Capitalising on marketing moments

This is what those in the PR trade call an ‘issues jump’. And, with support from a nimble marketing communications team, this is an activity that can be hugely fruitful. You won’t know what they are until they happen, but there are things you can prepare to be ready for when they do.

How to spot a marketing moment

You’re looking for a moment of heightened attention, when something in your space becomes the subject of attention. This happens when PESTLE (political, economic, societal, technological, legal, environmental) matters change and impact your market or when a major paper or programme picks up on an issue.

If you’ve established your market messaging up front, this gets a whole lot easier. With a message matrix in hand (i.e. each audience, the functional layers within that audience, and what you want them to think about your organisation) you can be pretty disciplined about this by dividing up the task. If you’ve established your audience, you can allocate one or more to each of your team for them to scout.

This can be done by:

• Subscribing to the relevant magazines, ebulletins, etc.
• Watching the identified competitors in that space
• Setting up relevant Google alerts (for the messages you’re after and things that audience would be interested in)
• Joining LinkedIn groups, Blog feeds, Forums in that space
• Keeping an ear an eye out

If you’re not that organised, you can of course just keep your ear to the ground. When something comes up that is in your space, a pre-planned process should kick into action.

Planning for an event you’re unaware of

Your annual budget should make some contingency for these un-expected marketing moments – and have a back-up plan for spending that money wisely if none crop up (unspent contingency can always be put towards creative and engaging Christmas campaigns, which really can be more than a card! And can be worth doing).

The first thing to say is that PR needs a net – that is, generating interest when there is no pre-defined funnel to capture that interest is a complete waste of time, energy and cash. A decent website should have a data capture facility, and ideally a campaign hub (somewhere to post downloadable material, in return for marketing permission). If your site doesn’t have this built in, you should either invest in it, or find an agency who can build you campaign microsites quickly… by which I mean 48 hours.

So, assuming you’ve snaffled away a little pot of cash, or for the less organised… convinced someone at short notice to find some money or cut it from somewhere else, then these are the key building block of an action plan:

• Brainstorm session, to include the key decision maker
• A piece of collateral that can be downloaded (discusion paper, briefing note, etc.)
• Loaded to your campaign hub or microsite
• Plan a sales response for downloaders – an offer of some kind
• Draw up a press list and prepare a tailored press release for each one
• Select one key press player to whom you’ll offer an exclusive
• Let your exclusive have the story for a few days
• Then distribute the press release more widely
• Post questions/discussions in LinkedIn Groups and other online forums
• Hand the leads onto sales as they come in to follow-up as planned
• Track through the sales funnel to measure effectiveness and ROI

Writing a report at short notice can be made easier with some preparation too. So, if the press has suddenly become interested in something in your space, you can create high quality material quickly. Again, if you’ve worked out your message matrix up front, it is a fairly simple process to run a 2-hour brainstorm on each one and write up talking points – these are then available to use in forward features and in proactive and reactive campaigns.

You need to talk your decision maker through this process before it happens. So, that when you pick up the phone to tell them you are doing an issue jump – they know what is needed of them and will be able to respond quickly.

Action plan

Are you ready to capitalise on a marketing moment in your space? If not, here’s a to-do list:

• Prepare a microsite or area on main website that can be easily amended, where people can download material in return for data capture
• Prepare a message matrix and brain-storm talking points, identify target titles, groups, blogs and forums
• Set-up a media monitoring system – press scanning, competitor watching, Google alerts, groups, forums, etc.
• Prepare a vanilla execution plan for a responsive campaign
• Walk your decision-makers, execution team and sales team through the plan so they know how it will work when it happens

By doing some pre-planning, you will be able to respond to a changing market at speed. This sets you apart as an organisation with its finger on the pulse, and ahead of its competition.