PR campaigns
PR campaigns: from PR planning to release distribution.
Everybody wants to leave a good impression, and a creative and newsworthy PR campaign can do just that. Clear objectives and strategy form the basis of our PR campaigns. Campaign creativity is underpinned by strategic messaging designed to communicate on-point messaging and fuel engagement.
From product or service launches to brand awareness, our PR team consistently gains impressive audience reach and positive communications for clients in multiple sectors and industries, such as leisure, pharmaceuticals and healthcare.
How do we do it?
We get to know our clients incredibly well. The process starts the minute you join us with an in-depth onboarding process that leaves no stone unturned.
It means by the time you’re looking to launch a PR campaign, we’re already seeing the bigger picture and know your customers, their drivers and motivators in great depth and detail. Now it’s a question of your objective and what you want to achieve – audience reach, boost sales, raise awareness, to mention just a few. Regardless, we’ll work with you to set the goals, assess any opportunities or market / media channel limitations and work out a way of measuring success. We’ll also confirm budgets and your deadlines.
Knowing what you want helps us to create a targeted, efficient strategy – one that hones your message, determines the target audience(s) and discovers the best ways to reach, engage and convert it.
In fact, target audience is a key factor in not only all our PR campaigns, but our wider full-service strategic marketing in general. Before we can plan your campaign, we need know who it’s going to be aimed at, and what we can do to convince, convert and generate advocacy.
Our PR campaign process.
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Whether you’re planning a one-off launch or a long-term PR campaign, we’re here to create impact that gets noticed.
PR strategy and planning.
Helping you to identify what your business, brand or organisation has to offer is the crux of what our planning will do for you.
What do you want your plan to do for you? We’ll work with you to answer that question in the most comprehensive way possible, linking it back to wider marketing goals and ensuring that all channels, including those outside PR, are working towards that common objective.
We’ll also find out what your consumers think through our tried and tested ‘Voice of the Customer’ research. In addition, our specialist media research software will help identify the most suitable channels and media outlets for your PR activity. We’ll also look at key topics and content routes for you to achieve your goals.
Shaping the goals is down to who the plan is designed for. We’ll ensure it is tailored to your area of business, expertise or activity. We’ll include KPIs and tactical goals by identifying what type of content will work best and where.
We’ll also talk about budgets and distribution calendars, so no stone is left unturned.
And by working out these things, we can then decide where the opportunities are, what the outcomes are likely to be and what next steps are needed to fulfil them, and how. In other words, what combination of earned, owned and paid-for media is going to do the job best for you.
Earned, owned or paid-for campaigns?
Earned PR means publicity you achieve through a third party. For example, a press release is turned into a story in the local, regional or national media.
In a nutshell, that’s what earned PR is all about. It’s publicity, as in any publicity is good publicity.
While widespread publicity sometimes happens by accident – going viral as it’s known – on most occasions it’s about having the knack to spot the opportunities for earned PR in the first place, and that’s where we come in.
Our seasoned PR professionals have a nose for news and can spot the opportunities for earned media on your behalf, creating a strategy that will make the most of those opportunities.
For example, a client might mention something in passing, such as an employee winning an award, and the next thing you know we’ve turned that into news and they’re featured in their sector’s trade press, as well as local and regional media.
That’s probably the simplest example – but it’s not just about a story in the press. There are many other ways of achieving earned PR and we’ll work with you to maximise your opportunities.
The power of owned PR.
Owned PR is any type of media we create on your behalf, such as social media posts, blogs, or email campaigns.
Our digital and social media experts, who specialise in crafting bespoke social media strategies, can use owned PR to complement and maximise your unique industry trends and audience profiles. A positive, upbeat, and active social media presence can be a key driving factor behind a successful PR campaign or a digital PR campaign.
Paid-for media could mean a paid promotion in a trade journal, pay-per-click (PPC) or social media advertising.
PR plays a key part in your overall marketing strategy. It’s essential for laying the foundations of increased awareness and boosting your reputation to ultimately drive sales. For example, consumers will become aware of your business, brand or organisation through PR, which can then be converted into sales via marketing, such as advertising on social media.
Choosing the right campaign medium.
So, now we know your objective(s), what you want to achieve and who we’ll be aiming the campaign at. As a full-service agency, our PR team has the benefit of choosing the right channel – or channels, for that matter – to suit your campaign, all backed by our expertise in:
How PR builds influence and change.
Our strategies go over and above to implement creative ways to influence and change. From inspirational storytelling to lobbying campaigns and social influencers, we have a reputation for using creative methods to leverage coverage and engagement that makes a real difference to our clients, internally and externally.
We care passionately about how your business or organisation is seen by the audience that’s important to you. We’ll go to great lengths to share your mission and vision to influence your audience, after all it’s not easy getting someone to do something they hadn’t necessarily thought of doing.
Influencing change within an organisation is not an easy feat. It’s not cod psychology to say everybody reacts differently to change, that’s why it’s crucially important it’s communicated in the right way.
We’ll help you put people at the heart of your communications. We’re all human and we all react better when we know how change affects us and why.
Whilst that’s instinctive for us, we’ll get you thinking how you’re going to do that.
We can help you improve your change communications by coaching leaders on how to manage employees’ negativity, advise on – even create – the messages coming from the leadership and create a shared vision of how the changes will work. And we’ll be with you all the way to provide advice and support to maximise the impact of your messaging.
Open-ended communication is an important tool in organisational change too. Rely on our expertise to create the most appropriate forums – from internal newsletters to a fully-fledged intranet and all points in between. When employees see the bosses are involved and interested in their opinions, they are more likely to be receptive to what’s being proposed.
Of course, change can generate publicity – good and bad – outside of a business or organisation, so our expertise across the whole spectrum of PR is invaluable.
Monitor the results.
With your campaign in full swing, it’s important to constantly monitor the results. What’s working and what’s not.
Thanks to identifying your specific goal, the results can be measured more easily to keep track of success and failure throughout the duration of your campaign. You will never have to wonder how your campaign is doing because the data is clear.
We present clear, consistent and insightful results, market trends and consumer behaviour, aligning that data with your wider marketing, sales and customer data to ensure alignment and objective achievement. We use an ongoing learning and refinement process to tailor, hone and optimise every PR campaign we work on, ensuring you get the most out of every hour and pound you spend.
Take a look at what we do.
Pyrocalm Control
What our clients say about us.
We’re proud of our extensive experience and expertise, but don’t just take our word for it. Here’s what our clients say about us.
We’d been really careful and thoughtful about our criteria and brief, and felt Cornerstone hit every single point, coming across in a down-to-earth, practical way while still showing understanding from strategy through to tactical execution. Our overall experience with the Cornerstone team is great because we feel really supported as a team.
Alison Robb, Cheetah Transformation
We have developed a great partnership with Cornerstone over the past 6 years and their dedication to our marketing needs and website development is evident in all aspects of our online presence. We appreciate their attention to detail and creative approach to all aspects of the business and look forward planning our new initiatives together.
Scott Bryce, Burnley Leisure & Culture
Cornerstone are a unique PR/ Marketing Agency who provide one of the most competitive holistic services versus many competitor agencies. The team are knowledgeable in their field of expertise, enthusiastic, fun, extremely creative, always ahead of the game, and great at managing tight deadlines. I would recommend this agency with no hesitation, their work speaks for itself!
Rekha Joshi, Dexcel