Behind The Scenes: Crafting Successful Sydney PR Campaigns

A well-executed PR campaign could be the catalyst that you are missing to propel your business into the spotlight. As media and influencers shape the narrative, a thought-out PR campaign could result in a spike of web traffic, sales or foot traffic and give your business a credibility boost. Navigating the dynamic landscape of media and influencers in Sydney, however, is no walk in the park. A successful PR campaign involves more moving parts than you’d expect. We’ve put together a sneak peek into our playbook at Papaya for how we do PR:

1. Crafting your media hook

A killer PR campaign needs a juicy hook, it should be based on something that is newsworthy, trending or likely to be trendsetting or timed with a launch. Here’s some hot tips to craft your angle:

Include a visual element that can be captured and will wow media
Keep an eye on what’s trending in your industry, can you align your campaign with a hot topic or leverage a growing trend that’s already buzzing
Tell a compelling story; media love stories that weave in your brands narrative. This might include challenges that you’ve overcome and business success stories.
Consider your audience, tailor your hook to your audience’s interests and passion points to create a connection.
Longevity, we encourage our clients to run campaigns for a minimum of two-three month

2. Campaign Timeline

Once you’ve got the attention-grabbing angle we recommend creating a timeline with all the moving parts and key dates to help keep you on track. We’ve included a handy example to help you keep your PR game on track.

Hot Tip: Consider if your campaign has the opportunity for a phased approach perhaps a pre-launch and a post launch story.

3. Media Imagery

A key component to a campaign that can often be overlooked is photography. While it’s often an afterthought for clients, it’s the secret weapon for any media outreach. Media will not run a story without a great image, it helps to engage a photographer that media know as they will shoot in their style. If you don’t have any existing imagery suitable, you will need to organise a shoot before media outreach.

Hot Tip: Media imagery is different to social media imagery. Media like high-res landscape (for online) images while social images are designed for portrait formats. Need help organising a photoshoot, let us help you.

4. Media Release

A media release contains the most relevant and interesting information on your product launch, venue launch or event that a journalist needs to know to write a story. Some journalists will even directly copy and paste the media release, so it’s imperative all the info you want people to know is there.

Tips for writing a media release:

Start with a catchy headline
Include the most compelling information in your into to help pique media’s interest
Think about what makes you different to other brands and businesses
Include a quote from the Director, Chef or Designer that adds value to the media release
Include business information at the end of the media release. This can include dates, address, contact details, website, social media handles, opening hours etc.

Hot Tip: Media releases should be no longer than two pages, media just don’t have the time

5. Media Matrix

A media matrix is a very useful tool, it shows all the media you will be contacting and helps you keep track of all your conversations with journalists. Take the time to research the right publications for your audience. It can take a lot of work to build a strong media database, it’s taken us 8 years! Here’s a few hot tips for finding media contacts:

Use a journo database
Cross reference journalist status on company website or Linked In
Google similar stories and see who is writing them
Call a publication and ask to speak to a relevant person

6. Media Pitching

While a media release contains all the relevant information for a journalist, it’s the pitch that will initially get their interest. We can’t express how important it is to approach journalists with tailored pitches and crafted angles to increase your chances of landing a story. A media pitch should include the story angle relevant to each publication, a summary of your product, event or product, a link to an image library (with max 10 images) and a collage of images to grab their attention.

Hot Tip: Be aware of media lead times and deadlines. Lead times vary depending on publication type. Magazines have the longest lead times (1-3 months), while online will have the shortest lead times (1-3 days).

7. Follow up, follow up, follow up

Journalists are drowning in hundreds of emails a day. So how do you ensure your pitch doesn’t get lost? Follow-ups. An extra email or call to a journalist could be what gets your story over the line. We recommend following up a couple of days after the initial pitch.

Hot Tip: If you don’t get a response, its most likely they haven’t seen your pitch, keep trying and if you still can’t get hold of them, try pitching to another person at the publication.

8. PR Events

PR campaigns often involve events with key media and influencers giving people a full brand experience. If you haven’t yet built relationships with media or influencers, events are a great way to secure future coverage opportunities. By building key long-term relationships, media will then think of you for future articles. If you are launching a food product or venue, events will help spread the word to thousands of Australians. For a guide on when, why and how to nail a Sydney PR Event, read our blog here.

9. Influencer Campaigns

Using carefully chosen influencers to endorse and mention your brand on social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook and Tik Tok could help maximise your reach and brand awareness. If you are launching a new product or a new venue, invite influencers to experience your offer in exchange for them to share content with their audiences. Check out some of our successful influencer case studies here.

PR isn’t just about getting featured, it’s about tangible results. Wondering how to achieve this? Let’s talk about crafting you a successful PR campaign.