A well-oiled PR strategy doesn’t just happen on its own. It takes the right mix of tactics to achieve the right results. From careful preparation, the right contacts, a heavy dose of teamwork and, significantly, the right balance of proactive and reactive PR – there’s a lot that goes into getting the best out of your strategy!
You might have read that and thought, wait, what does proactive and reactive PR even mean and why are they both important for a successful strategy? Well, as a specialist home and garden PR agency, we know a thing or two about PR success – so let us tell you all about it!
Proactive PR
We’re always our client’s biggest cheerleaders, and with new product launches, company news, well-deserved accreditations, or breaking news, we’ll shout about them to anyone who will listen!
Proactive PR is all about being on the front foot when it comes to getting brands seen and heard, identifying the stories that are compelling, unique and different that will be of interest to journalists and, of course, its readers! Crafting quality press releases, conducting personalised outreach and pitching are the main foundations of proactive PR, so getting these right are vital for achieving the results our clients expect.
Whether we’re pitching to relevant journalists, establishing media themes or developing new angles that will help us tell your story more effectively, being on it and finding the right opportunities for our clients will not only help get them in top tier newspapers and magazines, but will build an awareness among writers and journalists that may come in handy when it comes to future issues and features. This is particularly useful as a specialist home and garden PR agency, as the pool of editors, journalists and freelancers is surprisingly small!
Shows and exhibitions like RHS Chelsea Flower Show and BBC Gardeners’ World Live are also a great way to build relationships with potential contacts that brands are trying to reach, so making sure that our clients are attending the ones with the desired demographics is a vital part of catapulting their brand awareness!
Reactive PR
Reactive PR is less about chasing leads and more about responding to the latest stories and trends. It’s all about jumping on the news that’s hot off the press and positioning our clients as an expert in their field who can provide comment and interviews. It may sound simple to just sit back and wait for these type of leads to pop up, but it actually requires a lot of time and dedication to keep abreast of the latest news stories and predict trending topics before they hit the headlines. It also takes a lot of careful consideration and preparation to make sure that the opportunities being responded to are well thought out and bring value.
Preparing statements on potential topics and keeping up to date with what’s happening in the world is a great example of a reactive PR strategy and will put brands in better stead to get featured if they can respond with a statement or comment straight away.
Take the recent heatwave, for example. With forecasts of hot weather in the weeks leading up to the scorching heat, we drafted copy for the majority of our clients, to make sure we were ready and raring to go when it came to journalist enquiries who were looking to get out some timely pieces.
We drafted copy for Ark Wildlife on how to take care of wildlife in the heat and Hillier Garden Centres on how to properly water plants in warm weather! We also had some statements up our sleeve for any change on the topic of hosepipe bans – so whatever writers were looking for, we had something to give them!
Creating relationships with the writers we’ve been in contact with before is another way to stay reactive as we already understand how they work and what they’re like, so it may be a more straightforward process of getting our clients’ names in the door.
We’ve talked about how a balance of both proactive and reactive PR is an important part of achieving a brand’s goals and KPIs, but as we build brands and proactively cheerlead clients, more often than not, more reactive leads will come our way. Our clients may start to be seen as an expert in the home and garden industry and so lean on them for comments, interviews and features as they become more established thanks to a proactive outreach!
Get in touch!
If you’re looking for a specialist home and garden PR agency to elevate your brand with a PR strategy that will knock you out of the park, get in touch to see how we can help you!
Want to find out how our PR strategies have generated big results for our clients? Check out our case study with B Corp plant pot innovator elho here, and our case study with leading garden centre and nursery brand Hillier here!
