Each piece of content that a PR agency creates, or is given access to, can be repurposed many times, to maximise success with multiple media placements.
Content is king when it comes to attracting media interest and the attention of potential customers. After reviewing your blog, website and current content, any good PR agency should be able to provide you with a PR content strategy that identifies what useful material you currently have available and how they intend to use it; what content you're missing, and which audience they would target with that content, to meet your objectives, and the results they anticipate securing for you.
Not only does good quality and regular content provide your client with media coverage, it also raises awareness of brands. Here are 10 ways to use one piece of content to create multiple media opportunities. For this blog post, we’ve used the story of a newly-appointed CEO or MD as the content example:
- INTRODUCTION – offer an introduction with the new CEO to any media who had regularly covered the previous CEO – so you and your agency maintain ongoing relations with those titles. It is also worth offering the introduction to any media that had never covered the previous CEO too though, as they may be open to speaking with his or her replacement to develop a relationship.
- INTERVIEWS – always offer early interviews with your new hires to a limited selection of media contacts, to tie this into the news of their appointment and so the journalists can speak to them directly, to get their own information. If you are targeting business media, or highly respected tech media, an exclusive may be in order too.
- NEWS – write a news release detailing who the new CEO is, their background, why they were appointed, what their role will be and what they will bring to the company – particularly following the predecessor, and what their appointment will mean to new and existing customers, the company’s direction and any business processes or strategic changes their appointment might herald. A “not the same path” story is always more interesting to media than “business as usual” ones.
- PROFILE – source media contacts that do C-level profiles and/or have “Day in the Life of” sections, where your C-level executive can provide answers/insights to be a part of. Alternatively, for media who cover your client regularly and/or who had a connection with the previous CEO, offer them a profile with all the details they need on the new CEO for them to get to know him/her for future opportunities.
- PODCAST – similar to interviews with media, use the appointment to pitch podcasts where the new CEO gets involved in industry-specific topics that your client specialises in. Alternatively, create a podcast for your own website, with the aim of introducing visitors to your new CEO.
- BLOG - a blog post that outlines the CEO’s insights into the industry as it is, how s/he sees it changing in the next few months and why those changes, and what s/he intends to shake up to maximise the brand’s portfolio/expansion/footprint in the industry. This can go on your website, but could also be offered to a media as an exclusive thought leadership or profile piece.
- ARTICLE – for media that prefer editorial to interviews or profiles, create a thought-leadership article, with industry stats and specific CEO insights included, to place within industry and/or business titles. If the original article is a long one (1,200 words or longer), you could consider turning it into two or three shorter pieces to offer one media target all of them as a series – securing two or three hits from one piece of content and maximising coverage of it.
- VIDEO – capturing the interview on video, you could either use a clip from that to include in a series of videos about the company that the sales team could send out to prospects, or you could share a link of that with media and/or for use online on the company’s website.
- SOCIAL – LinkedIn Pulse posts can be an avenue for the new CEO to share insight, and his/her feed can be used for business-specific and industry-relevant news posts and Pulse stories. S/he should also be introduced via the company’s Twitter and any other social media channels, that s/he then retweets/shares via and his or her own accounts. This will ensure that the new appointment reaches as many people as possible, to attract new followers to both the company from his or her audience and vice versa. Sharing any of the above content suggestions via social media is also advised – whether it is the podcast or a blog, to keep the content being shared via those platforms engaging.
- COMMENTS – whenever anything newsworthy happens around your clients’ industry or business sector, it is wise to get a canned comment out talking all about it, attributed to the new CEO – to raise awareness of him or her being available for comments and for media to consider including in their write ups on those new stories. Interesting, informative or unique sentences or phrases in interviews and blogs/articles can also be turned into quotes for sharing on social media too. These comments can be formed from some of the insights that s/he provides.
A really great PR agency though won’t simply recycle one content idea into different mediums, just to have quantity over quality. You need the right content in the right context, so your agency will give the same content a tweak to tailor it to the different medium, maximising its chances of success.
To find out how we can help with your content marketing efforts, please get in touch or find out more here.
