The winter holidays are the most saturated media calendar events of the year. One of the best ways to differentiate your pitches is with newsworthy data from an omnibus or custom survey.
While holiday surveys are a powerful tactic, there are still challenges that must be met. Below are a few common holiday survey challenges – and solutions from our Editorial Panel – to help ensure that you get your share of impressions this holiday season.
The Challenge: What if You’re Late?
The hard part comes when you’re not the first to pitch a story. Early survey-based stories typically provide baseline information – meaning that the easy, obvious angles have already been taken.
For example, data on the number of people who intend to travel for the holidays, or on how much Americans are budgeting for gifts, are among the first survey stories to get written. If you’re late, you must get creative – which is where Wakefield Research’s Editorial Panel can help.
The Solution
This is your opportunity to give editors a stat they must look at. If your brand is open to pushing the envelope, don’t be afraid to go for it. For example, what percentage of people would like to make love, instead of kiss, under the mistletoe this year? What percentage of people would admit they hate Christmas? Snark, humor and salacious surveys get media attention even when the topic has already been covered ad nauseam.
The Challenge: Your Brand Is Boring, and Likes It that Way
It’s fun to attract media attention with snark. But what if your brand doesn’t want to go there? This requires even more creativity – and a little more research into trends that can be used as hooks.
The Solution
Survey data doesn’t have to be funny or quirky to be newsworthy. “Smart” is also sexy. One useful exercise is to think of trends that have been building throughout the year – and try to relate them back to the holiday season. It’s crucial that survey data not only validate the headline, but also include all of the supporting points that make your story credible.
The Challenge: What if You’re Really Late?
It’s the life of a PR professional that much about our work is entirely outside of our control. If like many PR pros, your client hasn’t unleashed you until late in the game, you’re going to need a quick way to generate news.
The Solution
Check out Wakefield’s winter promotion guaranteeing survey data in two days at our regular prices. This is a service typically reserved exclusively for crisis communications. But hey – if you work in PR, when have the winter holidays not felt like a crisis?
In the coming weeks, we’ll continue to provide tips from our Editorial Panel of journalists on how to keep pitches hot over the holidays. You may also be interested in:
Or, contact Wakefield Research today to learn how a creative omnibus survey or custom survey can make pitches more productive this holiday season.