Like all good PR professionals, we start planning for our clients’ holiday promotions in June, and sometimes even earlier. With a plethora of tree lightings, Santa arrivals and ice skating parties that our agency represents, the key is to stay organized and group events together by location when speaking to media – this will help you avoid inundating their inboxes, and ensure you stay on their “nice” list.
Since Christmas came early this year, here are our top tips to keep you on track for holiday, even if it’s 90 degrees outside!
6+ months out: Get Organized
Start a list of holiday events by location, as soon as you get the information. Ideally, you’ll have some working knowledge from years prior, and know that X client always has X event on the second Saturday in November.
From there, fill in your W’s (who, what, where, when). Organize your list chronologically, and highlight missing information so you can request the details you need.
Start a folder on your desktop and add holiday photography from previous events –including a photo in your outreach will increase your chances of being included in holiday event coverage.
3-6 months out: Event Calendars
The never-glamorous event calendar serves an important function. Many editors ONLY pull events for their publications using the user-submitted event calendar on their websites.
So, don’t skip the calendar, and make sure you submit the event as early as possible to hit deadlines.
3 months out: Media Alerts vs. Website
While it’s always good to have media alerts for long-lead outreach (think glossy magazines that start their holiday calendars in August), for short-lead outreach we prefer driving editors to landing pages on the website. You avoid attaching 8+ media alerts to your email, plus, you can add more event details to the website as they’re made available (vs. the static PDF). This way you know editors will have access to the most up-to-date information.
1 month to 2 weeks out: TV and Radio
Depending on the type of event, it’s a great opportunity to involve the local stations. Whether it’s inviting an anchor to emcee the event, or just letting newsrooms know about it, tree lightings always make for feel-good weekend reporting or b-roll.
Attend!
Finally, make sure you support your client by showing up on the big day. Offer your support by greeting camera crews that may show up or snapping photos for their social media channels.
Enjoy the night, then start planning for holiday 2015. We kid…kind of.
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