When it comes to PR what makes a DIYer so successful is either:
a) they’re amazing at all the skills necessary to create a winning PR campaign or
b) they’re smart enough to acknowledge their weaknesses and find someone to pick up the slack where they lack the talent.
You need to give yourself an honest assessment of what you’re good at and what areas you could use some help or guidance in. And if you can’t find an area where you’re lacking talent, find someone who’ll open your eyes.
With that let’s look at what skills are necessary to create a PR campaign that will produce results:
- You have to be a good writer.
- You have to be creative.
- You have to be organized.
- You have to have amazing phone and communication skills.
- You have to be able to take rejection very, very well.
- You have to have the time to actually do PR.
- You have to be a good researcher.
- You have to be disciplined.
- You have to be reachable all the time.
- You have to be able to think on your feet.
- You have to be inventive.
Basically you have to be a mix between Danielle Steele, Jerry Maguire, the Hubble Telescope, a high school football coach, Jackson Pollock, MacGyver and an anthropologist to do PR yourself and produce results.
Well, not exactly. If you want a champagne PR campaign on a beer budget it’s totally possible to do it yourself, but if you’re a weak writer, not creative or not very organized, you might want to consider hiring someone who can help you in those areas. It’ll be a bit more money, but it’ll be considerably cheaper than hiring a publicist. PR is all about giving the media what they want, and sometimes you can’t give them what they want on your own. You’ll never go wrong doing what you’re good at, and you’ll never go wrong NOT doing what you’re bad at.
