By David Barkoe and Mariela Azcuy

Refreshed September 5, 2024

The word "sustainable" or "sustainability" means a lot of things to a lot of people. Most notably, people use the term in relation to our environment and keeping it healthy. 

At Carve, we use the word “sustainable” not because we focus on "green" clients but because we believe in keeping up a healthy amount of media coverage in the absence of news.  

Typically, PR strategies focus on product launches or other company news or events.  These announcements – known as “tentpoles” – are essential to any PR program. They contribute to an immediate increase in awareness, traffic, sales, leads, followers, or whatever the objective is. 

However, a launch or an announcement is a moment in time, a singular point on a calendar or roadmap. These peaks are great and get everyone high fiving – especially the PR team – but then what? 

What is Sustainable PR?

Sustainable PR is an always-on strategy that focuses on the times between the "tentpoles" –  the announcements, the events, the activations, the product launches. 

Focusing only on the tentpoles leaves a huge hole in any PR strategy. It results in fits and starts of awareness. PR cannot be shut off like a light switch and turned back on. Awareness is earned over time and must be nurtured. 

A tentpole-only PR strategy also leaves brands wondering what the PR firm is doing, what they're paying for, and how the firm will meet their objectives. 

Our prospects often tell us: "our firm wasn't being proactive" or "our firm was just waiting around for us to tell them what to do." Companies feel this way because most PR firms do not practice a sustainable PR model. 

And the reality is many companies – especially startup and growth-stage companies –  don't have a lot of news. They don't have new clients or product announcements every week or month. 

Thus, the agency has to get creative and focus on intentional, proactive execution. 

So, what are the key elements of a sustainable PR model? Let’s start with the work that anchors the strategy.

The Baseline Elements of a Sustainable PR Model 

Getting the Brand Narrative Right

Before a firm can be effective, they need to understand the brand narrative. And, yes, a lot of this involves reading brand materials and getting smart on the industry at large. 

But the best of it is done collaboratively at the beginning of a client/agency partnership, or when something significant has changed at the brand that requires an evolved narrative. 

One of our first activities with a new client is hosting a messaging session with them to ensure that everyone internally is aligned on the brand’s unique value proposition to the media. The end result is a PR Messaging Matrix that represents the baseline for our media relations efforts, including an elevator pitch.

PR Messaging Matrix Template

Pro Tip: The PR Messaging Matrix document shouldn’t conflict with or negate any completed brand identity work (vision, mission, tone, etc.). It’s a complementary document. The truth is, many times the language in those documents doesn't work for the media. Media need something concise and facts-forward and we work toward that in the PR Messaging Matrix. We use brand identity documents to help us fill in the blanks on pitches and thought leadership activities.

The brand narrative also isn’t a one-and-done exercise. Once the initial documents are approved, the work becomes flexing that narrative across channels and cataloging how you did it so you are able to adapt, repurpose, and refine as you go.

Develop Salient POVs

Part two of getting started with a Sustainable PR strategy is an Executive Interview meant to extract expertise and learnings from a brand spokesperson. 

While the PR Messaging Matrix focuses on the brand’s who, what, why, how, and why, the Executive Interview zooms out and touches on hot-button industry issues from a person’s POV.

Come in with a reporter’s mindset asking questions that will help attach their expertise to the news of the day and answer their customers' needs in salient ways. 

Spend ample time preparing for these conversations. If you lead with generic questions, you’ll get generic responses. And the media is put off by the generic. 

A PR person’s job here is to develop a salient belief or POV that is brand-agnostic. 

Then you can apply those beliefs to communicate the why behind certain brand-specific news. It helps level-up information that can seem too self-promotional.

After the Executive Interview, we walk away with a Foundational Content Strategy, which includes a core set of anchor topics, subtopics, and a content mission statement that helps us move quickly when news breaks. The strategy also allows us to pitch bylines to trade publications and activate always-on, owned content strategies.

The Sustainable PR Levers You Can Pull

Jumping on News

When you nail the brand narrative and POVs upfront, newsjacking becomes turnkey. If news breaks, we usually have enough to draft a pitch or a quote based on what we’ve already learned from working with the client. 

Newsjacking is how we got our: 

• Streaming media platform client quoted in a Forbes piece about ESPN potentially going DTC and what that would mean for cable companies. 

• Air conditioning client on national Fox News about how to properly clean an air filter tied to the wildfires.  

• Estate settlement client featured in Fortune after Aretha Franklin’s family feud over her lack of a will made headlines 

The key is making discovery ongoing. You can’t stop with just one executive interview and think that’ll be enough. Change is constant. 

Make sure you have a system for scanning daily headlines to find opportunities for your brand. And if you’re working with an agency, respond quickly to their news jacking requests. 

These timely opportunities go a long way in building relationships because they’re often situations where the brand/PR person is helping the reporter out versus asking for coverage. The reporter has been assigned a story that usually has a quick turnaround time, and they need people to help round out their angle.

Creating the News

Sometimes a brand’s three-to-six-month marketing and product roadmap is barren. This is usually when the fun begins. 

A good sustainable PR agency should be able to create news in the absence of it.

They can:

• Take advantage of seasonality. Maybe a consumer survey tied to August’s National Make-A-Will Month or announcing a partnership with a female founder organization tied to November’s National Entrepreneurship month?

• Add media relations “wheels” to an existing initiative. Brands have many gears turning at once, and probably not many people tuned in to what could be “PR-able.” Look and listen, deeply, and know what you’re looking for. 

• A client mentioned to us that they were producing a “culture handbook” that’s less about how to ask for vacation and more about what the company stands for and how that translates into action. Ding, ding, ding: We’re on to something here! Leadership and culture reporters get ready.

• Manufacture a “moment.” An experienced team knows how to seize opportunity. For us, it’s been activations like a roving Michael Jordan memorabilia store tied to new, authenticated and signed MJ products from our client Upper Deck. Or a MiamiTech event and corresponding comic book in collaboration with our client Florida Funders.

Pro Tip: Before you begin brainstorming big PR ideas, have a list of criteria ideas must meet in order to be considered. This keeps you honest as you evaluate your ideas. Make one of them: “can we get media coverage?” You’re going to want to be able to clearly articulate why your idea is valuable for your brand – and worth the time and money that will go into it.

Data-Driven Storytelling

Data is a powerful storytelling tool. Look within and outside of your brand to catch a reporter’s attention.

• Proprietary data. Mine your day-to-day client conversations and the usage of your product. If you notice that clients spend 80% of their time using one new feature, share that story and your thinking behind what you’re seeing. In this case, you essentially become a trendspotter for a journalist. 

  Mining your data also helps you get smarter about the ways you do business.

  You could also commission a study to help create some media noise. During the height of COVID, Carve worked with one of our educational toy clients to survey parents on how they were integrating play into learning at home. Results from the survey along with the analysis of the data were featured on Moms.com, Thrive Global, and others. 

• External data. Take advantage of the wealth of publicly available data. Find the nuggets that will catch a reporter’s attention and help make a case for the solution you offer. 

  However, be careful with credibility. Don’t just find a stat and run with it. 

  We recommend finding the original source and making sure that it’s coming from a credible organization with solid research. Also, double-check that it’s not from a competitor (it can get tricky out there). Finding the right sources is a whole blog in itself, and AI is making this alternately easier and more complex every day.

Activate Beyond Media

Earned media should never be your only communication channel. It’s an important one, and even more important in times of economic uncertainty and the erosion of SEO. Brands got used to gaming a Google search system being transformed by AI and organic traffic and awareness take the hit. 

That’s why Sustainable PR is about more than just media. It’s about:

• Consistent owned content that builds trust. 

• Smart approaches to conferences that unlock media or thought leadership opportunities. 

• Targeted awards that amplify your stories through their networks. 

• Partnerships and co-marketing that broaden your reach.

• Programs that activate your brand advocates on your behalf.

But mostly, it’s about how all the pieces work together.

Sustainable PR studies what works in one channel and finds ways to adapt it for another. It leaves no stone unturned.

The results of a sustainable PR model are pretty clear. Awareness doesn't just increase; it's sustained over time. Brands also see more traffic to their website, a greater share of voice, and more media coverage. Media breeds media.

We’ve seen the results firsthand. Our once-emerging smart lock client is now one of the leading companies in the industry, securing retail distribution deals with the two largest hardware retailers. Their primary channel was always on PR. 

The fact that, as a consumer product startup, they didn’t have much traditional news was irrelevant. Most clients won’t have an endless amount of news. Sustainable PR pulls all the levers to make sure they stay top of mind anyway.