Developing a public relations calendar or marketing calendar can be like logging into Facebook – you soon find yourself lost and with no idea what you were trying to achieve.
The reason for a PR planner or marketing planner is to prepare yourself for publicity and online media opportunities when they arise. You can fill it with news story ideas, along with planned events, product launches and even jumping on the back of hot news.
So, however you craft your plan, just know it will evolve as your year progresses. Nothing is set in stone here.
Where to start with your Public Relations Calendar
I often look back at how I used to plan in my business and realise it wasn’t really planning. There was no substance to what I was planning and it did nothing to give me clarity on where I was going.
It’s fine to pick a figure out of the sky and then “hope” you make it, but unless you have a plan to back it up, not too much of it is going to happen.
Now, everything from my public relations, blogging, guest blogging, social media and product offerings all have better structure and purpose and work on clear 90-day cycles.
Whether you’re planning a monthly or quarterly campaign, first get really clear on what your goals are for that period.
Ask yourself:
- What are you selling?
- What do you hope to achieve during this period?
- What is the outcome you’re aiming for?
- What events do you have planned?
- What is the timeline for your goals?
You always want to be able to start with the end in mind, so starting at your “sales goals” will give your media campaign more purpose.
Crafting Your Media Messaging
Next, take a look at what you’re selling and see if you can determine 3 key messages you want to get across when you’re:
- doing interviews,
- posting to social media
- writing blog posts
These messages may also carry through to your sales page and free gifts that you offer in exchange for an email address.
Inside my premium program Publicity Alchemy, we go deep into how to come up with messaging.
Coming Up With Content Ideas
I once struggled with planning out public relations, blogging and social media content too far in advance because I always found it difficult to come up with the content ideas that were going to date.
I’ve talked extensively before on news story ideas, but you can also use the PR, blog and social media prompts inside the PR and Marketing News Calendar to help you create “evergreen” content. The calendar will allow you to go through each prompt, event and idea and mark dates and content ideas inside the calendar itself that come to the fore at particular times throughout the year.
This means you can plan your content up to 12 months in advance through using “evergreen” story ideas and not have to worry about them becoming dated.
When it comes to evergreen stories, pitch unique story angles for events journalists have to write about anyway. In many cases, journalists dread some of these stories because they struggle to come up with something fresh each year. They will love that you’ve served up something unique.
It’s these sorts of stories that have journalists wanting to put you in their “little black contact book” and start chasing YOU for stories – instead of the other way around.
During this step it’s also a great idea to check the editorial calendar under the advertising page of the media you want to pitch. This will show themes within publications and programs they’re producing.
Also look to your own local events, occasions or hot news items you know will be worth piggybacking off.
Establishing Your Strategies, Activities and Budget
Overall Strategy
Firstly, you want to take a look at your overall strategy and what you’re trying to achieve with your campaign.
This is important to give everything else you’re doing greater purpose and to ensure you’re not pitching for the sake of it, but rather to achieve an end goal.
Your PR Planner Activities
Then break this strategy down into the activities you need to do on a daily, weekly and monthly basis to reach your goal.
- What do you need to post to social media?
- What media do you need to pitch to and what angles do you have?
- Why will they be interested in this story right now?
- What blog post can you write that people are going to be searching for in Google at that time of year?
My PR calendar has a section each month dedicated to each of these steps, along with a 12-month view to ensure you’re clear on where you’re going and what needs to be done.
Setting A Budget
If you’re going to incorporate advertising or events into your PR and marketing mix, it’s a good idea to lay out the costs of these so you can budget throughout the year.
The last thing you want to do is generate major press for an event that you haven’t budgeted properly for and have it turn into a major disaster.
Similarly, if you’re using Facebook Ads or Google Ads on the back of your PR campaign, ensure you have your budget set so when the PR opportunity goes live, you can follow up with retargeting and make the most of your PR efforts.
It’s Time To Take Action
Once you’re clear on all of the above, it’s time to take action. Start writing those press releases, blog posts, pitch that story and schedule your social media content.
The places people often fall down are:
- they don’t plan in the first place or
- they plan and completely forget to follow through.
As I mentioned above, the Public Relations Calendar has the addition of a campaign planner for each month, so you not only create your big vision goals, but also the step-by-step tasks that will help you achieve it.
The truth is PR and marketing is a marathon, not a sprint. If you have a plan that shows consistency, you’ll increase your chances of success.
And THAT is my No. 1 goal for you!
Who should be using a Public Relations Calendar?
There are many benefits to using a planner or calendar of some form for your PR and marketing.
The PR and Marketing News Calendar, in particular, was written specifically for solopreneurs or small business owners – those people in business for themselves or who have a small team and don’t have the ability to sit down with a huge department where they can brainstorm ideas.
Having people to bounce ideas off for your marketing can be one of the toughest things about being in business for yourself. Being a solopreneur can be a lonely venture.
If you’ve ever experienced brainstorming with others versus brainstorming by yourself, you’ll know how much more flows when others have input or start the idea process.
This Calendar is designed so you have some ideas to get your creativity flowing from the start. Once you read the prompts and evergreen calendar dates, you’ll start to easily see how you can be creative in your media pitches and blog post writing.
Want to get started with your own copy of the PR and Marketing News Calendar?
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