by Game Marketing Genie, on 23-Feb-2021 11:47:22
Whether you want to launch your new game, make company announcements, or fix a crisis, public relations (PR) is the perfect tool to reach your target audience. When done correctly, a PR campaign can capture the attention of larger audiences helping you enforce a positive brand image; boost your sales; build lasting; loyal customer relationships; increase your brand awareness; and gain investors’ attention.
What is a PR campaign?
A PR campaign is a tactic that has a clear goal and uses strategic messaging to connect and engage a target audience. All successful PR campaigns have three characteristics: identifying a specific purpose, crafting a message that communicates the set message, and communicating that to the right audience.
Here are a few PR campaign ideas that can help you relay your message:
- Media releases
- Speaking engagements
- Advertorials
- Targeted sponsorships
- Customer case studies
- Business events
- Employee relations
Whether you’re a small business or a large accomplished corporation wanting to accelerate your business, PR campaigns can help you achieve your marketing goals and create the brand awareness you want.
Running a successful PR campaign assists you in building your brand’s credibility, opening up a world of opportunities for your business. So, how do you make yours work?
Making your strategy succeed
1. Know your goals
A clear goal is key for every successful marketing campaign. Whether you want to reach new audiences, boost installations, reinforce customer loyalty, boost your brand image, or build customer relationships, setting goals for your PR campaign is the first step.
Once you’ve set your goals, narrow them down to how you will reach them within a specific time frame, what obstacles you may encounter, how much you invest to see your desired results, and other key areas. Answering these questions will give you a blueprint for your campaign and also assist you in measuring your campaign’s progress.
2. Know your audience
Now that you’ve established your campaign goals, what’s the next step? You need to understand who your audience is. If you want your campaign to be effective, you need to check if who your campaign is relevant to.
Segmenting your audience into buyer personas by looking into their demographics will help you create targeted campaigns for measurable results. For instance, if your target audience is single people, create a campaign centered around their lifestyle, or if you’re targeting families, create family-first campaigns. Studying your audiences before you begin will help you in the long run.
3. Know your platforms
Now you need to decide where you would like to run your campaign. Choosing the right platform is about finding places your target audience frequently goes to.
To find these platforms, ask yourself a few questions: does your target audience prefer to listen to the radio, watch television or use social media platforms? Will a press conference or a press release do better? Answering these questions will help you create a winning video game marketing PR plan.
4. Make it interesting
Making your PR campaign’s content enjoyable is one of the most important things you must do. Interesting content intrigues your audience and gives them a solid reason to think about your business.
Media outlets are not just interested in what you have to say but more in if you can say it interestingly. Stepping into your audience’s shoes and understanding what they want to hear is the best way to make your campaign interesting.
5. Take a strong news angle
As we just mentioned, your PR campaign needs to be newsworthy. Incorporating storytelling in your campaign will not only help you capture the attention of the media and your audience, but also make your announcement more engaging.
For instance, let’s say your business won the “best video game company in Manhattan” award. Writing an article from your company's point of view will not interest your audience. Instead, try using a title like: “We Won the Best Video Game Company Title in Manhattan in Just One Year After Opening” to attract more eyeballs.
6. Get your press release out there
Once you're done with creating your press release, it's time for you to think about your content distribution channels. Finding the right outlets to distribute your story is one of the most critical aspects of your campaign.
Ensure that the distribution channels you choose are focused on your industry. Imagine what would happen if you published a technology write-up in a lifestyle magazine. It probably would be a disaster, wouldn't it?
Creating a press release is easier said than done. Contacting an established video game marketing agency will help you make your PR campaigns count.
Read on our blog, How To Create A Video Game Marketing Press Kit? to learn more about how press releases can help your business to shine amidst the fierce competition in the gaming industry.
7. Make your outreach personal
Journalists are inundated with press releases. They may miss out on your press release unless it's particularly engaging. Building relationships with media personnel will help you go a long way.
Reach out to noteworthy journalists in your industry through email, their social media accounts, calls, or other outlets. But make sure that you customize your outreach to them! Doing this is better than just sending your articles to a generic news desk where your article may take a long time to be picked up.
8. Use your coverage to your advantage
Now that your article is published, you need to take advantage of the traction you’re gaining and boost traffic to your website. When you find people discussing your business or company online, ask them to link to your website. You may think it is difficult to find these mentions, but it is easy!
Setting up alerts on Google News will notify you every time your company is discussed. Once you find the sources where you’re being talked about, contact the respective outlet to link the mention back to your landing page or website.
Practicing this will help you get quality backlinks that will allow your audience to know more about you and increase your web traffic and your website’s ranking on the search engines.
Want to know how link building can help your website? Read our blog, Improving your Video Game's Website: Link Building for SEO, to learn how to create a link building strategy that works for your business.
9. Take advantage of yourself!
When you’ve promoted your press release with other distribution channels, why not leverage your company assets to market your campaign? For instance, posting a blog about your campaign will help your website visitors understand your product offerings better.
Step further by promoting your PR campaign on your social media accounts. This will help you gain a lot of traction!
10. Track, analyze and learn
While running PR campaigns is a great way to market your brand, you also need to track the activities that worked for you. Here are a couple of ways to measure the effectiveness of your PR campaigns:
Media impressions
Tracking your brand mentions is excellent, but you must keep your media impressions in check. A media impression is the overall number of individuals who have heard about your campaign through one source at a time.
For instance, if your product was featured on a podcast with over 100,000 listeners, your media impression count is 100,000. This metric is of great value as it gives you a picture of the brand awareness you’re gaining.
Web traffic
Web traffic is the number of visitors to your website in any particular time frame. Tracking your website traffic sources will give you an understanding of the exact places your visitors are landing from.
For example, if they visit your website from an online media outlet where you’ve posted your press release, this implies your referral traffic is increasing, and your campaign has worked for you.
Other methods of measuring your PR campaign performance include tracking your social media audience engagement, social media brand mentions, and consumer surveys. By monitoring and analyzing your PR campaigns, you will also learn the areas you need to improve to make your future campaigns more successful.
Creating a PR campaign that gets results can be a challenge. PR isn't something a lot of game devs are experienced in, and it can be a confusing process.
But don’t worry! If you partner with an established video game marketing agency, you'll be able to develop a comprehensive campaign together. The team at Game Marketing Genie can help you construct and strategize a PR campaign that achieves your marketing goals from start to finish.
