Digital PR is a broad landscape, especially when it comes to campaigns. There’s a vast amount of campaign types for your brand to use to grow online authority, everything from infographics to hero campaigns, to newsjacking campaigns.
If you are still getting to grips with digital PR campaigns, it can be hard to know which type is best to bring your campaign to life and help you to reach your target audience.
Before starting any campaign, you need to carry out research on the type of content your target audience is engaging with and the online mediums they’re consuming content on. Otherwise, you’re creating a campaign that’s just a waste of your time and budget.
Here we look at the different types of digital PR campaigns, including some practical examples, to get you started.
Reactive digital PR
The clue is in the name, reactive digital PR is being reactive to the media and making your campaigns relevant to the news agenda.
This means spotting a breaking news story or key talking point in the media and publishing a story to drive brand awareness off the back of it, using techniques such as newsjacking. You have to act fast with reactive PR, otherwise, your story won’t be relevant to the news agenda.
Proactive digital PR
Moving to proactive, this is where you need to think “proactively” and plan campaigns in advance.
This could be activity around key dates and trends in the media and owning the story. This could include holidays, such as Christmas, Valentine’s Day or Bank Holidays, key events, such as sporting events or awards, or awareness days that are relevant to your brand.
Creativity and relevance are key, the media landscape is saturated with thousands of brands trying to compete with each other in the same space and journalists receive hundreds of stories each day. Making sure your story stands out is key.
Planned PR campaigns
When it comes to planned digital PR campaigns this involves hero campaigns, such as interactive maps, reimagined products, or influencer campaigns. Planned campaigns take time, but create a lot more noise – so there’s a lot more opportunity to secure backlinks online.
These campaigns can then be broken into different formats, such as bespoke website assets or research pieces. Examples of this include:
Maps
If you have really interesting regional data, but aren’t sure how to highlight it creatively – maps are a great way to do so. Here’s an example from Ken Bromley Art Supplies to show the worlds most popular artists country by country, using social media data and achieving coverage from art-recognised outlets like CreativeBloq, designboom, and DesignTaxi.
This type of creative can be replicated in any industry and provide a much more visual way of displaying your data, as well as different angles to outreach with; select countries or regions etc.
Surveys
An example of a survey led digital PR campaign is one we did for a leading food and drink brand, Black Sheep, who champion quality cask ale.
We conducted detailed research, social media listening, and persona analysis amongst their target audience and identified a growing trend for unusual pop-up bars and restaurants. So, we launched ‘The Breathe Inn’, a pop-up bar on the Yorkshire Dales and supported it with PR activity.
For your brand, this could be in form of something static, such as an article, to shine a light on a particular issue and how purchasing your problem can benefit them.
Dream Jobs
Dream job campaigns involve brands advertising job of a ‘lifetime’ to drive conversations online. Here is an example from SpaSpeakers who were paying a lucky winner to soak in hot tubs and indulge in luxury spa treatments over the summer.
Applicants had to apply via a photo competition on social media. The earned coverage from outlets such as Business Insider and Fox News.
Studies & Analysis
Studies and data, show your industry expertise and help to grow your reputation – which will position you as a thought leader. One thing to bear in mind is that it needs to have an impactful stat or angle to outreach with to really sell your message.
An example of this is a study we did for Fentimans choosing to utilise the brand’s annual market report to reach white-collar roles within key hospitality brands through a new targeted approach. It was hosted on a landing page and achieved a total media circulation of 126K+.
Interactives
Interactive digital PR campaigns keep users engaged for longer. Here is an example of a reaction time test game from the parking app Just Park, that tests your reaction skills with an interactive short game test to estimate how old your reactions are. So, you can figure out if your age matches your driving skills.
This could also be in the form of a calculator, leader board, or step-by-step guide to make your campaign even more engaging and drive user attention.
Visual Experiments
Visual experiments predict what a certain figure/buyer persona will look like in a few years, this is an example from Online Casino that predicted a futuristic future gamer.
This created several talking points online, gaining major links in the Daily Mirror, designboom, and many more.
At Prohibition, we work with a range of brands across all sectors, B2B and B2C, to create innovative PR campaigns that deliver real ROI and help meet business goals. Get in touch with us today to find out how we could support you with your Public Relations. Drop us an email: hello@prohibitionpr.co.uk or give us a bell on 0113 430 4160.
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