PR Lessons We’ve Learned Across Our Clients
Written by Peyton Kelgard
When asked what it’s like to work at a PR agency, most of us would say the same thing:
Every day speeds by. We’re juggling moving pieces – working with both brands and journalists across industries in real time – and hustling to meet PR goals.
That level of activity means we’re constantly evolving. We learn a lot between the planning and analysis phases of a campaign, and staying curious allows us to improve our work on behalf of clients constantly. Our Slack channels light up with lessons learned and reflections every month, and then we proactively apply those the next time.
What we’ve found is that those lessons often have broad implications on how we develop the media outreach strategy. I’d like to share a few of those with you so that they can help you as you develop your own campaigns. It’s better to lift all boats, isn’t it?
3 Applicable PR Lessons We’ve Learned
Agree Upfront about Media-Related and PR Goals
It can be tempting to go after the “land a lot of hits” strategy. But is this right for your specific initiative?
Maybe not. Maybe what you really need to do is use this moment to break that one sought after national business journalist? Or maybe there’s a specific newsletter that is so highly targeted to your desired audience that you need to prioritize them in your media outreach strategy?
Share your business goals with whoever is responsible for your PR goals upfront and allow them to develop the best media approach based on those goals. Come to an agreement on that approach and document it, so there’s no question why you achieved certain outcomes.
Here’s some direction to help you think through this discussion with your team.
Is it more important to make waves outside of your industry than to secure coverage within it?
Does the story have broad appeal outside of your industry?
Is it a nuanced story that requires deeper coverage vs. a “mention”?
Is it okay that the person writing/delivering the news is not an expert on the topic?
There’s a lot more than this to help drive the media outreach strategy. For the purposes of this article, the main point is to align with your PR team upfront and then make sure KPIs are set appropriately.
Let’s say your team decides to break a story exclusively with one national target. You may get less placements, but that doesn’t mean your strategy was less successful if it achieved your goals.
That’s exactly what we did for a timely product launch in the collectibles space for our client, Upper Deck. While developing the media outreach strategy, we decided to break the news exclusively with CLLCT, the leading trade publication for the collectibles industry.
It was the right fit for the story, the relationship, and the moment.
Because of one thoughtful placement, the news not only hit the core audience but also led to broader syndication in Yahoo and other important hockey trades.
Fewer placements, yes, but exactly the right ones.
PRO TIP: Exclusives and embargoes are different tools in our PR toolbox that help execute against the strategy. Read these articles to understand when and how you might use them.
Know the Media Non-Negotiables
As PR pros, we represent the voice of the reporter to our client partners. Because of the relationships we’ve worked to build and nurture over time, we know what our media partners need to write a story. That inside knowledge comes in handy when it’s time for a new campaign.
When building a PR strategy, consider what details might make your story more valuable or enticing for your media partner to share with their audiences? They want to feel like they’re getting and delivering something beyond what can be found in a typical press release.
For mergers and acquisitions, it’s usually sales numbers or valuations. For product launches, it might be a customer willing to speak with the journalist about their experience. For case studies, statistics and results are usually required. No journalist will want to support an empty claim.
But sometimes teams are uncomfortable with sharing certain information publicly.
We get it. It’s our job to provide counsel on the benefits of sharing this kind of information, weigh the risks, and get creative if we’re still hitting a wall.
Can’t share an acquisition purchase number? Try sharing the number of employees and clients joining the company, or something like “low 8 figures” for the price.
Can’t share sales data? Try the number of products sold or growth percentage for the product line or category.
Can’t share a statistic? Try a range or a growth percentage instead.
Can’t get a customer to speak on your behalf? Try working a story into a press release quote or messaging points. Prove that your spokesperson will be able to share examples in a compelling way.
Think: What can you give the media that adds value without giving everything away?
Use Media Moments to Help Refine Your Messaging
There’s a lot of prep work that goes into an announcement. Strategies, KPIs, media lists, pitch notes, interview prep docs, press release drafts… the list goes on.
We might think we have all the details finalized when a campaign kicks off, but there will always be a certain element of unpredictability to learn from and improve the campaign.
For example, we recently led an acquisition announcement for our enterprise CMS client. When it came time for the first media interview, we built a thorough document that briefed our spokesperson for the opportunity.
PRO TIP: A media brief outlines all the important logistical and messaging details to prepare a spokesperson for a specific interview. More tips to help you build a media brief here.
However, unless the reporter has shared their questions with you ahead of time (which doesn't happen often), it’s impossible to predict every question. At the end of the day, it’s a reporter's prerogative to chase an interesting story. Even with all our preparation, the reporter asked our spokesperson some unexpected questions, and she had to think on her feet with a few off-the-cuff responses.
In PR, that’s normal and will most likely happen more than once. But take the time to evaluate the PR lessons, adjust your strategy, and infuse that new messaging into other areas.
Consider:
Including your most important messages in the post-interview note to the reporter.
Treating materials like media Q&As and briefs as living documents that evolve with every reporter interaction.
Giving your spokespeople very specific feedback after the interview about how they handled it and how to improve for the future.
Changing briefing tactics. After that interview, we decided that our spokesperson benefited from a prep call instead of a document only.
Here’s the thing: PR is always changing, and we have to change with it.
The media moves fast. So do our clients. A successful campaign today is about more than putting a press release over the wire and meeting KPIs.
Every announcement is a chance to get sharper. We test. We tweak. We reflect. And then we apply those PR lessons right away — not just at the end of the year.
So I have to ask: Are you evolving?
