Mastering Publicity Campaigns: Time Investment and Duration

The Challenge of Publicity Campaigns

Generating publicity for a product, business, or website is a daunting task for entrepreneurs. One of the most challenging decisions is whether to spearhead the campaign independently. The difficulty lies in estimating the time required to launch and sustain a successful publicity campaign. This article aims to shed light on two critical aspects: the duration of your publicity efforts and the number of hours needed to execute them effectively.

Throughout my PR career, I have initiated campaigns that required a short burst of publicity over a few weeks, as well as extensive campaigns that generated media exposure over several years. From my experience, a single distribution of a media release rarely yields results. Editors and reporters often juggle multiple stories simultaneously and need time to evaluate your pitch. Even if your release is compelling and newsworthy, the editor might not have room in the media outlet's editorial calendar at that moment. Therefore, it's crucial to ensure your pitch is seen again when the editorial calendar clears up. Given the volume of media releases and story pitches that media outlets receive, it can take weeks before they review your submission. Hence, conducting thorough media follow-ups over several months is essential to ensure media reception, proper media digestion, and hopefully media acceptance of your release or pitch.

As I often tell my clients, no PR agency or publicist can force the media to use their releases. However, they can ensure that by the end of the campaign, the media has seen or heard about your message in one form or another, leading to substantial media coverage.

Determining the Length of a Successful Campaign

One key to determining the length of a successful campaign is knowing when you have exhausted all your publicity resources, when it's time to replenish your arsenal, or when you should shift focus to other marketing targets. Over the past several years, the campaign lengths for my clients have broken down as follows:

• 1-2 month campaigns: 9%
• 3-6 month campaigns: 46%
• 6-9 month campaigns: 29%
• 9+ month campaigns: 16%

Time Investment in Publicity Campaigns

A significant number of hours will be spent planning and shaping your publicity campaign for the media market. The preparation of the media market research and the refining of the media release may seem laborious, but when done correctly, they are well worth the effort. After the initial launch of the campaign, be prepared to spend at least an hour or two each day maintaining it. This includes conducting numerous media follow-ups and making new media pitches, fulfilling media requests, and tracking/clipping articles and features.

Here's a brief rundown on the number of hours that may be involved in a typical campaign:

• CAMPAIGN LAUNCH

  • Media Release Writing/Editing: 5 hours
  • Media Market Research: 15 hours
  • Media Distribution: 10 hours
  • TOTAL LAUNCH HOURS: 30 hours

• CAMPAIGN MAINTENANCE: 30+ hours/month (3-Month Campaign) (90 hours)

  • TOTAL CAMPAIGN HOURS: 120+ work hours

If you have the time, staff, and expertise to launch your own campaign, then take advantage of the media and get your message to them. However, if your expertise lies elsewhere, and you or your staff lack publicity-generating skills or have little or no experience dealing with the media, it might be best to delegate it to someone who can ensure it's done right the first time. Ask yourself these questions when deciding whether you can handle your own publicity campaign:

• Do I have the expertise and time to get it done effectively without hampering my current workload or that of my staff?
• Do I have the writing capabilities to put together a media release or feature pitch to which editors, reporters, and producers will respond?
• Do I have the resources to conduct the media research and distribute my release to those media outlets?

If you answered "yes" to all, not just some of these questions, then perhaps you can benefit from launching your own publicity campaign. Best of luck!