ChicExecs Senior VP of PR and Digital Marketing Kristen Wessel shares her tips on the future of PR in 2022 on Forbes blog. Enjoy this overview from the piece.
What’s on the horizon for PR? Follow these four steps to craft an effective PR strategy for 2022.
1. Create Personalized Pitches
Here’s the good news: According to Muck Rack’s 2021 State of PR report — which surveyed 1,618 comms professionals — 96% of PR professionals still say that individual emails are the best way to pitch journalists. The bad news is that, in my experience, journalists are sick of receiving generic email blasts.
If you want a journalist to actually read your email, you should create hyper-personalized messages that compel them to respond.
2. Marry Affiliate Marketing With PR
Affiliate marketing is helpful if you sell products. With affiliate programs, you pay influencers, editors and publishers a commission in exchange for bringing you more sales.
Instead of keeping your affiliate relationships and PR efforts separate, I recommend combining the two in 2022. In my experience, PR can help you build relationships with new, bigger affiliates while maintaining relationships with your existing publishers. Since affiliate marketing is all about relationships, you’ll have a better chance of bringing in more affiliate sales if you create a thoughtful affiliate outreach strategy.
3. Remember That Planning Is Out And Flexibility Is In
PR professionals once had the luxury of creating an annual content calendar, but after 2020, that’s a no-go for many brands. With the news cycle changing on a daily basis — and a new crisis happening seemingly every week — you shouldn’t over-plan your PR for 2022.
Your PR team should take a page from the IT industry and become more agile. In unpredictable times, you might have to:
• Change product release dates.
• Pause releases entirely.
• Send emergency press releases overnight.
To go with the flow, you should set up your PR systems to move faster.
4. Build Deeper Media Relationships
It’s fine if you want to send an occasional pitch to a journalist, but in 2022, you need every advantage you can get. Use a social listening app to look for journalists who need a quick turnaround on expert quotes.
Click here to read Kristen’s entire blog.
