Before you dive into a month of holiday parties and end of year madness, take some time to survey what you’ve accomplished in your public relations strategy, as well as think about what you want to accomplish in 2015.
If you didn’t have a strong PR focus in 2014, next year is the year to start full force. That means planning now for what you’ll do starting in January. If you have worked hard on your PR this year, use this opportunity to analyze your results, and use them to move forward.
1. Look at Press Release Reads
If you’ve been churning out releases throughout the year, step back and look at the bigger picture. On average, how many reads and clicks have your releases received? Are there topics that seem to attract more readers than others?
Knowing the answers to these questions can help you determine the strategy for your press releases next year. You may put more focus on certain types of news, knowing that you’ll get better results.
2. Send Holiday Cards to Journalists
In developing those media relationships, it’s important to step away from the “business only” attitude, especially during the more laid back time of year.
Send a handwritten holiday card to the journalists you’re trying to build trust with, and include a personal note. Don’t mention a story you want to pitch. Just be human.
3. Look at Website Analytics
This will give you more info than just how your public relations efforts are doing, but your website analytics are chock full of goodies.
You can see what sites are sending you the most traffic (including those that host your press releases, as well as media mentions), and strategize to put more focus on those sites.
4. Invest in the Right Tools
PR is so much easier these days than it was a few years back, and software and apps play a large part in making your work simpler. Now is a great time to explore tools that can enhance your PR efforts, such as a marketing management dashboard, customer relationship management software, and tools that help you quickly locate contact info for journalists.
Spend some time now, while things are relatively quiet, testing out free trials of software and acclimating to using it in your PR efforts.
5. Assess and Tweak Your PR Goals
What did you hope to accomplish this year in terms of public relations and media coverage? Did you succeed? Review your goals for this year and tweak them for next year. Some goals might be the same, but others may need to be slightly change to better align with overall company strategy.
And remember: for every goal you set, create action items so you actually make inroads toward making your goals a reality.
Image: Photosteve 101, Karen, Neil Turner (Creative Commons)
