise questions such as what your business is like, how well your social media presence is and if your company was mentioned in the media recently.
This analysis can help you figure out what position your company is currently standing in.
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Knowing Target Audience
By using media monitoring and different data analytics tools, you can find out what the likes and dislikes of your business’s key features are from the perspective of consumers or potential consumers. Allowing the public affairs analyst to look into the general public can give the company owner a good idea of what needs to be changed to receive a good outcome.
Knowing what source outlets target audiences frequently to receive media influences is also essential. By shaping the brand’s image through that media source, the company can have a positive brand image.
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Set Objectives
It’s essential to create objectives for every target audience member, which can overlap or be completely separate. This way, you’ll be able to measure the final results against the efforts you’ve put into setting each goal.
A common model known as SMART objectives can help you get a guideline for reaching consumers. SMART abbreviates to Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-bound.
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Public Affair Tactics
There are many ways to choose a fun public affair tactic, from press releases to social media posts and hosting events. As long as they support your position, you can choose to devote your resources to that public affair tactic.
Here are a few public affairs tactics:
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- Press Releases
- Articles and Guest posts
- Influencer marketing
- Media Outreach
- Corporate videos and interviews
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Measure Results
Lastly, you will measure and evaluate the goals you’ve achieved through your PR plan. Metrics, Brand Sentiment, and Competitive Analysis are ways to do so. However, measuring the PR goals varies from business to business, and you must figure out the right tools to measure your PR goals perfectly.
5 Benefits of Creating a Public Affairs Strategy
Here are five benefits of creating a public affairs strategy:
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Increases Credibility
Using the Public Affairs Strategy can help make the business’s content more authentic and informative, giving more visibility and credibility to the consumer market.
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Attracts Target Market
Using different PR tactics creatively and effectively can make your business a much more attractive sight than a normal advertisement.
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Provides Added Value
IT can help create a unique selling point for your business, differentiating you from other businesses in the competitor market. In addition, added value through public affairs tactics can increase the visibility of your products and services in the market.
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Lead Generation
Through conducting Public affairs tactics, there are more communications among market members, allowing you to gain leads that can help enhance the business.
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Builds Your Brand Image
Public affairs tactics are all about promotion tactics to help create a good brand image. It can create a positive brand image you will recognize in the community.
Conclusion
Trying to handle a public affairs strategy can prove tricky for any business out there. Still, by allowing the strategy to be organized, you can follow simple steps to help ensure that the extensive research of the competitors and business tactics can be proved useful.
Make sure that the planning of the strategy is kept as realistic as possible and flexible toward any unforeseen events.
