Thanks to the world of oversharing achievements on LinkedIn and Twitter, not to mention the never ending awards lists, sometimes the world of PR can feel overwhelming. There’s a huge pressure to be ‘industry leading’ and the ultimate creative but sometimes going back to basics can lead to even better results.
Here’s how to successfully execute a product placement campaign and achieve amazing results for any client. The goal is simple, ensure your client’s brand is in front of their core demographic in key target media titles to increase brand awareness amongst buying consumers.
Identify the client's core demographic. What media are they consuming? What titles are the most relevant to their brand? Once identified, create a media list of key targets (plus some extra titles as well!).
Media audit. Complete an up to date, extensive media audit searching for the most relevant journalists at the identified titles. Also, note down the name of their articles, features, sections, pages. Journalists regularly move around, so it’s important to know who’s compiling the pages you’re looking to be included on as it can change month to month.
Be aware of any upcoming occasions, seasons, national days or events. Use this as a hook in your outreach or press releases. Gift guides are a simple way to secure high level product placement coverage and there’s plenty of opportunities throughout the year for this whether it’s big occasions such as Christmas or Mother’s Day, or smaller seasonal timings such as ‘Summer drinks’ or ‘Spring cleaning’.
Create a personalised outreach approach to introduce your client to the journalist. Show the journalists you know what they’re looking for by pitch why your client would work well for their features or pages. Offer them everything in one email, high res images, links to stockists, RRP etc. The key is to be concise yet informative. Also take into consideration any lead times for print, think ahead to themes they might be working on and try to link to this where possible.
Be reactive. Sometimes the best pieces of coverage come from a journalist request or call out. Twitter’s #journorequest is a great way to secure these opportunities.
Source competition opportunities. Media titles love to engage with their audiences via competitions and many outlets will have a dedicated contact who regularly organises this. Competitions secure great coverage but also go one step further and lead to brand in hand with potential new customers!
Here at Full Volume, we recently executed a consumer led, product placement campaign for a low calorie snack brand. Following these simple steps, in just six weeks we secured 26 pieces of coverage and 16 competitions with a combined reach of over 3 million - simple and effective!
