A strong public relations strategy starts with 10 questions. Who do you need to reach, what do they believe now, and what should they believe? Which messages matter, why is the story newsworthy, which media is the best fit, who speaks for you, which channels carry your message, what could go wrong, and how will you measure success?
Key Takeaways
- Know who you’re trying to reach and how you want them to think differently about your business before planning the campaign.
- Stick to two to three main messages. Your team should be able to communicate them clearly, whether they’re speaking with reporters or posting online.
- A good media pitch needs to give reporters something their audience will actually care about. It also needs to fit the topics they normally cover.
- Make sure your spokespeople are prepared, everyone knows where updates will be shared, and the campaign has a timeline your team can realistically follow.
- Decide how you’ll measure results before the campaign begins. Those measurements should connect to what the business is trying to accomplish.
When we sit down with a new client, we usually start by talking about the people they want to reach. Who are they trying to connect with, and what would make those people see their business differently? These answers help us determine the trajectory of the PR campaign.
Everything else in a public relations plan follows from that answer. The ten questions below are the ones our team at The Vox Agency works through with museums, attractions, restaurants, resorts, and nonprofits across Las Vegas before a single pitch is written. Answer them honestly, and you have the foundation of a strategy; skip them, and you have a list of tactics.
Who Are We Trying to Reach, and What Do They Believe Right Now?
Every PR strategy starts with two linked questions: who you need to reach and what they think of your brand right now? The gap between today’s perception and the image you want is the real work of public relations. Without naming both, a campaign can only generate coverage that reaches irrelevant audiences.
1. Who Do We Need to Reach?
Before planning a PR campaign, think about the people you’re actually trying to reach. For a resort, that might mean meeting planners based in Chicago. A nonprofit may be more interested in connecting with potential donors who live nearby. The audience will depend on what your organization hopes to accomplish.
Your target audience really depends on who has a reason to care about what you’re doing. And customers aren’t the only people worth thinking about. Your staff, nearby residents, local officials, and businesses you work with can all shape your reputation through their own experiences and conversations.
2. What perception do we want to change?
Write down what your audience believes about you today. Then write down what you want them to believe twelve months from now. Sometimes the honest answer is that they don’t know you exist. Other times, they know you for something you outgrew years ago, like a museum still seen as a field-trip stop when it now hosts evening programs for adults. The distance between those two statements is your campaign objective.
What Should We Say, and Why Would Anyone Care?
Before putting your main campaign message out there, consider whether it gives people a reason to pay attention. Something that feels important to the company may not be particularly interesting to a reporter or their readers. That’s why it helps to settle on a few key points and consider how they relate to what your audience wants to know.
3. Which Messages Matter Most?
Two to three main messages are usually enough. When there are too many, it’s easy for the message to get lost between interviews, social media posts, and other press materials.
What are the two or three things you’d want someone to know about your business after hearing about it? Start there. Make sure you can back up what you’re saying and that it matters to the people you’re speaking to. Once you’ve settled on those points, keep using them in interviews, press releases, and social media. People are more likely to remember what you do when they hear a familiar message rather than something different each time.
4. What makes our story newsworthy?
Journalists are not short on pitches. In Muck Rack’s State of Journalism 2026 survey of 897 journalists, 86% said PR pitches inspire at least some of their stories, and 88% said they immediately disregard pitches that miss their beat.
News value usually comes from something new, something local, a number nobody else has, or a human story with real stakes. If you can’t say why a reporter’s audience would care this week, the story isn’t ready to pitch.
Who Will Tell the Story, and Where Will People Hear It?
Media targets, spokespeople, and channels determine how a story travels. The right outlets reach the audience you named, a prepared spokesperson keeps the message intact under questioning, and a planned channel mix lets earned coverage, social content, and owned platforms reinforce one another. Each choice should trace back to the audience defined at the start.
5. Which media outlets and reporters should we target?
A short list of the right outlets beats a long list of famous ones. Muck Rack’s State of PR 2026 report found that 71% of PR professionals report low response rates from journalists, and 61% cite smaller or shrinking media lists.
That makes research more valuable. Read what a reporter has published in the last three months, note who covers dining versus travel versus business, and include trade publications, local broadcast stations, podcasts, and creators who your audience already engages with.
Relationships matter as much as the list itself. We cover how to keep those conversations moving in The Art of the Pitch: Why Follow-Ups Are Just as Important as the First Send.
6. Who will speak for us, and are they ready?
The best spokesperson is often the person with firsthand knowledge, not the one with the most senior title in the room. That might be the executive chef on a new menu, the curator on a new exhibit, or the general manager on a renovation.
Readiness means rehearsal: talking points they can say in their own words, practice with difficult questions, and a plan for steering the interview back when it drifts. Media training before the first interview costs far less than a correction after it.
7. Which communication channels will carry the message?
Earned media, social platforms, creator partnerships, email, your website, and community events each reach people differently. Decide which channels serve which audience, then plan how they connect.
A feature story can anchor a month of social content. A creator visit can introduce a restaurant to a new neighborhood, and both should send people to a website that says the same thing. That alignment is what turns separate activities into tailored PR campaigns that drive business and sales goals.
What Could Go Wrong, and What Do We Have to Work With?
Risk, timing, and resources keep a strategy realistic. Naming likely reputation issues in advance prevents surprises, a timeline built around real news moments gives the campaign momentum, and an honest look at budget and staff time shows what the organization can realistically sustain.
8. What reputation risks should we plan for?
Every organization has a few: a slow season, a leadership change, a review that spreads for the wrong reasons, a construction project that frustrates neighbors. Listing them early lets you prepare holding statements, assign a decision-maker, and agree on who speaks if something breaks.
Good crisis management is mostly preparation completed long before anyone needs it. The organizations that handle difficult moments well usually decide who will answer the phone months earlier.
9. What is our timeline, and what resources do we have?
PR runs on lead time. Long-lead magazines plan holiday issues months in advance, while a local morning show might book a segment a week out.
Map the campaign against your own calendar (openings, anniversaries, seasonal menus, fundraising dates) and against your city’s. In Las Vegas, that means planning around the major conventions and events that bring national media to town.
Then be honest about the budget and staff time. A smaller program run consistently for a year usually outperforms a large launch that stops after six weeks.
How Will We Know the Strategy Worked?
Success metrics belong in the plan before a campaign launches. The right measures connect PR activity to business outcomes such as reservations, ticket sales, donations, or inquiries, as well as media measures such as coverage in target outlets, key message pickup, and the quality of the audience reached. Agreed metrics also make every later conversation about results easier.
10. How Will We Measure Success?
Getting media coverage is great, but what happened as a result? If a restaurant wants more weekday reservations, we’d want to know whether bookings increased after a story ran. We’d also look at website visits around that time to see whether more people were checking out the restaurant.
Of course, we’d still pay attention to where the coverage appeared and whether the reporter included the details we wanted people to know. It also helps to understand who the story reached. Another thing we look at now is how businesses show up in AI search results. News coverage and other online sources can influence those answers, which is part of what we cover in our LLMO approach.
How Do These Questions Connect PR to Business Goals?
Once you’ve worked through all ten questions, put the answers somewhere the whole team can reference. It’s much easier to plan a campaign when leadership, marketing, sales, and PR are working from the same information.
The answers also give everyone something to refer back to when questions come up later. Who are we trying to reach? What should we be talking about? How will we know whether it’s working? Having those details written down helps keep the campaign on track, even when different people are handling different parts of the work.
If you skipped straight to this section, start with question one anyway. In our experience, question two is the one most organizations find hardest, because describing how people actually see you takes more candor than describing how you would like to be seen.
We don’t think there is a shortcut through that one. Some clients answer it in an afternoon; others revisit it every quarter as the audience changes.
Frequently Asked Questions
What questions should I ask before starting a PR campaign?
Ask who you need to reach, what they believe now, what you want them to believe, which messages matter most, and why your story is newsworthy. Then decide on media targets, spokespeople, channels, reputation risks, timeline, resources, and how you will measure success against business goals.
How do you write PR campaign objectives?
Think about what you want the campaign to accomplish for your business. You may be trying to fill more tables during the week or encourage members to renew. From there, consider who you’re trying to reach and what you want them to do differently. Set a clear goal and deadline so you can look back and see whether the campaign worked.
How do I know if my story is newsworthy?
Before pitching a story, think about why a reporter would want to cover it right now. Is something new happening? Does it affect the local community, or do you have information people haven’t heard before? If you’re having trouble explaining why readers would care, the story may need a stronger angle.
How long does it take to see results from public relations?
It depends on what you’re hoping to accomplish. A local news story might come together within a few weeks, but getting people familiar with your business usually takes longer. Building relationships with reporters and staying involved in the community takes ongoing effort. For many organizations, it makes sense to evaluate progress over six to twelve months rather than expecting everything to happen right away.
How do you measure the success of a PR strategy?
Look at what happened after the campaign and whether it helped your business. Did you see more reservations, ticket sales, donations, or customer inquiries? Media coverage matters too, especially when the right publications are sharing your story. You can also review whether your main messages are getting through and how your business appears in AI-generated search results.
Do small businesses and nonprofits need a PR strategy?
For a small business, getting mentioned in the local news or working with another business in the area can bring in people who might not have heard of them otherwise. Nonprofits can benefit from those same connections, especially when they’re trying to get more people involved in their work. A PR strategy gives them a better idea of where to put their time and effort without taking on more than they can manage.
Strategy Built in Las Vegas Since 2011
Start with Question One. Ten questions, answered well, will tell you more about your next campaign than any list of tactics. Bring your answers, or your blank spaces, to a strategy session, and we’ll work through the rest together.
Schedule a strategy session with The Vox Agency.
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