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This week in the newsletter, we had the pleasure of talking to Marissa Pysarczuk, who is a Digital PR Manager at Digitaloft. With her speciality and passion in ideation, she has taken us through her top strategies for encouraging and persuading your clients to take risks with their PR strategies.
Firstly, I’d consider whether it makes sense for you to take creative risks for a particular client. It’s important to consider your client’s industry and if the audience will be suited to more unconventional ideas or campaigns. Some more traditional industries, especially in the B2B space, may prefer traditional campaigns centred on industry statistics, advice or surveys. Meanwhile, more consumer-focused press will be more likely to engage with creative campaigns.
I’d also recommend that any creative risks be undertaken as part of a wider strategy, combined with more failsafe campaign ideas or traditional methods of Digital PR.
Once you’ve established that your client's industry is right, I’d also recommend that any creative risks be undertaken as part of a wider strategy, combined with more failsafe campaign ideas or traditional methods of Digital PR. Make sure you always include a blend of work you know will gain coverage, alongside mixing in more unique or unconventional ideas. This way, you’ll protect your KPI and ensure you have a backup plan should any creative risks not pay off.
When it comes to getting your clients on board with more creative ideas, it’s important to lead by educating them on the benefits of this. There are several ways to do this, but I’d recommend starting by looking for competitor examples and analysing results. Clients usually tend to be very keen to either replicate competitor links or emulate any successful tactics they have used.
Make use of tools such as Ahrefs to explore how many backlinks any creative competitor campaigns have achieved, pull out the stats of how many links they gained, the average DR and any standout publications they landed - especially if these are dream targets for your client.
Alongside this, another method is to provide any case studies of creative campaigns you have done for other clients. If you have any to showcase, make sure you give details on the results you gained, the number of targets you were able to hit, any positive feedback from your client or publications you worked with and any extra metrics such as social media shares or TV or radio coverage.
You can also look to show the appetite for their dream publications. Explore the type of articles they regularly publish and show how your creative idea will appeal. You can make use of tools like Roxhill’s pinpoint tool to show the number of articles that similar topics have generated and who covered them.
Try to provide a clear strategy to your client so they can see the thought and detail behind the top-level idea.
Try to provide a clear strategy to your client so they can see the thought and detail behind the top-level idea. Tell them which sectors of the press you’ll hit and how many targets you think you’ll be able to hit, explain to them how this campaign could help close the gap on competitors, and show them the type of subject lines you expect the press could generate from this.
Remember, many clients will be keen to err on the side of caution. Digital PR can be a big investment for them, and often, your contacts will have to report back to their own teams and management on results. So, you must take the time to explain your strategy and how you’ll protect KPIs, and be sure to sell your belief in more creative campaigns and the results they can generate.
You must take the time to explain your strategy and how you’ll protect KPIs, and be sure to sell your belief in more creative campaigns and the results they can generate.
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