By Joe Curley, APR, CPRC
Those of us in the communications profession know by heart the tried and true Five W’s and H formula to writing a solid story. But that list of letters can also be helpful in many other PR planning activities. By simply rearranging the order of the letters and tweaking what each letter “asks” we can create a new checklist to guide us.
Put in the proper order, the Five W’s and H help create your communications plan. For example, when you answer the first Why, that data helps prompt the Who, and once you have the Why and Who data, those build on each other and help lead you to the What answer (and so on down the line).
Five W’s and H questions for developing a new planned event:
(This also works well to re-evaluate existing annual events to see if they are still relevant).
- Why are we doing this event and what are the expected results?
- Who is the audience(s) we want to communicate, influence, persuade, inform or motivate?
- What is the message(s) that will resonate with the target audience(s)? What are the audience message take-aways we need?
- Where will we communicate the message(s) to reach that audience(s)? Newspaper, radio, TV, magazines, trades, direct mail, social media outlets, etc.?
- When is the best timing to communicate to achieve the expected results?
- How can these objectives be accomplished? Through a newsworthy stunt or showcase product/service event, open house event, traveling road show, executive town hall appearances, etc.? How will we create the tools, tactics and message take-aways to reach our target audiences? How do we evaluate this event? How does this fit into our total PR and communications strategies?
Five W’s and H questions for news releases, announcements & social media posts:
- Why am I communicating (the core reason)?
- Who do I want to reach (key target audiences)?
- What do I want to say (key messages to inform, motivate, influence or persuade)?
- Where will I communicate? Identifying the outlets that reach your key target audiences.
- When will I communicate (best timing to maximize outreach)?
- How will we implement the process and later evaluate the program? How does this fit into our total PR and communications strategies?
For more expert advice and additional PR and communications strategies you can put into practice, read our blog.
About the Author:
Joe Curley, APR, CPRC, has practiced public relations in Florida for more than 40 years and is now semi-retired. He was the co-founder and president of one of Florida’s largest PR firms, Curley & Pynn Public Relations Management in Orlando, which he sold in 2004 and is still in full operation.
Joe’s PR experience spans nearly all business market segments including aerospace, travel & tourism, real estate, professional services (law/accounting/medical), as well as urban development, construction and housing. Joe has extensive PR planning, crisis and international PR experience, is a requested speaker and has won countless PR awards.
Currently a public relations and marketing consultant at his own firm Stingray Solutions, Inc., Joe was retained by Universal Studios Parks & Resorts as Senior Corporate Communications Counsel, international marketing & PR, for the last 30 years and retired in March 2018 to an on-call status to support special projects. He was directly involved in theme park projects in Orlando, Los Angeles, Japan, Singapore, Dubai, South Korea, Moscow and Beijing.
Joe now lives in Bradenton, Florida, where he is an avid recreational boater, and collects, restores and shows classic “muscle” cars, many of which were featured in national automotive magazines.