4 Easy Tips to Launching a Successful Public Relations Campaign

Written by: Victoria Capozziello, Chicago Buzz Marketing

1) Find what makes you unique: Finding something unique about your business, an employee, your industry, or you yourself will help drive your public relations piece. Is there a particular trend in your industry that you have expanded on? Is your team volunteering their time at a charity event? Are you releasing a new or exclusive product or service? Find what sets you apart from the crowd and shine a spotlight on this. This will be your “hook” to attract attention to your story. For example, don’t just say “Local Company Opens New Business,” instead say, “Naperville Business Opens 13th Chain in Only Two Years.”

2) Create a plan:  Once you have found the focus of your PR campaign, you can begin to shape a plan. Your plan can include any variation of traditional media, digital marketing, or influencer work that your PR team feels communicates with your target audience. These can include press releases to be shared in digital and print media, TV segments, social media games or contests, interviews, or “stunts” to attract attention. This could also include self published materials like blogs, sponsored content, advitorial pieces or viral videos.

3) Put together a media kit: Before you send out your idea to be picked up, it is important to craft a media style kit. Media kits commonly include professional headshots or photos of your business in action, information sheets or brochures, graphic design pieces for social media integration, videos of you or your team, testimonials, and related press materials to support why this topic is important and timely.

4) Contact influencers and media personnel in your industry: Think about who would find this topic interesting and enjoyable and create a list of people to look for. This can include local newspapers, bloggers, national media, social media influencers, and more. Reach out via email to share your finalized media kit and a brief explanation of the who/what/why of your PR campaign.

Other Miscellaneous Tips:

• Set realistic expectations. PR results can never be guaranteed. Even the most successful of segment ideas can get bumped last minute due to natural disasters, breaking news, Royal babies being born, Trump tweeting people, sports wins, ect.
• Always send your press out at least 3 to 4 weeks in advance of when your prefer to be covered.
• Human interest stands stronger than business features. If your business feature is not being picked up, consider changing the narrative to include people, places, and events that matter most to your target audience.
• The more visually dynamic your story, the better chance you have of being “picked up” by the media.