Top PR Tips for running an effective campaign

Running an effective PR campaign can be the winning ticket to a successful project launch, maximising brand awareness and reputation. In this short blog, we reveal some top tips for companies looking to take their PR strategy to the next level. 

What are your objectives?

It’s important to spell out exactly what you want from your PR coverage. If the objective is to reach as many people as possible you should fire on all cylinders – pitch to press from any and all angles. Press releases, thought-leadership, interviews, response articles to current events, these are all viable options for getting eyes on your content. Being as creative as possible can also foster great results, and publicity stunts are often likely to attract news. 

You may also be looking to expand your company’s brand awareness. While difficult to measure in some cases, the more a potential customer sees your brand in relevant places, the more likely that customer is to trust your on-site content and product releases. Advertisement campaigns, for example, can be considerably bolstered by effective brand awareness.  

But if your objectives are tailored towards gaining customer leads or attendees at an industry event, then your coverage should be equally tailored. Assuming you have a good grasp of your customer base, this should be as simple as identifying the correct platforms to reach the right people (check out our work on Cospective’s CineSync launch). After all, 10 serious leads are better than 1000 views from uninterested people. Which brings us onto our next point:

Research the right publications

Not every PR campaign needs broadsheet coverage to be effective, and with so much of today’s news consumed online, there is quite literally a publication for every niche. With this in mind, it’s possible to target select audiences for your PR campaign. Industry trade magazines aren’t always read by hundreds of thousands, but the people that do read them care about their subject of interest. 

Google is an obvious first choice when making your list. Searching up companies in the same industry and checking which magazines cover them can be a great start. 

Social media can also be harnessed successfully to discover the most-read platforms. Remember, people read a large percentage of their news through social media platforms and websites with less searchability may still have a big social reach. 

Have you read the news?

Ultimately, PR is news. Your pitch needs to contain newsworthy information with a unique angle that attracts search queries. Syncing up with events and releases means you can leverage secondary news items – people searching for SIGGRAPH 2021, for instance, will want to see related content. Publications will have a positive incentive to publish the story and reap the rewards of larger search volumes. 

Equally, leveraging the release of either related or competitor products with opinion pieces is a great way to create something new out of something topical. Publications will look for opinions on trending topics to maximise a news cycle and provide fresh takes that stand out against their competitors. This enables your company to position itself as an expert in the field, even if there isn’t any direct news to share. 

Evaluate your results

If you’ve carried out prior campaigns, or if you’re just starting, constantly evaluate your process. Did you achieve the amount of coverage that you were targeting? Did you get coverage in your prime publications? While you can’t control every variable, small adjustments, such as changing your pitch copy, better timing your news release, or being more creative with potential thought-leadership titles could be the difference that lands the perfect piece of coverage – it worked for us with Flipbook Studios.

Compare your own PR campaign to that of your competitors – are they achieving better results? It could be that your market is saturated with too much content, or maybe your industry sector remains largely undiscovered. In both cases, finding your USP and matching that with the right angle is the answer. Discovering what works and what doesn’t can transform the effectiveness of a campaign. 

Want some tips for effective PR and Marketing? Download our free ‘5-Point Checklist’ ebook now.