Successful Public Relations

Course overview

Why choose ‘Successful Public Relations’ ?

PR has moved from a fringe activity to centre stage, the driver on which growth and reputation depend. In a world in which global communication is instant, PR is critical to the success and – in times of crisis – the survival of organisations and individuals. Professionalism is everything. You don’t get a second chance to put it right.

Falconbury’s PR course offers you the experience and guidance, tips and techniques of three highly successful professionals. It has been specifically designed to offer a step-by-step guide to the essential knowledge and skills needed to design, plan and implement successful PR campaigns. If you are new to PR, working in the role of a PR assistant or a marketing assistant or executive wanting to develop your understanding of effective PR, then this course is for you.

When you have completed the 6-module programme you will have a proper grasp of the all the key functions that are crucial to success.

Who should enrol?

• PR assistants and executives who wish to become top professionals
• Marketing staff in private, public and not for profit organisations who want to become proficient in PR
• Managers of SMEs or those running their own business who need PR but don’t want to employ outside consultants

This distance learning course will:

• Provide a step-by-step guide on how to design, plan and implement a successful PR campaign
• Show you how to get more column inches and airtime – media, timing and pitch
• Teach you the different needs of consumer PR, B2B PR, internal communications and public affairs
• Empower you with the confidence, skills and techniques to successfully manage a crisis
• Enhance your skills and techniques for planning and creating press releases, sales letters and direct mail campaigns

Course modules

MODULE 1 – THE ROLE OF THE PR FUNCTION

• Qualities and skills
• Codes of conduct
• Planning and evaluation
• PR and the marketing mix
• Sponsorship
• Product placement
• Tactics and techniques
• Research
• e-communications
• Design and corporate identity

MODULE 2 – MEDIA RELATIONS AND PUBLIC AFFAIRS

• Getting to grips with media relations
• What is news?
• Building relationships with journalists
• Press conferences
• Setting up a press office
• Managing PR
• Budgeting
• In-house consultancy
• What do PR consultancies offer?
• Public affairs planning
• Political targets and ways to reach them
• Preparing feature articles

MODULE 3 – SPECIAL PR FUNCTIONS

• Business-to-business
• Consumer
• Corporate
• Financial
• Healthcare
• Internal communications
• IT
• Event management
• International PR
• Agency and inter-agency relations
• Language and cultural differences
• International media
• Contracts
• Getting started

MODULE 4 – UNDERSTANDING PROMOTION AND MARKETING

• Researching and choosing appropriate media
• Evaluating the pros and cons of different media
• Direct mail planning
• Sales letters
• Advertising and choosing the right media
• Making your advertising effective
• Point of sale materials
• Choosing and using a graphic designer

MODULE 5 – PR AND THE SMALL BUSINESS

• PR activity
• Resources and administration
• Developing media contacts
• Crisis PR
• How to choose and use a PR agency
• Personal selling skills

MODULE 6 – PR AND CRISIS MANAGEMENT

• Defining a crisis management strategy
• Command and control
• Leadership and procedures
• Crisis support staff
• Documentation
• Communications
• Fallback arrangements
• Communications cascades
• Organising the media interface
• Reputational damage
• Sources of information
• Media training
• The right messages
• Action teams/plans
• Maintaining the crisis management infrastructure
• The crisis management manual
• Information, training and testing

Course contributors

Caroline Black runs her own consultancy and is also an experienced trainer, mentor and speaker. Her specialist areas include corporate, consumer, business-to-business issues and crisis management communications. She has worked for a wide range of clients and brands, including Sainsbury’s, Investors in People UK, Mobil, Mars, Pedigree Petfoods, Ufi Ltd, British Gas, Smith & Nephew, the European Union, and the National Society for Epilepsy.

Jim Dunn founded his own PR consultancy in 1969 and over 25 years built TPS into one of the most successful travel, leisure and general consumer PR companies in the UK, before selling it to the Shandwick Group.

Paul batchelor is a Fellow of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants. He has twenty years’ experience in senior roles in the UK retail financial services sector, recently specialising in internal audit, compliance, special investigations and risk management. Over a five-year period, he was responsible for creating, maintaining and testing the business resumption planning capabilities of a leading UK financial services group.

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Client portfolio

Our client portfolio for this course includes the following companies:

More information

The following documents are available for this course:

• Sample module [135kb]

Academy of Distance Learning in Business

ADLiB

The Academy for Distance Learning in Business (ADLiB¹) has developed out of Falconbury’s pioneering work on short-course management and professional development.

As with the face-to-face training we do in our public and in-house programmes, our focus is on the practical and application-rich skills and techniques, which will enable individuals to develop their full potential as managers and professionals.

Our approach to distance learning is to use the self-study method at its best to make sure that you can flexibly acquire the knowledge and understanding of each chosen area in a way that suits you and your current work commitments.

ADLiB was set up to give a consistent approach across different subject areas, so that its users would know that our rigorous standards of excellence would be met in each course.

Every programme and each of the component modules is a combination of the training and learning expertise of Falconbury and input from its wide range of practically skilled writers and trainers. Where a course bears the ADLiB logo, you can be sure that our (and your) exacting standards will be met.

To learn more about how ADLiB and the courses can help you and/or your business call +44 (0)20 7729 6677

¹ ADLiB is the Academy for Distance Learning in Business and offers ‘best in class’, flexible self-study in key business, management and leadership via distance learning modules delivered directly to you, to work through at your convenience.

Ad lib is from the Latin ad libitum meaning ‘at one’s pleasure’ – we aim to make management and professional development enjoyable as well as worthwhile.

Ad lib could also be a loose latin short-form of ‘to the library’ – but in our case, we save you that trouble by using the best material available to us on each topic and assembled to give you maximum benefit.

International Association of Distance Learning

The International Association for Distance Learning (IADL) promotes excellence in open, distance, and online learning worldwide, and provides a benchmark through which global consumers can gauge the quality of courses offered by their members.

The IADL is an independent, non-profit organisation with its principal administrative offices in London in the United Kingdom. Find out more.

Falconbury are an Approved Member of the International Association for Distance Learning. Please see our IADL membership certificate