You distributed a press release, landed a byline and pitched your heart out last month, but THIS month is looking pretty grim when it comes to landing fresh press. You're stressing about it.
Then, adding sprinkles to your sugar-free poop cupcake, your client just asked the age-old question, "What have you done for me in the last five minutes?"
Yikes. It's no time to sit back and relax, or be over-confident.
So, what can you do next? Try one of these ideas to leverage the instant gratification nature of digital PR.
1. Branch out of your client's industry and consider other online vertical market applications. No matter what kind of product or service a client provides, there is always a way it can be connected to other markets. It doesn't even matter if your client is b2b or b2c - getting creative with out-of-the-box thinking opens the door to a never-ending supply of relevant media opportunities. You're only limited by your imagination.
Let's use the example of a luxury residential real estate client. Move past real estate trade pubs and consumer media. Who buys expensive homes? Not just people with generous financial means - lawyers and physicians, CFOs, CIOs and other c-suite executives, successful business owners. Are there trade publications, e-zines and blogs related to those industries with short publication cycles for their online platforms? Of course! Pitch some fast blog post ideas related to their audience and their needs.
For a legal placement, you might pitch something like "five most popular home office design trends for lawyers, " as a way to tie luxury homes to their audience. In the case of a physician-based vertical, pitching something like "demand for lux home offices skyrocket as concierge medicine trends grow."
Looking outside your traditional platforms with a story tailored to a fresh audience is a wonderful way to grow client reach. Plus, the time from idea-to-publication is dramatically shortened for online media. You can have something posted almost as fast as you can create it.
2. Land them a speaking gig, webinar or podcast opportunity. Google is your BFF for this. If you use very targeted keywords for your search, you can land something in an hour. For some strange reason, many PR professionals overlook speaking as a form of PR for their clients, and many don't think of webinars and podcasts as PR placements - but both of them can be extraordinarily valuable. When done in a controlled fashion as time allows, it's not too difficult to control how much time is devoted to it so the rest of the retainer doesn't suffer. Even spending an hour or two a month is doable. Even better, landing one or two of them can lead to a much bigger project, giving you the opportunity to ask for extra billable hours.
3. Go through their existing assets and find things to repurpose. Every client has PowerPoints, photography, data, expert staff or other resources just sitting around gathering dust (figuratively speaking). Taking time to go through them will help you identify new opportunities. Do they have regular speaker events? Ask if you can record them for video uploads, or review the PowerPoint as a possible SlideShare upload. Do they have videos but no YouTube channel? Help them launch one. Are images from past photo shoots sitting on their server? They might be ideal for creating a new piece of content. Can you record a quick CEO interview related to last month's press release or next month's predictions? Ask if you can create a casual interview series for their website. Do they have marketing collateral? See if it can be repurposed into social media visuals and/or used to generate fast pitch ideas.
When you proactively go to your client with fresh ideas, instead of waiting for them to "do something newsworthy," you become a much more valuable part of their team.
Go get 'em, tiger!