A successful public relations campaign is a multi-faceted program, carefully orchestrated by a PR agency to feed a steady stream of publicity in a range of media over an extended period. This applies whether the campaign is an initial launch or an on-going program over a sustained period of time.
The first step in a public relations campaign is to determine the product’s positioning in the marketplace. Having analyzed the product’s key selling points, key messages are established which can be blended into all aspects of the campaign.
The agency next works out which tactics will best serve the campaign, ranging from nuts-and-bolts press releases to media relations, special events, press familiarization trips, cross promotions, media tours to major markets, hiring a spokesperson or training an executive from the company, such as the president, who can learn how to respond to questions posed by the media to best position the product, and a variety of other components.
A successful public relations campaign can be measured through a variety of tools:
The agency can engage a clipping and monitoring service to track stories as they run, based on the work of their media relations specialists.
Based on the above results, the agency can compile a report that illustrates the circulation of each media outlet.
The client will often see a spike in web traffic as a result of a major story
The last technique is often the most revealing.
Feature stories and articles generated by a public relations campaign often show up in glossy magazines and prominent websites, where the value of each page can range into tens of thousands of dollars. A single story could be worth as much as a hundred thousand dollars were it paid for in advertising dollars—worth more than the entire cost of the PR campaign.
The same applies to websites that get significant traffic such as Forbes.com or NYTimes.com as well as the many blogs and e-zines that carry stories. Those hits can bring up your rankings significantly in Google searches garnering customers and sales.
But at Abelow PR, we don’t stop at a single story. We go for a full range of stories in a variety of online and traditional publications, TV or radio station. And we go for features, mentions and endorsements that a reader or viewer will place a high degree of value on since they come from a reputable media outlet. It is this kind of editorial endorsement, available only from savvy media relations specialists like Abelow PR, who run effective public relations campaigns, that money just can’t buy.
