Most brands want their message to appear everywhere in the media when they commission a PR agency. The key to regular media coverage across a broad range of outlets is a targeted strategy that can translate into a schedule of newsworthy media angles. If you are after news media coverage – TV, newspapers, major online sites and radio – your public relations agency will first have to deliver a solid content strategy and content plan suitable for these channels.
How is a content plan developed? A good PR agency can derive newsworthy PR content from your brand assets – such as customer data, website blogs, customer databases, and your own thought leaders. From here they can identify trends, consumer behaviour, opinion pieces – and turn these into months and months of newsworthy media angles, keeping in mind the media targets that are valuable to your brand.
It is important to remember that your PR agency can’t guarantee a specific number of media results. Unlike advertising, they are not buying space. They are pitching story ideas to the news, and the choice is made by the media as to how and if they will cover the story.
A skilled PR consultant, however, should know what is newsworthy and how to create media angles that are on the media agenda regularly. Property, jobs and household savings, for instance, are three themes that get constant press coverage. If your PR plan can tap into these three newsworthy topics, your brand is more likely to get coverage.
It’s also important to remember that certain types of stories may achieve better results than others. News that your business has received significant funding, or the launch of an innovative product, for example, may secure more media coverage than content from your website blog. The key is creating the most newsworthy angle for each story and knowing the right media to target.
Audience is another thing to remember when thinking about media coverage. Lots of media placements targeting a small audience (or the wrong audience) may not be as useful as one piece of coverage targeting a large audience – such as TV news. Quality is better than quantity.
With a strong PR plan and content strategy, your PR agency should be able to deliver at least a dozen media placements every month, depending on your budget. As one of Sydney’s most reputable PR agencies, The Ideas Suite in some months achieves 15 pieces of coverage for a client, while in other months it’s over 50 – which balances out over the PR plan.
At The Ideas Suite, we develop strong PR content strategies and thoroughly plan our PR activities in order to achieve the best results for our clients, no matter their budget. Some of our results include:
- 1,603 pieces of media coverage for HotelsCombined in a year.
- 314 pieces of media coverage for Ochre Health medical clinics in just 6 months.
- 445 pieces of media coverage for Menulog in 11 months.
