The winter holidays are the most saturated earned media events on the editorial calendar. While competition for coverage is fierce, PR pros can differentiate their pitches with a newsworthy omnibus or custom survey.
Below are a few tips from the nation’s leading team of PR Polling experts to ensure that you don’t find yourself on editors’ naughty lists.
- Throw out your first 10 ideas. An unknowable number of account hours have been invested in brainstorming holiday pitch angles over the years. Editors have seen your pitches before. Cision already has more than 1,000 holiday-themed releases on their site and it’s only September. That’s why Wakefield’s Editorial Panel writes the questionnaire for you. With decades of experience, we always review existing public opinion data to ensure that survey data is differentiated.
- Speed succeeds. Speed matters when competing for holiday coverage yet most brands don’t move quickly enough.
- Don’t focus exclusively on headlines. It’s impossible to earn top-tier feature coverage when every survey stat is a headline. That works if brand recognition is the only goal, but high-quality coverage requires survey stats that speak to every part of the story.
- Be in the “now.” A simple test for determining the quality of your pitch: Could you have pitched it last year? What about ten years ago? The answer should be “no.” Focus on stories and survey stats that are unique to 2017. This means that they are pitched in context of conversations happening now.
We’ll continue to share tips through the end of the year for pitching holiday surveys. Follow Wakefield on Twitter to be notified of new posts. Or, contact Wakefield today to learn how creative PR surveys can lead to top-tier earned media coverage this holiday season.