We continue our series delving into natural sources of PR from our new Natural PR Guide by looking at what you can find in the marketing department. You’d think that marketing would be the obvious place to start foraging for Natural PR opportunities; actually it can often be one of the most overlooked. The reason is that as B2B marketers we are sometimes too close to our own plans and campaigns to recognise all of the potential within them. Ensuring that marketing really delivers bang for buck and opportunities aren’t missed often requires us to look again at how different areas of the plan can support each other.
For example, have you considered opportunities to conduct research or polls at industry events which could lead to follow-up PR stories? Could sales reference and win story programmes be integrated into a single customer reference process? Is content being produced within marketing campaigns that could be repackaged as a media story? Could customer user group meetings include a PR presence to interview customers about their views on industry issues?
There’s no secret to success here. It just requires some lateral thinking, regular conversations and ensuring that campaigns and programmes are integrated across all marketing communication disciplines. If your marketing meetings get bogged down in process, you could try turning the agenda around to focus on outcomes rather than inputs. In other words, what are you going to produce from your plans and how could this be used elsewhere?
In our final installment on Natural PR we share our top ten tips for unearthing some hidden gems.
