{"id":126744,"date":"2019-11-26T15:31:06","date_gmt":"2019-11-26T14:31:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/?p=126744"},"modified":"2019-12-04T15:56:29","modified_gmt":"2019-12-04T14:56:29","slug":"producing-successful-pr-campaigns-on-shoestring-budgets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/blog\/producing-successful-pr-campaigns-on-shoestring-budgets\/","title":{"rendered":"Producing successful PR campaigns on shoestring budgets"},"content":{"rendered":"

Got big ideas, but a small budget? Getting a campaign to go viral or grabbing sign-ups for your service doesn\u2019t necessarily have to come at substantial cost (though it certainly helps).<\/strong><\/p>\n

Some solid strategies for how to get your message out when money is tight were shared during the CIPR National Conference<\/a> session \u2018Digital Communications on a shoestring\u2019 \u2013 experts Helen Reynolds (Comms Creatives), Katie Lawson (Tiny Tickers) and Leanne Manchester (The Wildlife Trusts) talked making something good out of nothing and how fellow budget-poor people in PR can do the same.<\/strong><\/p>\n

For getting engagement without a sizeable budget (it\u2019s often close to zero for Tiny Tickers, Katie shared), all speakers admitted that having goodwill from your potential audience is a good start, and they have that. Tiny Tickers is a charity for children with heart defects and works with a community of families looking for support. The Wildlife Trusts describes itself as a \u2018grassroots movement\u2019 of people with an interest in making a positive difference to wildlife, and future generations of wildlife lovers. The tools Helen, Katie and Leanne use, however, can be utilized by agencies and brands outside of the charity sector that don\u2019t have a public ready and willing to listen to them.<\/p>\n

For each of the speakers, time rather than money is the most important investment you can make when putting a plan together.<\/p>\n

\u2018All it took was time,\u2019 said Leanne of their Random Acts of Wildness<\/a> campaign \u2013 a bid to get more people out and engaging with nature through information packs and social media sharing. \u2018We don\u2019t have budget to do fancy insight,\u2019 said Katie, who spoke about the Twinkle Twinkle Tiny Heart<\/a> takeover of the Seven Dials Christmas lights. Putting time aside to go through social media channels and see what audiences had engaged with previously was what really worked. Katie said: \u2018It\u2019s spending that time \u2013 and then reviewing.\u2019<\/p>\n

Posting times on social?<\/p>\n

Not important, according to Helen, who advised that quality content will find its audience whichever time of day it\u2019s posted. An authentic voice also helps. \u2018There is always a personality behind your brand,\u2019 said Helen when asked by those taking part in the panel how to engage when your brand isn\u2019t necessarily one your intended audience wants to hear from. \u2018There\u2019s fear to put things out. It\u2019s worth building up resilience on your team.\u2019<\/p>\n

And when things go wrong?<\/p>\n

\u2018It\u2019s not a reputational failure to give your audience an opportunity to complain, either\u2019.<\/p>\n

If you want eyes on your campaign, celebrity spokespeople are going to attract them. For those that can\u2019t afford the top-tier influence elite like Zoella, the Pauls or a Kardashian (that\u2019s most of us), Helen, Katie and Leanne advised getting in touch with micro and macro influencers you already know have an interest in your focus and people you already follow (\u2018I just DMed load of people on Instagram,\u2019 said Leanne).
\nFor Katie, the collaboration has to be heartfelt \u2013 \u2018if we have to pay for an influencer, then it\u2019s not the right fit\u2019. Social media takeovers have worked for The Wildlife Trusts, and video (recorded on a colleague\u2019s phone) was an important tool for both, especially for getting complicated ideas across that won\u2019t be as sharable in a slab of text.<\/p>\n

Keeping things cheap has been made infinitely more possible with the evolution of social media and digital tools (Facebook was a major convertor to sign-ups for The Wildlife Trusts\u2019 Random Acts of Wildness campaign, and a message through LinkedIn was what sparked Twinkle Twinkle Little Heart for Tiny Tickers). It\u2019s where the right communities and affordable tools can be found for wrangling your content together or organising your team (Katie\u2019s workforce of six swear by Canva<\/a> and Slack, for example).<\/p>\n

As communications and PR professionals, wanting more money for campaigns is a given \u2013 but the importance of the actual work is what speakers at the CIPR session argued for. A lack of budget means an opportunity to experiment \u2013 with borrowing and pro bono help (works for Leanne) or a liberal use of memes (works for Katie, and best of all \u2013 they\u2019re free)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Got big ideas, but a small budget? Getting a campaign to go viral or grabbing sign-ups for your service doesn\u2019t necessarily have to come at substantial cost.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":423,"featured_media":126932,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7365,7272,7238],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126744"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/423"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=126744"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126744\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":136428,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126744\/revisions\/136428"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/126932"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=126744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=126744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vuelio.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=126744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}