The research project has been such a valuable tool, both for giving us the confidence to proceed and for bringing funders on-board. As a relatively young, small charity, market research at this scale is not something we’d engaged in before, but the insights delivered means we’re definitely considering it for future initiatives.
Success story
Kimberly-Clark Professional
Validating user preference to support new product launch.
Opinion with evidence should go hand-in-hand. With the help of research, PR companies can formulate headlines and campaigns that can have a measurable impact. When it works well, PR and research work in perfect harmony to provide the insight that allows the Comms team to work their magic and maximise the reach of their clients.
At Sapio, we love working with PR Agencies and over the years we have picked up our own insight into what makes a truly fantastic campaign.
An indispensable element to any campaign is having a great idea. It is essential that campaigns begin with an idea that you are certain will capture people’s attention and imaginations.
This transitions onto a series of interrelated points about choosing a topic. By no means is it an easy task to conceptualise a campaign, but we have several suggestions that may give you that creative spark:
- 1) Choose something that people can relate to or is topical. Oftentimes these go hand-in-hand as the current state of affairs will be impacting people’s lives in one way or another (take the cost-of-living crisis as an example). We recommend using seasonal events (Christmas, Easter), big news events (elections) or sporting events (Olympics, World Cup). Linking your content to these can provide that added spark to make it both relevant and topical.
- 2) Have headlines in mind. This is not a question of preempting the results. Rather, it is having an idea of what you want from the research and how the findings could translate to effective headlines. This will speed up the questionnaire design process and allow you to get access to that all-important data as soon as possible.
- 3) Consider something that could be somewhat provocative or contentious, and at the very least a topic that provokes a reaction in people. Some caution should be exercised in this regard as being too contentious can end up backfiring. However, if the correct balance can be struck where the campaign can challenge the current way of thinking, then material can be created that captures the imagination of the public.
The purpose of many campaigns is to build awareness for the client and promote their industry, or even a product. Doing so requires some subtlety so as to prevent your goals being fundamentally transparent. It is critical to avoid the topics being overtly self-serving. Otherwise, readers will see straight through your messaging and any impact that the campaign could have will be negated.
These tips should give a flavour of what it takes to craft an effective PR campaign that helps the client to take their business to the next level. Following these steps will give you a great base to work from and will hopefully allow you to maximise the campaign to its fullest.
And if you want some specific tips here are a few more useful blogs on
