It’s the New Year!! What resolutions have you made? Have you decided to lose weight? Exercise more? Take more time out for yourself?
Here is a list of resolutions that might help maximize your public relations efforts in the year ahead:
- Outline your promotion goals and objectives for the year.
- Develop an editorial calendar for the year with your PR firm, identifying different happenings throughout the year and how your company can take advantage of those events. We have one client that is positioning stories for “New Year, New You,” about making weight-loss resolutions and how to keep them. February is Heart Month, an excellent time to capitalize on topics related to heart disease. And don’t forget the trappings of romance for Valentine’s Day.
- Get your social channels ready or updated, including LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Tumblr, Google+ and YouTube.
- Review your press materials to see if they are current. If not, update them.
- Review your target market and the related media that you would reach out to.
- Refresh media lists. Revisit your lists to see if those contacts are still the right contacts. With all the changes going on in the news business, it is likely there are new people in the industry publication you follow.
- Rolling out a new product or service? Take stock of what you need, such as developing a press kit, including launch press release, bios and fact sheets. One of our clients is launching a cloud-based time and attendance system, so we are updating the announcement release, checking all the facts and making sure we have our case studies included. The client is developing a microsite for the launch, including online press kit and high-resolution images.
- Schedule vendor demos, such as email marketing companies, or a new database service to generate and track sales.
- Surf the different news sites to read about what is going on in the marketplace and current trends. One of our clients is launching a health care/medical “Groupon” website, so you can buy health services online at a savings. Trends in the healthcare market indicate that this is an up-and-coming service because more people are paying out of pocket for health care or are faced with gaps in their insurance coverage.
- Consider starting a blog. If you don’t have a blog, you probably ought to get one because at this point, there are few companies that don’t have one.
Positioning yourself so that you are prepared rather than creating your PR materials on the fly will enhance your business goals for the year.
What are your company promotion resolutions for the New Year?
Wendy Alpine
wendy@alpinepr.com
www.alpinepr.com
Phone: 770-321-1695
Fax: 404-806-5316