Top Tips for Pivoting Campaigns

We’ve all been there. A campaign you thought was going to do really well is struggling to hit KPIs and find momentum. 

As easy as it could be to give up and try a new campaign, it probably isn’t viable. Tenacity is an important trait for anyone working in PR – and this is where you’re going to need to be tenacious. 

Getting new eyes on your campaign will help a lot. There’s nothing worse than having one campaign looming over you that you don’t know where you’re going with it. A new perspective could be what you need, even just tweaking a headline could be all it needs. 

Here are my five tips when it comes to pivoting a campaign:

Expert Commentary

I wrote recently about how important expert commentary is in campaigns – catch up here – but it really can help boost a campaign. Maybe a journalist just needs someone to corroborate your results or to explain what they mean in reality – an expert can help you do this. 

Case Studies

Case studies help prove that your campaign has an effect and impacts the everyday person. Everyone reacts to a story differently when you can put a name or face to the problem. It proves to the journalist that there is interest and people do want to talk about it.

Be reactive

Reactive PR is a bit of a buzz term at the moment, but it’s relevant for a reason. Since COVID the news agenda has been changing so quickly we’ve been kept on our toes and needed to ensure our campaigns and plans are as agile as possible. Being ready to jump on trending topics as soon as you see them means you can remain as relevant as possible. 

Recently, I was outreaching a campaign for client Merchant Machine revealing how much it would cost countries if their internet was shut down. There was a major outage on the internet caused by a Fastly 503 error making it the perfect time to contact journalists who were writing about the trending topic. 

Feedback

Feedback is important to any campaign. If you have a good relationship with any of the journalists who’ve seen your email but not responded, follow up and ask if there is a particular reason they don’t want to use it. It may be because they’re too busy, or it isn’t quite right for their readership. If this is the case, you know to adapt your outreach strategy and to potentially try with a fresh angle. The angles for this campaign were adapted and changed based on the feedback from journalists.

Production

Production is where you can make or break a campaign. If when you’re creating the piece you’re thinking of different angles, ensuring it has a wide range of appeal and you can reach out to different niches within the press, you’re setting yourself up for a successful outreach process.

It’s important to make sure you consider options to pivot your campaign through all stages of production. Even if you don’t end up needing to pivot, it gives you flexibility and more opportunity in your outreach. 

If you’d like to work with us on a digital PR campaign, get in touch here.