Let’s face it, clients leveraging media relations want a constant flow of coverage. Why shouldn’t they? But even as today’s media landscape continues to transform and the 24-hour news cycle reigns supreme, we find ourselves relying on company updates, in-house data and a consistent press release pipeline to drive our media strategy.
Reflecting on 2018, we know that as PR pros we must understand how to keep our clients relevant in the news and position them as the go-to source in their respective industries. After all, we still believe reputation drives adoption. But, how do we make this happen?
We recently found ourselves with a media-heavy client that ironically had absolutely no “new” news to share – no new data, no new clients, no new product features. Instead of letting this slow our momentum, we devised a thematic media and content strategy that focused on byline articles and proactive pitches with a monthly overarching topic. This gave us the opportunity to focus on key initiatives within the client’s business and tell a cohesive story throughout key trade publications.
As media is now primarily consumed online, the newsroom is not staffed the way it used to be. This leads trade publications to rely on contributed content, thereby creating the perfect opportunity for our two-fold strategy to thrive. In fact, our team secured five contributed opportunities in just two months — securing every topic that we pitched and giving the company’s CEO a strong voice in key food and beverage publications.
With these quick successes, we’ve made the same thematic approach a key element of our 2019 strategy to continue to drive consistent coverage and while supporting key announcements and data with thought leadership topics.
In the current PR landscape, our approach needs to be more than leveraging what’s handed to us. We must be capable of overcoming barriers with creativity and content and taking responsibility for executing an outcome-driven approach.
