Eight top tips for powerful integrated PR

Wouldn’t it be great if your brand communications were setting the tone and pace of your organisation? When every time you blogged, tweeted or commented, the world reacted. Imagine if your external communications mapped onto your internal communications and your brand message was the magic thread that carefully stitched all of your marketing communications together? And then imagine taking that one step further and connecting your social, events, news, content, influencer relations, analyst relations, CSR and digital activity were all woven together into one measurable campaign. It might sound like an unattainable utopia – but in actual fact, we’re just describing integrated PR.

And it’s something we’re quite passionate about. After all, marketing investment doesn’t come cheap and budgets aren’t necessarily expanding at the same rate as your business. Even if they were, it still makes sense to squeeze every last bit of value out of your communications activity?

Put simply, it’s also the best way to amplify your brand message. It’s just a smart way of working.

At Firework we always start any campaign with an integrated approach. Besides being smart, it’s also designed to save time and money – both of which are precious commodities in the world of PR and marketing. We look for smart, time-saving approaches so our time can be proactively spent delivering valuable results, rather than going backwards and forwards working out how best to write your press release.

So, what are the golden rules of integrated PR? Here’s out top six must do’s:-

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2. Centralise your messaging: Having an agreed message that your internal team signs up to is literally the holy grail of integrated PR. It saves a lot of time and can also act as a catalyst internally to get everyone on the same page. By spending time agreeing centralised core messaging you have created the framework for every single piece of communication your organisation ever needs to produce.
3. Theme your campaigns: Without endless time and budget it’s impossible to get your campaigns to do everything. But by giving your campaign a theme and a focus, you can be clear about your key message and how to weave in different elements of news, content, social, influencer etc.
4. Audit your marketing: Many organisations simply miss the opportunity to map PR onto their campaigns and activity. For example, how many times has your organisation booked an event without considering the PR activity that can boost attendees to visit your stand or speaker slots or have the right case studies ready to promote on the stand.
5. Have an opinion: Opinions can be turned into great PR that can support your campaign. Thought pieces, interview comment, panel discussions and podcasts, they all call for insight and a spokesperson who isn’t afraid to be give his or her views can amplify your campaign. So, seek out those in your organisation who have the strong views and interview them.
6. Make sure your content works: When part of an integrated campaign, it’s easier to create content journeys that tell a story, prompts the reader to take action and re-engage, driving them to the right event, or webinar. This will ensure your content strategy doesn’t get out of control but has a specific part to play. It’s true - a ready supply of fresh, compelling, SEO-enhancing content is vital to drive social engagement and push the right traffic to your website. But make sure you know exactly how to measure the success of your content - don’t let it become your Lord and Master!
7. Include experts: Third party endorsement delivers credibility, trust and interest in your brand. Does your organisation hold relationships with experts and opinion formers in your sector? Do you know who they are? An analyst or influencers programme can make a huge difference to a campaign if engaged in the right way. Could they, for example be called upon to provide a quote for a press release, or a comment in a by-lined white paper? Would they be willing to speak at your event? Used in the right way, they can boost the awareness and responsiveness of your campaigns.
8. Gain the right backlinks: If you follow the above steps, your content will be compelling and tie back to your key themes and messages. An integrated PR campaign can secure backlinks from strong thought leadership pieces, and at the same time profile your leaders. Top tier websites have the highest rankings and one backlink can boost your website to the first page for search.
9. Gain Buy-In from C-Suite: your brand communications is the external story you take to your customers, prospects and partners. An integrated brand campaign will deliver business results and if created with business goals in mind, be measurable back to the exec team. So, it’s vital that they are bought into the process and are supportive of any activity.