So, you’ve had a good month and you’re treating yourself to a cocktail with a couple of PR colleagues glowing slightly both from the alcohol and your recent success.

Three national newspapers covered your campaign last month and the chief executive’s office wall is adorned with a framed copy of the FT interview piece you set up last week.

And what’s more you gained 1,500 new followers on Twitter last month, 356 likes and 189 retweets. Good job boys.

Then a colleague from marketing joins you and spoils the party by asking the question that every PR dreads: “That’s all very well chaps, but what’s it actually done for our business?

It’s easy to see why many PRs are reluctant to dig deep on the question of evaluation. It can lead to some awkward questions.

How do we know our PR is working? How do we measure it?

The standard of press release writing has improved enormously over the years, probably, in part, because of the steady stream of journalists crossing over into the dark and murky world of PR.

They’ve suffered the pain of having to trawl through badly written releases and are probably, like me, very conscious of what it’s like to be on the receiving end.

And in a way that is the key to writing press releases. Like all good writing, it’s about understanding your audience.

Their expectations and their frame of mind.There’s no mystery to writing good press releases. It’s just based on three simple principles. (edited) 

PA Media recently hosted Project restart, a webinar focussed on helping organisations launch effective campaigns in challenging times, which attracted over 200 PR and comms professionals. The panel included some of PA Media’s experts in the industry including myself, Simon Neville (City Editor) and Ann Wright (PA Training’s crisis management expert).

Self-isolation, social-distancing and home-working have become the buzzwords of the coronavirus crisis. More than just words, they’re rapidly becoming a new way of life. One through necessity we’re all having to come to terms with.

As a social species this takes some considerable adjustment for most of us. New restrictions on our freedom of movement inhibit our opportunity to interact: with our families, friends, colleagues and clients.

Yet just as barriers are placed in the pathway of human communication the need to communicate has rarely been needed more urgently.

As business reels from everything COVID-19 has to throw at it, with worse still to come, keeping our staff onside and our clients on board has never been more important.

We’ve seen some, like Sports Direct, by their own admission, get things badly wrong. Government messaging too has sometimes been found wanting.

But plenty of others are getting it right. Communicating regularly, consistently and clearly.

Like Number 9 buses, you might wait all year for a message from the CEO of a FTSE 100 company, then half a dozen come along at once. But there’s been a sense in much of this unsolicited correspondence that these top bosses are looking after our best interests and are being prepared to change tack based on customer feedback.

PA Training programmes have been shifted online to allow trainers and delegates to learn, connect and communicate in a safe, virtual environment.