4 Tips to Launch Your First Effective PR Campaign

2. Provide polished details of your personal brand.

Thought leadership and personal branding go hand-in-hand. Your audience, as well as the media, want to know who the founders are on a more personal level. A CEO’s following on social media is quickly becoming one of the first things looked to as social proof. Make sure your profile is polished and ready to go: Create a succinct and interesting bio. This is extremely important to get right, and an experienced PR person can help you formulate it.

Get a high-resolution, professional headshot. No selfies!

Collect previously published clips relevant to what you are promoting -- where you have been written about or you have written something yourself.

Have links to all social media, including number of followers. Writers and editors want to know that you are able to help share the article.

3. See what sticks.

Now that you have your pitch and personal brand ready to go, let’s see what sticks.

Have your agency develop a targeted media list. This should be compiled of the agencies own contacts as well as lists pulled from social listening tools. Your pitches are more likely to be picked up by the journalist and writers that are actively writing or talking about a particular subject.

Test out the pitches and see which ones get interest. Don’t get discouraged if no one picks them up at first. Your agency should be able to tell you if the pitch emails were at least opened, which can give you an indication that you’re on the right track. Stay on this step until it becomes clear that a particular pitch or two is starting to get interest.

4. Do some leg work. Think like a journalist.

Now that you’ve really nailed your pitch(es), it’s time to really polish it up to make it even more appealing. Look for data and other statistics that support your pitch and the industry you’re in -similar stories that have appeared and relevant use cases. Journalists will appreciate you handing them everything on a “silver platter,” so to speak.

That being said, always have realistic expectations before diving full-force into a PR campaign. Don’t expect to get a spot on Good Morning America the same day you hire a publicist. Choose a PR agency that focuses on results and understands digital marketing and what it takes to grow a business.