Your 2026 PR checklist

If 2026 is set to be a year of growth for your business, then you might have thought about incorporating a PR strategy to help support that growth. However, building a successful business-to-business PR strategy can be tricky, especially if you’ve never done it before.

With more than 36 years’ experience, we’re here to help — and we’ve pulled together a simple checklist to get you started.

First and foremost, a successful PR strategy begins with a clear view of where your organisation is heading. It means understanding the audiences you need to bring with you on that journey, recognising what matters most to them, and being able to articulate how your business delivers real value.

Setting clear objectives

PR isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach. A successful PR strategy starts with clear objectives from the outset, so before you begin, you need to define exactly what you want PR to achieve for your business.

For your B2B PR strategy to deliver the best results, those objectives should be closely aligned with your wider business strategy. Is it about attracting talent into the company? Increasing visibility in existing markets to build market share? Or entering new markets and launching new products?

Once you’ve identified your objectives, a PR professional such as ourselves can develop a tailored strategy that communicates the right messages to the right audiences.

Identify your audience(s)

The next thing to think about is your audience. Who is it that you need to reach through PR activity, where do they typically get their information, and what is it that you need to communicate? Knowing your audiences will inform the best tactics and channels to use for communication.

If you’re targeting prospective customers for example, think about what type of organisations they are, where they are and who within those businesses you are targeting? This will help you when it comes to building your messages.  

Shape your messages

Now you’ve identified your audiences, you can start thinking about how to engage with them and what messages they need to hear. Think about your target audiences, what are their pain points, interests and preferences? Understanding these things will help you to tailor your messages to make sure they resonate with the right people.

Plan your tactics

Next, it’s time to think about where your business needs to be visible to reach and influence your target audience.

In many cases, PR activity will involve a blend of paid, owned, earned and shared content. Your campaign could include media relations and building relationships with the right outlets to secure consistent coverage, ensuring your company remains front of mind with key target audiences through news stories, features, technical articles and opinion pieces.

It may also incorporate educational blogs and other content designed to position the business as a leader in its field. There could be opportunities to speak at key industry events where your target audiences are present. And it might mean increasing the visibility of the business and its key people across relevant social channels.

Ultimately, your PR plan is about showing up where your target audiences are and having something meaningful and engaging to say that is aligned with your brand and values to strengthen credibility.

Don’t forget crisis comms

Unfortunately, you can’t predict when a crisis will happen, but you can have a plan in place in the event of one, so you are clear on what to do and how to respond.

A crisis communications plan sits alongside your wider PR strategy, mapping out exactly how you will manage communications in the event of an incident that could lead to reputational damage.

It provides a clear framework for responding quickly, consistently and transparently, helping to protect stakeholder confidence, control the narrative and minimise long-term impact.

Handled well, effective crisis communications can safeguard your reputation, maintain trust with clients, partners and employees, and demonstrate strong leadership at a critical time.

If you would like to learn more about crisis comms, we run a series of free interactive workshops to help you understand crisis management and outline the key elements to prepare for.

Monitor, measure, refine

Throughout your campaign, it’s essential to monitor what is delivering results and what might need refining. Monitoring media coverage and assessing its impact on web traffic, analysing branded search activity, reviewing social engagement and audience growth, and capturing both the volume and the quality of customer enquiries or job applications all contribute to understanding performance.

Together, these insights help you measure the effectiveness of your current activity and shape a stronger, more informed strategy.

A PR strategy builds a strong reputation

A PR strategy is not a quick fix or a silver bullet. It is a long-term, strategic business tool that supports the delivery of your medium- to long-term objectives. It won’t generate sales overnight.

However, when carefully planned and consistently delivered, a PR strategy helps your business build a strong reputation within your target market(s). That reputation underpins sustained growth, attracts the right talent, strengthens your appeal to investors and potential buyers when the time is right, and mitigates the impact of a crisis should one arise.

With global executives surveyed for the State of Corporate Reputation in 2020: Everything Matters Now report believing that 63% of a company’s market value is directly related to its reputation, the real question is: can your business afford not to have a PR strategy?

If you’re ready to start building a PR strategy, but not sure where to start, our Pathfinder service will help you to build a full communications strategy that works for your business. Get in touch to find out more.