For each of the PR campaigns that we work on, we carefully consider the best tactics that will help us to implement the overall strategy and ultimately, achieve our objectives. One tactic that we’ve used frequently in our consumer campaigns for clients such as Adnams is product PR.
Every week we place our products into the hands of the media and into the sight of the buying public. We use this tactic when promoting products for our food and drink clients, as we know from experience that the majority of consumer journalists prefer to sample food and drink products for themselves.
There are several significant factors to consider when it comes to successfully placing products and these are: timing, relevance and contact:
Timing
Acknowledging journalists’ deadlines and lead times is vital. Together with our clients, we decide when we would like the coverage to appear, for example, over Christmas or in time for when a new product is due to land in stores. It’s also important that our work is aligned with the marketing plans of our clients, as working in unison ensures maximum impact.
As many of our target publications work months in advance of the actual date of publication, it is our job to make sure that we are fully aware of these timings and keeping in touch with our contacts to ensure we know when deadlines are changed, which happens more than you would expect! So while Christmas is still 101 days away, we’ve had Noddy Holder ringing in our ears since June when we started placing festive products with the consumer press.
Relevance
Journalists are offered hundreds of products to review so it’s crucial to make sure that when we’re pitching an idea to them we can clearly demonstrate how a product is relevant to their readership. We always makes sure to spend time finding out what they are working on and explain how our clients’ product can fit into their feature. Highlighting the products’ USPs is key to convincing a journalist a product is worthy of reviewing, especially when placing food and drink products.
Contact
Once we know that we are speaking to the right journalist, there is an important process we follow on each and every occasion. The product is sent out and we always give the journalist the estimated delivery date and then check that the samples have arrived safely. We follow-up each sample individually to check the journalist has everything they need and eagerly check to see what they thought of the product, as well as try and get an idea of when the coverage will appear.
I believe that product PR is one of the strongest ways to secure branded coverage in consumer publications; it can will deliver high impact coverage as many readers trust a recommendation from a journalist as much as they would that of a friend.