PR Teams: Your Guide to Creating & Managing Your Own PR Teams in 2023

Many businesses would just consider hiring a PR agency to take care of their PR needs, but as a small business or startup, this may prove to be too pricey. You can build an in-house PR team with a wide range of expertise for your business. And because they only work for your company, you can ensure that your brand message always stays intact. 

At PressKitHero, we believe every business, no matter how small, deserves to have their own professional media kit. In this article, we’ll take you through how you can create and effectively manage your own PR team.

What is a PR Team? 

A business’s public relations team aims to build a positive public perception and maintain a positive relationship with the general public. Incorporating a well-organized PR team can help you meet your goals for your startup in terms of visibility and building credibility. 

You can hire a PR agency to handle your public image, but it’s possible to form a PR team in-house to reduce your costs. Whichever choice suits your company best, your team should always strive for a healthy balance of creativity and experience.   

How Can a PR Team Benefit Your Business? 

Controlling the Narrative & Shaping Public Opinion

Without a dedicated PR team, your business may be unable to keep up with public perception, which is important to consider when introducing your brand persona. A PR team is able to focus its efforts on controlling the narrative for your business so that everyone else can focus on operations to back it up. If any negative news surrounds your business, your PR team will be able to get ahead of it and develop an effective strategy to place your business in a positive light. 

Help Build Good Relationships with a Target Audience

Your PR team is your communications team, so they’ll have in-depth knowledge of your target audience and their expectations of your business. Because of this, they’ll always ensure that your products or services translate into a language your customers will appreciate. Moreover, the PR team is responsible for sharing information with the public, which also includes prospective investors and stakeholders. So, content consideration and knowing the right media outlets to target will be their priority. 

Increases Brand Credibility

Dedicated PR teams can enhance your brand credibility by putting out information that adds value to your products or services. This valuable information is shared through various PR tactics such as content marketing, leveraging social media platforms, press releases, and partnerships with industry experts, influencers, or relevant brands. Essentially, your PR team is supposed to ensure your business acquires enough headlines to expose you to a wider audience and help you grow your audience in your niche. 

Criteria to consider when creating a PR team for your business

• Valuable Soft Skills: You want a PR team with the perfect skills to do the job. This includes creative storytelling, the ability to create engaging content, and flexibility in mitigating negative press. 
• Diversity: A diverse team with different experiences, insights, and expertise in various content formats will help you maintain relevance when creating campaigns. 
• Budget: Planning a PR budget is necessary to ensure you have enough funds to manage your team and the creative campaigns you aim to facilitate. 

Building the Foundations of Your PR Team for Your Small Business

Now that we’ve established the formula for creating your in-house PR team let’s dive into how you can manage and enhance it. 

1. ### Set Goals & Objectives

When setting up your PR team, it’s important to have SMART goals in place so that everyone knows what they’re trying to achieve. Established objectives also give accountability and a point of reference to return if anything ever goes awry. 

Your PR team can have all the right skills in the right place, but if there’s no understanding of the company's vision and mission, running your campaigns smoothly will be difficult. So, continuously emphasizing the set goals and objectives will ensure that your team is on the same page when putting your PR campaign into action.   

1. ### Ensure the Story is Foundational 

Once the goals and objectives are established, and the team is fully aware of them, your company’s public story can be crafted. The story should reflect your brand values in a way that resonates with your target audience. Consider your products or services' purpose and what makes your business unique. 

With successful brand storytelling, you can further increase your company’s visibility and leads, as well as maintain a genuine relationship with your customers. So, in order for your PR team to craft the right story, here’s what they should pay attention to:

• Focus on what makes your business unique. By doing this, you can differentiate yourself in what may be a crowded market. You’ll also be able to develop a consistent brand personality down the line, which helps potential customers easily identify what you can offer them. 
• Authenticity is key. You should prioritize connecting with real people in PR, instead of focusing on sales numbers. Customers nowadays are more aware of advertising messages and are more inclined to remember a brand that evokes an emotional response. So to remain authentic and encourage emotional branding, don’t be afraid to be transparent when telling your brand’s story and highlight your potential customers' desires and pain points in the story you share with them. 
• Tribal marketing. This works by segmenting your audience based on their behaviors and shared interests rather than simple demographics. Tribal marketing is necessary for your brand story because it helps build a sense of community with your audience. This encourages them to corroborate your PR messaging and spread it to others.  
• Share your brand’s culture. Base your business narrative on your brand’s history and culture, as this also helps shape your brand personality over time. You want your customers to have a clear picture in their minds about what your brand stands for. Share your origins, values, beliefs, staff, and any way your brand has evolved because of customers' needs or societal shifts.  
• Be creative. Using creative methods to share your story will ensure you get people’s attention in the first place. For example, video content is powerful in helping share your brand message. Try to choose platforms your target audience uses the most, and ensure the content is engaging and easy to digest. 

Natural body care brand Burt’s Bees is a great example of a company that has mastered its story. One of the cofounders was a beekeeper, and the company stays true to its message, “What you put on your body should be made from the best nature has to offer.”  They focus their campaigns on sustainability and bee protection activism, which maintains their credibility as an authentic natural body care brand. 

When you have your brand story established, you can share it in a professional press kit using PressKitHero’s easy-to-use builder. You’ll be able to add all the valuable information and content surrounding your brand in a way that the media will be proud to write about. 

1. ### Define and Develop Repeatable Workflows

About 75% of US workers note that their company doesn’t give them full access to the necessary systems to produce their best work. So, if even one member of your PR team struggles because of inadequate protocols, the whole team will suffer. 

The solution is to develop an internal task structure tailored to your business that clearly defines a systemized workflow for everyone on the team. As your PR team gains more experience, establish specific protocols for different occurrences. 

For example, how does the team address a negative review on social media? Is the plan to address the reviewer privately and offer them compensation for their experience? Or maybe you’d prefer to address the reviewer publicly, apologize, and share what you’re doing to make the situation right. It’s best to always have a repeatable solution for multiple situations to keep your team working smoothly. 

1. ### Training & Digital Tools

As the nature of PR can revolve around following a trend cycle, it’s important for your PR team members to stay up-to-date on new PR tactics. Regular PR training every 2 to 3 months can help keep your team solid. 

Additionally, as PR tactics evolve, so will the need of your team to stay on top of digital tools. So, incorporating digital PR tools for your PR team can ensure they work more effectively. So, here are some great tools to help your PR team stay on track:

• HARO: helps reach out to the most beneficial and relevant journalists for your business, so you acquire the headlines you need. 
• Facelift:  a social media management tool that helps you keep up with trending media, track your engagement, and collect intel on your competitors in your specific niche so you’re always in the loop. 
• Ahrefs: an all-in-one digital marketing tool to help with SEO, analyzing keywords, relevant content, and backlinks. 
• PressKitHero: helps you create a professional press kit for your company so that you can showcase your company’s story to the media. 

1. ### Encourage Internal Communication & Collaboration

When the team works well together, you’re guaranteed higher productivity and efficiency of your PR strategies. This is why it’s extremely beneficial to encourage your PR team members to communicate and collaborate on any project. 

If different PR departments are encouraged to share ideas, the team becomes more creative in their insights, which is exactly what you need to develop effective PR strategies. Here are some ways you can encourage communication for your PR team: 

• Face-to-face weekly meetings
• Create different social breakout zones just for conversations
• Use communication tools such as private group messaging, task management software, and chat tools to share information freely.
• Educate and emphasize the importance of being mindful of verbal and non-verbal language (e.g., manners, body language, and tone of voice)

Wrapping Up

Building your own in-house PR team may be challenging, but it’s definitely worth it. Your brand message can be shared clearly by those who are part of your company. Additionally, you want them to have genuine positive sentiments about your business. So having clear protocols and free collaboration will be beneficial in helping them translate their trustworthiness in your brand to the rest of the public. 

Your PR team will need an efficient way of sharing your brand story with relevant publications. And the best way to do that is by creating a professional media kit. Fortunately, PressKitHero can help you allocate all your information and media in one customizable platform. Still not sure if you need it? View our demo press kit, sign up for free today, and see how your business can get the attention it deserves!