4 things to think about before launching an international PR campaign

O ne of the biggest challenges for organisations launching in a new territory is having a clear proposition that will speak to each region.

A PR agency can be invaluable in delivering a communications plan that ensures your business translates, but how do you find an agency that is the right fit for you?

What do you want PR to achieve?

Before engaging with an agency, it’s important to be clear about how PR will contribute to the bigger business objective. This will likely differ in each territory – educating the market might be the number one priority in one region, whereas attracting new recruits might be more pressing somewhere else.

Can you commit to making it work?

A proactive agency can generate ideas, produce content, get interviews with journalists and effectively carry out the majority of the campaign – but it would be disingenuous to say they won’t need some time from you in return. This includes finding the right spokesperson for each territory. Ideally, this should be someone who is on the ground and can share insights about the market. Work with your spokesperson to outline what you need from them and how regularly. This could simply be a light touch on sign-off processes but agreeing working practices and processes ensures everyone is on the same page.

"Before engaging with an agency, it’s important to be clear about how PR will contribute to the bigger business objective."

Ensure your business translates

Before communicating that you’ve launched somewhere new, it’s important to get your messaging straight. A good agency can help you to develop your proposition – as well as providing guidance on what the media in that region want to hear about and what type of content different outlets will publish. For example, while opportunities to comment reactively can be extensive in the UK, in Germany these can be few and far between.

A centralised approach  

If you’re launching in multiple countries, then keeping your communications plan coherent can be a logistical nightmare and it’s important to consider how you might manage that process. To start with, ask yourself how much facetime you want to have with each territory, and what resources and tools you need to manage multiple teams. A monthly sync with all agencies may be sufficient or a shared communication tool like Slack may need to be implemented to help streamline more regular queries. Whether it’s someone in-house or a ‘lead’ agency, identify who will take charge. In addition to keeping things on track, this is someone who can coordinate local knowledge, and flag where there are opportunities to translate and adapt content to local markets.

If you’re thinking about embarking on your own international PR campaign, drop Lizzie a line at lizzie@fourthday.co.uk or give us a call on (+44) 207 403 4411.