Why PR Planning Should Focus on Business Outcomes, Not Outputs 

Effective PR planning connects communications activity directly to business outcomes. Instead of focusing on outputs like press releases or coverage volume, modern PR strategies should use frameworks like Theory of Change to align messaging, audience behavior, and measurable growth objectives.

If you can’t see the target, firing an arrow isn’t only a waste of time, it’s plain dangerous. 

So too in PR. 

All too often in our industry, PRs rush into execution without really considering the “why” of it all. 

It’s sort of understandable. We work in a fast-paced industry with clients often breathing down our neck for results (and rightly so – it’s what they pay us for). But to rush out a by-line or press release, or target a media opportunity without first doing the necessary planning and research is to confuse outputs with outcomes, and it’s the latter that clients really want to see. 

The value of PR planning

In the worst cases, jumping straight into execution risks completely missing the needs of your client’s audience and diluting their brand capital.

Any successful PR campaign is built on careful planning and research. It involves detailed work setting clear objectives and surfacing deep insights on target audiences. Without this, your campaign is mere noise. It’s an arrow fired into thin air. 

The risks for PRs and their agencies are clear. You may get an amazing piece of coverage in a tier 1 publication, but if it’s not targeted at the right audience, at the right time, and with the aim of driving a specific behavior, then your client will most likely turn around and ask “so what? How did this help us grow?”

How the theory of change improves PR Strategy

There’s no better approach to campaign planning than one centered on the Theory of Change (ToC). The theory, which evolved over several decades, is essentially a description of how and why a desired change is expected to happen in a particular context. The term was popularized by Carol Weiss, a researcher who was part of the Aspen Institute Roundtable on Community Change, which was trying to work out why complex community programs were often hard to evaluate.

Rather than simply hoping your tactics have the desired effect, the ToC enables people to map a connection between their tactics and long-term goals. The theory plugs the “missing middle” between what a campaign does and how that actually leads to success.

Mapping PR tactics back to business outcomes

The ToC comes to life through a technique called “backward mapping.” With backward mapping we start at the desired end state and work backward from there, ensuring that every pound spent and every piece of content produced is directly linked to a business goal. For PRs, it means that the first question to ask isn’t “what content should I write?” Instead, the starting point should be “what is the business outcome we need to achieve?” 

A backward mapping flow for a piece of PR content could look something like this:

1. Q: What’s the business goal? 

A: Increase sales of Product X

2. Q: What action do you want the audience to take to achieve this goal? 

A: Sign up to a proof-of-concept trial

3. Q: What does the audience need to think or feel to get there?

A: That Product X is the most reliable and best value product on the market

4. Q: What PR content could trigger those beliefs?

A: Thought leadership articles in trade media focusing on messages of reliability and value

5. Q: What do we need to deliver on this aim?

A: SME briefing call, media pitch, target media list, background research for article.

Outcome-Driven PR for B2B Tech Brands

PRs are keen to roll up their sleeves and show results. That’s admirable, but it’s also vital that they don’t put the horse before the cart. That’s why at SourceCode, campaign execution comes at the end of a long process of research and planning. Only once we know our clients’ objectives and understand their audiences do we start mapping back to tactics. This approach means that the impact of our campaigns can be seen in business outcomes rather than PR outputs alone.