What makes a great project or campaign?

PR campaigns, or short to medium-term PR and communication projects, can be a great way for businesses to invest in achieving a short to medium-term goal they have.

It could be to launch and drive ticket sales for an event, promote a new product or service, raise the profile of a particular member of staff, or engage with a new audience group.

But what are the ingredients for a great PR campaign? And what should businesses consider before getting started?

Be clear

When considering a PR campaign or project, it’s important to be clear about what you want the campaign to achieve. What does success look like? And, importantly, how will you measure it?

A good campaign has a clear objective. For example, a minimum number of sales or enquiries you want the work to generate.

Make sure you have done the work to benchmark, too, before work commences.

Assess where things stand at the start of the campaign and put in place processes to measure return on investment.

This could be introducing a ‘where did you hear about us’ question for your customers or putting in place regular monitoring of traffic to your website and/or keyword searches.

Be realistic

We pride ourselves on being honest and open with every organisation we work with so, if we don’t think your end goal is achievable within the timeframe or budget given, we’ll tell you.

We do a lot of work to assess the market when we’re commissioned to do a campaign – from competitor analysis through to focus groups with your target audience groups.

Be prepared to listen to our findings and our strategic advice – it’s what will ensure success in the end.

Be authentic

Yes, a PR campaign may get you the media coverage you want, but for any organisation the messaging around a campaign or project needs to be authentic and, importantly, ethical. It needs to run much deeper than simply a newspaper article or magazine feature.

A good PR and communication agency does its due-diligence when it comes to working with any organsiation and, at Sidekick, it’s something we take very seriously.

Whatever message you want to convey through your PR campaign, make sure it accurately reflects your organisation and its values – and that it’s factually correct, too.

Authenticity is more important than ever and, if a PR campaign is misaligned with your real-world business practices, you can rest assured you’ll be called out for it.

Be brave

Last but not least – be brave! PR campaigns are a great way to get really creative and to demonstrate the personality of your organisation. Step out of your comfort zone and try something different.

We love working with businesses to create PR campaigns that excite and engage audiences, achieving the end goal we set out to reach at the outset, in new and creative ways.

If you'd like to chat about a potential PR project or campaign, we'd love to hear from you.