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This week, Ellie Hearn, the Senior PR Strategist at Journey Further, shared her thoughts on
validating PR ideas before you spend the time and resources putting the campaign live and
her advice on how to do this.
Validating a campaign is the most important part of what we do. Ideating is so much fun but it
can be easy to get carried away with an idea without properly thinking about whether it’s
going to work. When you’re working to tight deadlines skipping a thorough validation process
can be tempting but I promise you that it’s going to cost you more time in the long run and
can make everyone’s life harder.
When it comes to validating PR ideas, there are a few things I make sure I always consider:
1. Will it work for the client?
Some of the best advice I ever received was that it’s better to ask the hard questions or give
the most feedback internally rather than send something to clients for sign-off that they won’t
be happy with.
Some clients can have many restrictions (for example, if they’re a PLC, it’s important there are
no negative stories about them in the press, as this can damage their stock price, or they
might sell a product that doesn’t lend itself to many stories). You need to think about this
before sharing your ideas, as it can damage trust if you ignore previous feedback they’ve
given or the nature of their business.
Putting together a document where you store all of their feedback is a great resource. It's
something you can use to sense-check your ideas and will make your client feel seen and
heard.
2. Will it work for the media?
At the risk of sounding old, there was a time years ago when you could create a campaign
which had never been done before, was simple and would get hundreds of links. I would say
it’s gotten a lot more competitive for a number of reasons: journalists have different metrics
they need to hit (social shares, clicks, engagement), there are countless brands and agencies
pitching for the same media real estate and there are fewer journalists than ever.
You’re competing in a VERY busy inbox, so you need ideas that sound exciting in a subject
line (best practice is 10 words or less). It can be helpful to write up some subject lines and
pitch intros during the validation stage to make sure it works. A great question to ask yourself
is - would you be excited to outreach this? If the answer is no then maybe it’s time to go back
to the drawing board.
Something else I always ask myself is how many different niches would this work for? Putting
all your eggs in one niche basket is not a good idea, if your story doesn’t land for some
reason you’re a bit stuck. A good rule of thumb is to aim for 3+ niches you can pitch to. Think
about additional data or angles you can add to make it work.
3. Will it work for your agency?
That’s if you’re on the agency side, but I think the same thing probably applies if you're on the
brand side. Digital PR isn’t just about the ideas, it’s about making sure the work we are doing
is genuinely valuable and our methodologies are sound. If the idea is a little dodgy or relies
on poor data sources, then really think about how that could damage your reputation as the
person who is putting it out into the world.
It’s also important to consider the resources you have available - if it’s a huge data analysis
piece, do you have a team that can ensure the work you do is the best it can be? There are so
many amazing freelancers in our community you can make use of if you’ve not got the
resource in house so don’t let this completely put you off - just make sure you have a solid
plan in place.
Finally, if the answer to all of those things is yes, then you can give your idea one final test,
which is my favourite: the pub test. If you brought this up at the pub with your friends, would it
spark an interesting conversation? The best ideas are usually ones that people disagree
about rather than everyone thinking the same. I describe this conflict as friction to my clients,
and I think it’s the best indicator of a good story.
You can follow Ellie Hearn for more insights like this on her LinkedIn.
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