Make your next
move clearer.
Practical tools to help you choose communications priorities, prepare a launch and build a useful brief. Start with the decision in front of you.
What should come first?
Choose the situation closest to yours. Get three initial priorities based on your answers, without needing to know which service to ask for.
Work backwards from your launch.
Choose a date and mark what is already ready. Get a starter timeline and a list of items still to confirm.
Prepare a brief worth discussing.
Only the first four fields are required. Add what you know and leave the rest for discussion. Your draft stays in this tab until you copy, download or print it.
Discuss your plan.
Review the details below before sending. Your enquiry will be stored in Coral Communications’ CRM so our team can respond. This does not subscribe you to marketing emails. The confirmation will appear below after you submit.
Open the enquiry form in a new tab ↗Answers that help
you decide.
Understand the options, prepare the right questions and take the next step with a clearer brief.
Do I need PR, advertising, social media or a combination?
Start with the decision your audience needs to make
The right starting point is the business problem. A company that is well known but receives few relevant enquiries has a different challenge from a new business that customers have never encountered. Before choosing a channel, describe the audience, the decision it needs to make and the reason it is not making that decision yet.
When credibility and understanding need attention
Public relations can help a business explain its position, contribute useful expertise and build relationships with relevant media and stakeholders. It is particularly useful when the audience needs context or reassurance. Earned editorial coverage depends on a publication's judgement, so specific coverage cannot be guaranteed. A paid placement should be distinguished from earned coverage.
When a defined audience needs to act
Paid advertising can distribute a clear offer to a selected audience and direct people towards an enquiry, booking or purchase. Before investing, check what happens after the click. A confusing page, weak offer or unanswered enquiry can undermine a campaign even when the advertising attracts attention. Budget for creative work, management and the media spend separately.
When people need repeated explanations
Useful website content and social media can answer questions, demonstrate expertise and help people become familiar with a business over time. They need a clear role. A technical service might need explanations and examples; an experience might need strong visuals and practical information. Activity should follow the audience's actual behaviour.
Build the combination around a specific obstacle
For a new product, one possible sequence is to clarify the offer, prepare a useful landing page, develop a credible story and then choose the channels that reach the intended audience. Another business may need to fix its enquiry process before adding more traffic. These are planning choices, not a standard package for every company.
Make the next decision
Write one sentence: We want [audience] to [action], but [obstacle] is getting in the way. Use that sentence in the communications priority finder. It will suggest an initial direction based on your answers, which can then be discussed with Coral Communications.
Plan investmentWhat should a PR and marketing budget actually cover?
Define what the budget needs to achieve
A useful budget starts with an objective, audience, market and timeframe. An agency cannot assess the same amount sensibly without knowing whether it covers one workshop, a product launch or several months of activity. State the currency and whether the amount is a confirmed allocation or an initial estimate.
Separate the main cost categories
Professional services can include research, planning, management, media relations and reporting. Production can include design, photography, video, printing or website work. Distribution can include advertising space, paid platforms and creator fees. An event may also require venue, technical equipment, hospitality, staffing and logistics. A quotation should make clear which of these are included and which will be charged separately.
Allow for the work around the visible activity
The advertisement, article or event is often only one part of the assignment. Briefing, approvals, revisions, supplier coordination and measurement also require resources. Ask who supplies the images, who approves claims, how many revision rounds are included and who owns or may reuse the finished material.
Compare equivalent scopes
Two proposals with different prices may be offering different quantities, responsibilities or rights. Compare the actual deliverables, markets, duration, reporting, production assumptions and exclusions. Confirm how taxes, travel, third-party costs and any currency conversion will be treated in the quotation. A low headline fee does not describe the total investment.
Choose priorities before cutting every line
If the available budget is limited, concentrate on a defined audience and outcome. Reducing every component equally can leave a campaign without enough content, distribution or follow-through to be useful. A phased scope may make more sense, with the first stage resolving the biggest uncertainty before additional spend is committed.
Prepare a budget conversation
The campaign brief builder lets you record a ZAR or USD budget, its approval status and the costs it needs to cover. It does not calculate Coral Communications fees or promise a return. A scoped quotation can follow once the objective, responsibilities and requirements are clear.
Prepare a launchHow far ahead should we start planning a launch?
Start when the dependencies can still be changed
The right lead time depends on the assignment. A modest announcement using approved assets differs from a launch involving a venue, creators, filmed content, several markets or many approvers. Start early enough to resolve those dependencies before public commitments are made. There is no single lead time that suits every launch.
Work backwards from the audience's next step
Decide what people should do when they encounter the launch. If they should book, enquire, visit or buy, the relevant page, stock, customer support and internal handover need to be ready. Communications should connect to that experience. A successful announcement can create avoidable frustration if the business is not ready to respond.
Set the preparation milestones
A useful starter sequence is to confirm the objective and audience, agree the message, prepare supporting evidence, produce the assets, brief stakeholders, test the response process and release the activity. The launch timeline planner places these milestones around a chosen date. Its dates are planning suggestions, not promised production or media lead times.
Allow for outside decisions
Suppliers, venues, journalists, creators and partner organisations have their own schedules. A journalist's interest or a partner's participation should not be assumed. Check availability, approvals and contractual requirements before announcing participation. Where several countries or languages are involved, allow time for local review of the message and materials.
If the date is close
Reduce uncertainty first. Confirm what must happen on the date, what can move and which items are already ready. Choose fewer activities that can be delivered properly. Avoid treating overdue preparation as a reason to send incomplete information or make unsupported claims. The planner flags dates that have already passed so the sequence can be adjusted.
Plan beyond the announcement
Include enquiry handling, follow-up content, stakeholder responses and a review of what people actually did. A launch can begin a longer communications programme. Use the generated timeline as a discussion document with Coral Communications and the internal people responsible for delivery.
Prepare a briefWhat should we include in a PR or marketing agency brief?
Describe the business decision first
A useful brief explains what the business wants to achieve and why it matters now. Launching a service, entering a market, improving relevant enquiries or strengthening stakeholder confidence each points towards different work. Write the objective in ordinary language. The agency can help translate it into a communications approach.
Identify the audience and obstacle
Name the people whose understanding or behaviour needs to change. Include the location, relevant context and what they currently know. Explain the main obstacle as specifically as possible. We need more awareness is less useful than prospective buyers know our name but do not understand the service we introduced.
Share what already exists
List the website, current activity, available research, brand materials and relevant results. Explain what is working and what has been tried. If an internal team or another agency is involved, identify their responsibilities. This helps avoid duplicate work and allows the proposed scope to fit the existing setup.
Make constraints visible
State the desired timing, available budget and currency, approval process and any commitments already made. If the budget is undecided, say so. A named business or personal brand can be used at this stage; a legal entity name is not needed to explain the opportunity. Sensitive commercial information can be discussed later through an agreed channel.
Decide what progress would look like
Describe the outcome and the evidence that would show progress. This might include more relevant enquiries, stronger understanding of a service, suitable event attendance or a better prepared spokesperson. Include a baseline where one exists. Avoid requesting a guaranteed outcome that depends on customers, journalists or other independent decisions.
Keep the first version manageable
The campaign brief builder brings these points into a short document that can be copied, downloaded or printed. It is a starting point for discussion. Once the core information is clear, Coral Communications can ask focused follow-up questions and develop a suitable scope.
Understand resultsHow do we measure progress beyond reach and followers?
Begin with the intended change
Measurement is easier when the intended change is defined before work begins. An audience may need to understand a new service, trust an unfamiliar brand, attend an event or make a relevant enquiry. The measures should help assess that change. A large reach figure alone cannot show whether the intended people understood the message or acted on it.
Separate activity from response
Content published, interviews completed and events delivered describe activity. Relevant attention, message understanding, questions and engagement describe audience responses. Qualified enquiries, registrations or other agreed actions provide a further view of progress. These measures answer different questions and should not be treated as interchangeable.
Make the enquiry useful
For an enquiry campaign, agree what makes an enquiry relevant. Record the need, market, timing and next action where the person chooses to provide them. Track whether enquiries receive a response and move towards a meaningful conversation. Otherwise a campaign may be judged on volume while the business still lacks suitable opportunities.
Use a baseline and a review period
Record the starting position and decide when evidence will be reviewed. Where no baseline exists, explain that limitation and use the initial period to establish one. Compare consistent measures and account for other changes such as promotions, availability or pricing. A short observation period may not capture a longer buying decision.
Be careful with attribution
A customer may encounter several channels before contacting a business. Tracked links, enquiry questions and CRM records can help, but they do not reveal every influence. Report what the evidence supports and distinguish observed results from assumptions. Revenue attributed to an advertisement also does not automatically establish the return on the complete programme.
Ask for a useful reporting conversation
A report should explain what happened, what it may mean, what remains uncertain and what will change next. Include the intended outcome and available baseline in the campaign brief builder so measurement can be considered when the scope is prepared.
Choose supportCan we work with an agency if we already have a marketing team?
Identify the gap to be filled
An internal marketing team can work with an agency on a defined need. The starting question is where additional capability, capacity or market knowledge would help. That could be a launch, media relations, a creator campaign, an event or a specific communications challenge. The proposed role should be clear before work is commissioned.
Agree who owns each part
List the responsibilities that remain with the internal team and those that may be assigned to the agency. Agree who develops the message, produces material, approves claims, manages suppliers and responds to enquiries. One named person should coordinate approvals so conflicting instructions do not slow delivery.
Make existing relationships visible
If another agency is involved, explain its scope and any relevant boundaries. A new assignment should respect those responsibilities and any applicable contractual arrangements. A specialist workstream can be designed around an existing programme when the teams have a clear brief and access to the information they need.
Choose a manageable first assignment
A defined project can help establish how the teams work together. Agree the output, timetable, review points and information required from each side. Judge the work against the agreed need. A general request for extra support is harder to plan and assess than a specific assignment with clear ownership.
Budget for coordination
Internal involvement does not remove the need for briefing, review and decisions. Build realistic approval time into the plan and identify which meetings are necessary. A shared status view and concise decision record can reduce repeated explanations. The agency should know when a change affects scope, cost or timing.
Prepare the conversation
In the campaign brief builder, describe the current team or agency setup and the gap that needs support. Coral Communications can then discuss a focused role that complements the existing work. The first brief can be short, provided the objective, responsibilities and constraints are clear.
