I was just telling the story the other day of how we got a client on the front page of the Wall Street Journal right below fold.
Amazing, right?!
That’s a once-in-a-career kind of thing.
And yet…
The very next day—I mean, the very next day—I received a FedEx package from a client.
In it was a copy of the New York Times and a note that said:
When can we expect the front page of this paper?
You have to be &!*!&!*!(!(.
Because the PR industry does a terrible job of doing its own PR, we have clients and executives who have completely unrealistic expectations.
So we spend a lot of time dwelling on—and defending—what didn’t go well.
The PESO Model
That’s why it’s so important to highlight the things that do go well.
Two weeks ago, we asked:
What was your biggest PR success in 2016 and how will you build upon it in 2017?
Although many of you were not willing to go public with your successes due to client and business confidentiality concerns, we did have a few brave souls willing to go on the record.
A 2016 PR tactic I used was speaking at startup events to entrepreneurs about PESO and implementing it with my existing startup clients.
They seemed to really embrace this quickly and understood importance to start PESO early so when you scale you’ll have this process already in place.
Many have seen successes already. — Sue Duris
Startups and other small businesses can’t afford to waste time and limited resources on disjointed tactics without clear ROI.
With the PESO model, all your communications activities are connected and drive to the same SMARTER goals.
An Integrated PR Content Strategy
With only 37 percent of B2B marketers and 40 percent of B2C marketers having a documented content strategy, it’s a safe bet most of you are creating content ad hoc.
While that hot topic your CEO wants you to write a contributed article about may generate a lot of social sharing, is it contributing to meeting your goals?
Without a strategic content plan, it probably isn’t.
Honestly? My success was due to The Modern Blogging Masterclass.
It really has changed my thinking on content AND my domain authority tripled.
Yes, it was pretty low when I started, but now my goal is set for this year, and I know I’m going to get there. — Julia Carcamo
In The Modern Blogging Masterclass, which is reopening in March, we walk you through creating an integrated PR content strategy that aligns with your business goals.
Although digital communications dominate in many industries, it’s important to understand your influencers’ preferences and tailor your PR approach to how they want to hear from you.
Personalized Communications
Rusty brings up a great point here.
The one that got the biggest hit was actually very traditional media outreach.
Because we are a scientific and research organization, we have found that digital content marketing as an outbound tactic to drive action has not been as well-received as more personal approaches.
Not as scalable, but definitely more successful.
We have just started a blog, finally, so that might move the needle a bit, TBD. Researchers see all marketing as spam, they prefer more personal interactions. — Rusty Speidel
Although truly personalized one-to-one communications aren’t scalable, they are an effective way to get someone’s attention in the age of mass-personalized email campaigns.
Amplify Your PR Success
I hope these examples have given you some thoughts on the PR success you had during the past year that you can build upon in your 2017 plan.
For those of you who are struggling with how to take your PR success to the next level, here are a few ideas you can steal:
- Use paid advertising to amplify media hits. Target your ideal customer and journalists at the media outlets you’d like to see cover you next.
- Repurpose your best performing content. Your conference presentation can become a webinar, a blog post series, and an infographic. That piece of contributed content can become a SlideShare, a video, and an owned media blog post.
- Turn high-interest data into a recurring feature. What unique data that your industry craves can you refresh regularly? The Content Marketing Institute and MarketingProfs and their annual content marketing research I linked to above are masterful at this.
The Next Big Question: Bad PR Advice
Have you noticed when someone asks you what you do for a living, you almost always receive unsolicited PR or marketing advice?
And then there are those organizations where you end up finding out a member of the executive team is a frustrated marketer in hiding and keeps pushing you to do things you know just aren’t going to work with your audience?
Because we can always use a few laughs, that brings us to this week’s Big Question:
What is the worst PR advice you’ve ever received?
You don’t have to name names or give incriminating details.
But you do have to share the terrible, no good, very bad advice.
Leave it in the comments here, post it in the Slack community, or even use #SpinSucksQuestion to answer on social media.
We can’t wait to hear these doozies!