How to Create a Digital PR Campaign - An easy to follow guide

A near-perfect PR campaign can be hard to create, but not impossible. If you understand what elements are needed to make that perfect campaign, and a step by step guide to follow, you’ll be well on your way to producing a digital PR campaign that delivers you the results you want.

What is digital PR?

The term ‘PR’ is thrown around a lot within marketing, but it isn’t just another buzzword. PR, or public relations, is a creative, powerful and tactical way to drive results for your brand/business.

A strong PR strategy can help you connect with your audience, build brand awareness, raise your brand's reputation, and also support your wider marketing goals/efforts.

This dream job @layzspa will pay you £100 an hour to test out hot tubs 🔥 This campaign has picked up links in all… https://t.co/2wwEKZPkRk

— Digital PR Examples (@DigitalPREx) Tue Mar 29 08:01:34 +0000 2022

Why digital PR?

Digital PR is just as important to building your brand as other methods of marketing, such as SEO.

Digital PR is a measurable way to drive brand awareness by driving traffic to a website, creating links that boost organic ranking and also driving sales and a social following.

If done correctly, digital PR is an invaluable element of your marketing strategy and is a fun way to stay ahead and stand out from your competitors.

Here’s our step by step guide on how to do it.

How to Develop a PR Campaign

Step One: Objectives

Determine your objectives and what you want your campaign to achieve.

Before you randomly start throwing ideas around the room, it’s best to start with some objectives, KPIs and goals to help you know what you’re aiming for, and have an understanding of what success looks like for you.

Objectives could be:

Raise brand awareness

Increase sales of specific products

Drive website traffic

Supporting SEO links

Inform the public about company news

Enhance brand reputation

Recruiting

Partner Engagement

Brand valuation

Whichever objective you choose to focus on, make sure your team has an understanding of what you’re going to track/measure and what results would you deem successful.

Also, when creating your objectives, make sure you’re collecting as much data beforehand as possible across all marketing channels, as a strong digital PR campaign can affect all channels.

Revealed: The worst things to wear on a first date 🤭 Research by @thread was used to create this guide which was p… https://t.co/At7VY0KYCP

— Digital PR Examples (@DigitalPREx) Fri Mar 25 09:00:40 +0000 2022

Step Two: Define your Target Audience

The more you know about your target audience, the better. If you’re running a campaign for your own brand, pull out your target audience personas and get to know them well.

You’ll want to know the basic demographics, but also psychographics. Having a detailed understanding of their behaviour, opinions and interests can help you craft a campaign you’ll know they won’t be able to resist reading/clicking.

If your target audience is segmented, it may be beneficial to run campaigns targeted towards individual segments rather than targeting them all at once.

Step Three: Idea Generation/Brainstorming

This is where people get stuck. Finding a campaign that is current, on-brand, and appealing to the masses can be hard. And finding something that hasn’t already been done is even harder.

However, persevere with digital PR as a great campaign can do wonders for your business/brand.

How to Get Creative.

The digital world is a very noisy space and to ensure your campaign stands out you need to get creative! We highly recommend that the ideation process isn’t rushed, you should set aside a decent amount of time to brainstorm!

Invite your Entire Team, and Even Members from Other Teams.

Everyone thinks differently and has a different experience of the world so they may come up with ideas you may never have thought of.

Do Some Research

When you start planning a campaign, it can be really useful to investigate what events are coming up in the next few weeks/months. Are Netflix releasing their next big series? Is the holiday season starting? Is there a new iPhone, Playstation etc.?

There are things coming up that could inspire your next campaign, and also things to stay away from. So cover all bases and do thorough research.

It is also a good idea to research what has happened in the past to see if you can jump on any annual trends that journalists are interested in.

Start Brainstorming

To start with, make sure everyone knows the brief and what you’re trying to achieve. You could even send this around beforehand.

Have someone to write down everything, and I mean everything! No idea is a bad idea, it could be the instigator for a great campaign idea.

When someone comes up with an idea, roll with it. Keep bouncing ideas off of one another to see if you can collectively come together with huge ideas.

Remember, you want your campaign to resonate not only with the media you will be approaching but also with the audience you’re trying to reach. The ideas will need to be new, fresh and super creative so if you don’t come up with some solid ideas in the first session, book in another and keep brainstorming until one sticks.

Double-Checking your Idea

Once you have come up with your idea(s), run it past people outside of the brainstorming team to just double-check that your idea is as great as you think it is.

Index by Sports Direct & @JourneyFurther reveals the UK’s most loved sports teams 🇬🇧 Arsenal are the most loved Sp… https://t.co/HzokyslHSr

— Just Digital PR (@justdigitalpr) Mon Mar 28 11:06:05 +0000 2022

Step Four: Data, Data, Data

For an outstanding campaign, and one that might go viral, data is going to be your best friend.

Journalists want to run stories that are backed up with compelling and interesting data. They want the evidence, and they want it to be accurate.

Having a data and analytics specialist is crucial to ensure they are gathering reliable and valid data. Plus, they also know how to gather the data and turn it into the format you need.

Don’t know where to find a data specialist, we have a team here at Honcho that would love to support your campaign.

Step Five: Execution

This is one of the most important steps to your digital PR campaign, because if no one sees it, it’s almost pointless.

We recently wrote an article on prospecting in PR which you’ll find very useful.

Strong execution is vital and a good skill to foster. You can’t just send an email to as many people as possible and hope it lands.

Plan out your execution.

Here are a few things to think out:

Are you hosting an event?

Do you need to create a video?

Are you recruiting influencers to help push your campaign?

Are you sending out emails, booking meetings or picking up the phone?

Once you’ve got your execution ideas, make a timeline giving you plenty of time for setbacks.

We believe women’s breasts in all shapes and sizes deserve support and comfort. Which is why our new sports bra ran… https://t.co/uH50EKlhh6

— adidas (@adidas) Wed Feb 09 14:00:11 +0000 2022

From social media to billboards, Adidas’ recent campaign was shared on a variety of media platforms to get maximum coverage.

Step Six: Measurement and Tracking

Remember the objectives you set out at the start? You’ll need them now as this is what you’ll be measuring your campaign success against.

Create a Google Sheet and track everything in this. Every link, every post, engagement, shares, changes to rankings, traffic increases… the lot! It all helps you understand the impact of your campaign.

Other things to consider

1. Give yourself time! Plan ahead and don’t rush campaigns.

2. Follow up plan - Make sure you’ve got a follow-up plan in place. Ensure you’re ready to tell journalists why your story is newsworthy today, or tomorrow, or even if it's still relevant in 2 weeks' time.

3. Could this campaign win an award? Keep it in mind and track, screenshot and record everything.

4. Shout about your success, write a blog post and tell the world exactly how you achieved great success.