Start stretching, and prepare public relations campaigns that can transform your intended audience.
Popular business author and speaker Seth Godin once said, “Our job is to connect to people, to interact with them in a way that leaves them better than we found them, more able to get where they’d like to go.”
Being good at public relations is all about solving problems for businesses. Like a trained athlete, a seasoned veteran in the art of public relations campaigns has been stretching and running PR sprints as a part of their daily life and knows how to grab attention, bend an ear, and get eyes where they need to be. They see a finish line and know exactly how long it will take to get there, and how hard it will be.
In Saas, this works hand in hand with an excellent content marketing strategy to fill your sales funnel with leads so you can establish the expertise of your business and demonstrate value. Yes, you do still need a robust press or media release, but these days many PR pros are reshaping what that looks like, to take it to the next level of engagement.
Here are some of the best pro tips for getting attention, more leads and the most benefits out of your public relations campaigns!
Start with storytelling
Your main goal with a PR campaign is to get someone to listen, read, or watch a piece of content so that they will, in turn, share it or write about it. You could call your subject a lead, much like sales, so what are the problems your leads want solved? What are the stories they want to hear? Storytelling 101 reminds us that to be effective, a story must have a beginning, middle and an end.
Storytelling applies not only in your pitch, but also in your press release.
In your pitch, set the stage by discussing the current state of things, including the problem to be solved. Make it easy for them to share the content by giving them a list of bullet points they can quickly take away from your press release. If you’re giving them a free download you want them to share, don’t make them go to landing page, attach it to the email. Tell them why their readers would be interested in your press release. Make their job as easy as possible to share your press release, or the content in it.
In your press release, focus on the facts and benefits. For example, if you spend an entire press release talking up a new product feature of a product, but neglect to highlight the benefits of these features, you’ve failed to connect. What we see shared across social media, reblogged in inspirational snippets and repeated as examples of entrepreneurial spirit are the stories people tell.
In your media and public relations campaign, think about your values and the hard lessons you’ve learned. If this is at the heart of your campaign, the “middle” in your story, you will have a strong foundation.
Start preparing for a successful public relations campaign! Schedule a free demo of our lead management software and turn prospects into customers in no time!
Try some modern twists on a timeless press release
We’re in an age where you need to reach and appeal to journalists, bloggers, writers and other businesses through a variety of channels. People are busy, but more importantly, they’re human. Public relations campaigns too often forget that and send them walls of text devoid of engagement or personality. Relying on pushing the same old formulaic press releases through those channels isn’t working to capture any new attention. So why not try a few new methods to plant “teaser” content or briefs with a link back to your full press release, blog or website?
Employ visual storytelling.
There’s a reason so many brands are doing well on Instagram. We know it’s a strong move to feature images in content marketing. Images are powerful, compelling content! Caption it with a succinct, clever teaser of the release and promote widely across social media and directly through PR wire services.
Create a multimedia teaser media release with broad appeal.
A short demo video of a new feature as part of a teaser goes beyond the traditional press release to provide something more engaging, accessible, clickable and “friendly” for online and social media. It also demonstrates expertise and ties together the content on your blog and other social media.
Impress in real-time with an invitation to join “live” webinar.
What’s better than talking up a new product feature and inviting people to see a demo? Delivering your “press release” in real time, showcasing a quick demo, and being available for any questions that could result in notable pull-quotes for a story. Give the media and social-engagers a front seat and also don’t forget that when they click to join the webinar, you can collect emails and some brief lead information. Think of it as an excellent onboarding for a drip campaign.
Put PR data to work with A/B testing
A public relations campaign should be measurable so you can track and collect as much information about your leads as possible. A/B Testing is an easy way to track how users perform based on just one small variable at a time. It could be sending out emails with two different subject lines, or promoting a Facebook post to two different audiences. You can apply this same methodology to see what performs better in your public relations too!
Be sure to use unique or trackable links hidden behind a vanity URL, so you can collect data and see what comes back as high performing. You may find that including a call to action at the top of a release performs better than when you locate the link at the bottom. This is valuable information for future improvements!
Try it in your subject line for email pitches or teasers to see if it works better to try to lure people with an intriguing statement or if it works better to be clear and direct. Test out what images attract more attention. Once you’ve done this a few times, you are empowered with usable data to fine-tune your next public relations campaign efforts!
Start preparing for a successful public relations campaign! Schedule a free demo of our lead management software and turn prospects into customers in no time!
How do you plan your public relation campaigns to engage your audience? Do you have any success stories you can share with the community? Share your ideas in the comments!