Holidays are a great time to do editorial placement campaigns.
I just finished pitching a New Year’s pitch that was a whopping success. While many companies tend to see the holidays as dead air time, some even shutting down their PR efforts altogether, savvy PR folks see huge opportunity.
The truth is the time period between Thanksgiving and a few months after the New Year presents an opportunity to leverage the perceived news lull with a year-end or year-beginning storyline. Often editors and media outlets are looking for interesting ideas to “fill their pages” during this holiday down time. Also, with the general slow-down in corporate productivity around the holidays, more people are reading news sites, blogs and following social media channels than during busier times of the year. So smart holiday PR campaigning can be a powerful way to get your company noticed.
Some of the most important keys to effective holiday editorial placement are:
Even if your product is a nerdy, seemingly non-interesting component in the technology stack – look for the larger story lines and market trends you can connect your company or product to. This may require thinking outside of the box but it always can be done.
Let the reader know up front you are providing interesting tidbits about the year end – year coming and what matters about it. Media outlets are expected to drench their readers with these very specific storylines.
OK, you should always write a compelling headline (stay tuned for an upcoming Attain blog post on headlines) but year end/year beginning headlines need to be especially dramatic. Remember, you are about to make a sweeping statement about what has happened or will happen in an entire market or industry. Your headline needs to stand out among a litany of these types of stories.
Perhaps you can leverage a partner or customer to jointly address an interesting angle or co-sponsor a year-end study. The holidays are great times to announce results of surveys or make predictions about New Year trends. This is also the time to consider something a little more catchy or gimmicky as these types of news stunts often seem to fit in better with the sense of sensationalism surrounding the holiday season.
You can claim that any pitch is related to the holidays, but that doesn’t mean an editor will believe it. In order to achieve the best success, there must be a valid, relevant holiday tie to your story idea. Are you working with an expert source who can predict trends that relate to the Christmas season? Do you have a customer or partner that offers a great product perfect for holiday shoppers? These are the sorts of things that make for successful holiday editorial.
Many pubs have their Christmas content picked out early, so make sure to get a jump on the crowd If you start early enough you can also leverage editorial calendar opportunities to add momentum and additional stories to your PR campaign. Also, New Year predictions can be placed through February so don’t give up the holiday editorial idea too soon. The appetite for predictions never seems to end.
If thoughtfully crafted and executed properly, year end, New Year editorial placed content can be a very effective way to keep PR momentum through the holiday lull while possibly netting some great attention for your company you might not otherwise have received.
