My Left Toe Day…& Content Marketing
PR agencies often get sarcastic ‘stick’ for considering the pertinence of particular awareness days or themed months, when it comes to looking at your communications plan.
Is it a lazy tactic in trying to create more content and media penetration?
Or is it perhaps useful to nail your initiatives and activities to known dates in the annual calendar?
As with many such arguments, it really is a case of ‘that depends’.
Used well, awareness calendars can really help position narrative and provide a great context for when and how you’re wanting your PR activity to land.
After all, journalists are just as aware of those pre-formed schedules, and they’re likely to be looking to capture certain relevant stories or insights when it’s, for example, Cancer Awareness Month, Recycling Week, or, January’s rather miserable Blue Monday.
In such cases, if the brand or business or campaign fits appropriately, you’d be crazy not to consider positioning a press release, commentary, or some sensibly timed social media posts on such occasions.
But, there’s always the ‘sanity check’ to consider.
When you find yourself trying desperately to seek out every last ‘My Left Toe Week’ (at the time of writing, we don’t THINK it exists….but you never know!), then perhaps you have to ask yourself if you’re assuming a lazy and far too ‘reactive’ and ‘formulaic’ approach to your communications channelling.
Here are our top 6 considerations for using (or not) awareness days within your content marketing:
1 Choose wisely. Select days and weeks and months that align well with your business and brand, rather than scraping the barrel to shoehorn a campaign against your company’s name.
2 Plan well ahead. Don’t arrive at the week of an awareness day, notice it actually would have fitted well with your brand or latest project, and suddenly decide to start dishing out a press release with little thought. It’s always best to have these mapped out to some degree, and to know what you’re likely to do to utilise the opportunity. It gives you more chance to prepare appropriate content or collateral and to talk to relevant journalists.
3 Look out for hashtags and trending topics. Usually, with major awareness weeks or days, there will be some charity or body leading the campaign. Look to use their strapline or social tag to gain more attention and reach a broader audience.
4 Explore multiple awareness calendars when doing your planning. You may well find that some are based in a different country so their initiative doesn’t apply to you. Also, you’ll find sectors like charities or healthcare tend to have their own schedules easily sourced online.
5 Do not allow the use of awareness schedules to deviate you from remaining proactive and spontaneous and consciously aware of other openings and opportunities. You don’t want to get the reputation for being predictable by your lack of creativity.
6 Schedule only with caution. You never know when a headline is going to break or a comment will be said by a brand or business or personality which might derail the impact of your association with this particular themed work. Always have human oversight when you’re advance scheduling posts or releases.
7 Recognise that there are multiple ways to engage with an awareness day or month. It’s not just about press releases, but might be a great time to do a blog, a video post, or to write a letter to the editor of a publication.
8 Have fun with your tone, but keep it appropriate to your brand and business.
9 Do tell the hosts or organisers of the day or initiative as they may well list you on a website or refer to you in their social media.
Want help working through awareness calendars and doing more creative planning for your future communication? Email hello@lexiaagency.co.uk