Crafting a PR strategy for 2026

PR and con­tent play a huge­ly impor­tant role in help­ing to edu­cate audi­ences, raise aware­ness of a con­cept and ulti­mate­ly, encour­age behav­iour­al change. For many busi­ness­es — as well as char­i­ties, trade asso­ci­a­tions and oth­er organ­i­sa­tions, all three are crit­i­cal to achieve long term goals.

But with­out a clear PR and con­tent strat­e­gy in place, even the strongest ideas lose momen­tum. Every­one gets lost. That’s why every cam­paign planned by The Jar­gon Group starts with the devel­op­ment of a com­mu­ni­ca­tions strat­e­gy. We fol­low a proven method­ol­o­gy that ensures the pro­gramme of activ­i­ty aligns with the organ­i­sa­tion’s objec­tives and deliv­ers mea­sur­able impact.

For the mar­ke­teer, this method­ol­o­gy can be expressed sim­ply in five key steps:

Prob­ing – under­stand­ing the chal­lenge
Plan­ning – iden­ti­fy­ing the solu­tion
Prepar­ing – pro­duc­tion of cam­paign assets
Pro­mot­ing – deliv­er­ing the cam­paign
Per­cep­tion – eval­u­at­ing the campaign’s suc­cess

This final step, per­cep­tion, feeds direct­ly back into the begin­ning of the process, enabling organ­i­sa­tions to refine tac­tics and evolve their approach in response to shift­ing mar­ket dynam­ics.

Start by under­stand­ing your audi­ence

Before div­ing into cam­paign deliv­ery, busi­ness­es must build a clear pic­ture of their tar­get audi­ence. Find out what is impor­tant to them, what would make them take the desired action, how best to reach them, and where they typ­i­cal­ly con­sume infor­ma­tion.

By com­bin­ing these insights with a struc­tured com­mu­ni­ca­tions frame­work, it becomes much eas­i­er to devise a PR and con­tent strat­e­gy that will engage tar­get audi­ences.

Behav­iour­al changes require steps

While a business’s aim may be to influ­ence behav­iour, it’s impor­tant to take it one step at a time. The first pri­or­i­ty should be rais­ing aware­ness of the con­cept or edu­cat­ing audi­ences on why this action is need­ed. This “why now?” Con­text often deter­mines whether a cam­paign gains trac­tion.

Reach­ing audi­ences ear­ly in the process can be chal­leng­ing, espe­cial­ly when the con­cept is new or unfa­mil­iar. That’s why work­ing with expe­ri­enced PR pro­fes­sion­als are deploy­ing a con­sid­ered, mul­ti-stage strat­e­gy — is so impor­tant.

Today’s audi­ences expect more infor­ma­tion than ever before, but they also expect authen­tic­i­ty. Jour­nal­ists and indus­try opin­ion for­m­ers remain valu­able gate­keep­ers, but audi­ences are increas­ing­ly frag­ment­ed and hard­er to reach. If these influ­en­tial groups aren’t con­vinced or informed, reach­ing the peo­ple who mat­ter most becomes sig­nif­i­cant­ly more dif­fi­cult.

It is only when these thought lead­ers and influ­encers are whol­ly aware and edu­cat­ed that a busi­ness should move on and seek to achieve behav­iour change.

PR Tac­tics to dri­ve aware­ness and behav­iour­al change

There are a vari­ety of PR tac­tics that can be used effec­tive­ly to increase aware­ness of a con­cept or posi­tion a busi­ness as a thought leader in its field, as well as to influ­ence con­sumer behav­iour.

Thought lead­er­ship
Long-form con­tent such as expert-led fea­tures, white papers and in-depth com­men­tary allows organ­i­sa­tions to demon­strate exper­tise and guide read­ers through com­plex sub­jects. Thought lead­er­ship can also be deliv­ered through con­sumer-focused insights that help audi­ences over­come chal­lenges or rethink
famil­iar top­ics.

Sur­vey and data-led news sto­ries
Research-based sto­ries remain a pow­er­ful way to explain new con­cepts through famil­iar for­mats. Nation­al media often use data to high­light trends, issues or emerg­ing con­cerns — giv­ing you an oppor­tu­ni­ty to intro­duce your mes­sage in a nat­ur­al, cred­i­ble way. Expert com­men­tary and time­ly “news­jack­ing” are also effec­tive tools.

Case stud­ies and tes­ti­mo­ni­als
Real exam­ples of a con­cept or approach in action help audi­ences see tan­gi­ble results. Case stud­ies pro­vide the social proof and cred­i­bil­i­ty need­ed to build trust, espe­cial­ly dur­ing ear­ly stages of adop­tion.

Visu­al con­tent
Info­graph­ics and in some cas­es, ani­mat­ed film con­tent often enables com­pli­cat­ed sub­jects or data-heavy infor­ma­tion to be com­mu­ni­cat­ed visu­al­ly, mak­ing key mes­sages more acces­si­ble and engag­ing. They also require less of the audience’s time and are well suit­ed to high­ly tar­get­ed com­mu­ni­ca­tion.

Although these tac­tics are famil­iar to many com­mu­ni­ca­tions teams, true dif­fer­en­ti­a­tion lies in deploy­ing the right ones at the right time — guid­ed by strat­e­gy rather than habit.

Look­ing ahead to 2026: A new PR Land­scape
As 2026 approach­es, busi­ness­es in every sec­tor face a chal­leng­ing finan­cial land­scape plus wider geopo­lit­i­cal and eco­nom­ic uncer­tain­ty, not to men­tion the grow­ing influ­ence of an AI dri­ven tech­no­log­i­cal trans­for­ma­tion. Fake news might be old news, but the demand for authen­tic­i­ty is ris­ing, sus­tain­abil­i­ty is set against green­wash­ing and growth focussed PR demands more than media cov­er­age.

Ulti­mate­ly, there is no one size fits all. And what­ev­er your PR strat­e­gy, the work is far from done once it has been devel­oped. Cam­paigns must flex and respond to the chal­lenges that will inevitably arise. But the basic prin­ci­ples remain unchanged, and with­out that clear PR strat­e­gy, every­one will get lost along the way – the busi­ness, its peo­ple, and your cus­tomers.

If you want clar­i­ty on where your PR and com­mu­ni­ca­tions strat­e­gy stands ahead of 2026, start with our Jar­gon Brand Score­card. It takes just a few min­utes and givesy­ou a per­son­alised snap­shot of your strengths and oppor­tu­ni­ties.

Pre­fer to speak with some­one direct­ly?
If you’re ready to build a strat­e­gy that deliv­ers mean­ing­ful impact in 2026, get in touch with our team — we’d love to help.