The campaign launched. The coverage is rolling in. The links have been counted, and the report has been written.
And then everyone moves on to the next campaign.
But when you’ve put that much time and effort into a campaign, you want to get as much out of it as possible.
A successful PR campaign can create much more than a collection of media placements and backlinks. It can generate new content opportunities, improve organic visibility, provide social content, strengthen brand credibility and uncover insights that can shape future marketing activity.
A good way of approaching it is to stop thinking of campaign coverage as the output of PR and start thinking of it as an asset.
Here are some of the things you can do once a campaign has finished to maximise its value.
Is it actually over?
Before thinking about how to extend a campaign’s benefits, ask yourself: is it actually finished?
There may be another story hiding within what you’ve already created.
This is particularly true of research-led campaigns. You will probably have led with your strongest statistic or most compelling angle, but there may be plenty of other findings that could tell a good story.
Perhaps a deeper analysis reveals an unexpected demographic difference. Maybe one particular region behaves very differently from the rest of the country. Or perhaps one of your secondary findings becomes much more relevant because of something happening in the news.
Rather than drawing a line under the campaign once your original story has landed, revisit the research and ask: what else does this tell us?
Keep checking for coverage
Don’t assume that your initial reporting captures everything.
Coverage doesn’t always appear immediately, particularly if you don’t have access to comprehensive media monitoring tools. A journalist may have received your research when the campaign launched but not publish their story until weeks later.
Keep an eye out for:
- New publications picking up the story
- Journalists referencing your original research
- Links being added retrospectively
- Social conversations and discussion
- Industry commentary
- Questions or reactions from your audience
A journalist might publish the original story on Monday, while another publication discovers the research several weeks later and develops a completely different angle.
Continued monitoring can also help you spot opportunities to engage with coverage, correct inaccuracies, provide additional commentary or identify journalists who could be useful contacts for future campaigns.
Use the campaign to secure secondary coverage
The initial campaign doesn’t have to be your only opportunity to generate media coverage.
Once the main story has run its course, think about how you can use the campaign as a springboard for other formats.
For example, if you’ve generated some interesting research, you could pitch an opinion piece to a relevant trade publication, using a couple of the findings as evidence for a broader argument.
You could also offer an expert from your organisation for an interview or commentary piece based on what the research tells us about the wider industry.
This can be particularly effective because you’re no longer pitching a cold idea. You have something tangible to build on: original data, media interest and an established story.
Done well, this can extend the life of the campaign, generate additional coverage and potentially earn further links and referral traffic.
Keep an eye out for relevant journalist requests
Even once you’ve stopped actively pitching the campaign, there may be opportunities to put the research to work.
Journalists regularly look for expert commentary, statistics and supporting evidence for stories they’re already working on. If you spot a relevant request several months after your campaign launched, your research could provide exactly what they need.
You may also strengthen a relationship that could prove valuable when you have your next story to pitch.
Bring the campaign back onto your own website
PR often involves creating assets for other people to use – whether that’s case studies, expert commentary, research, photography or customer stories.
But that doesn’t mean those assets should only exist externally. Once the initial exclusivity or media window has passed, consider what can legitimately be repurposed for your own channels.
For example, you may have provided a customer case study to a national publication. A few weeks later, you could create a more detailed version for your own website.
You might also turn research findings into a dedicated resource, expand an expert quote into a thought-leadership article or create a set of FAQs based on questions that came out of the campaign.
The key is not simply to duplicate what appeared in the media. Adapt it for your own audience and give it a useful second life.
Sweat the assets across your other marketing channels
PR naturally focuses on third-party visibility, but don’t forget the audiences you already have.
If you haven’t already done so, make sure you’re getting as much value as possible from the campaign across your other marketing channels.
A strong statistic might make a great LinkedIn post. A surprising finding could become the subject of a newsletter. A particularly useful piece of research could give your sales team a compelling conversation starter.
One campaign can generate many pieces of content when you adapt it for different audiences and channels.
Use what you learned to shape the next campaign
Sometimes the most valuable insight from a PR campaign isn’t the coverage itself. It’s what the campaign teaches you about your audience and the media.
Look at what journalists and audiences actually responded to. Perhaps your campaign focused on five findings, but journalists consistently picked up one particular statistic. Maybe an unexpected angle generated far more interest than the story you thought would be the headline.
This can influence everything from the subjects you research to the way you package your next story.
The best campaigns don’t just generate coverage; they make the next campaign smarter.
Revisit the campaign when the timing is right
Some stories have a much longer shelf life than you might expect.
If your campaign is based on research, put a reminder in the calendar to revisit it in six or 12 months.
Has anything changed? Perhaps the trend you identified has accelerated. Maybe it has reversed. Or perhaps a major news event has made the original research relevant again.
You can also look for natural anniversaries or recurring moments when the subject becomes topical. This gives you another reason to bring the data back into the conversation without simply repeating the same story.
Consider repeating the research
If the original campaign performed particularly well, you could take this a step further and actually do the same research a year later, where the story becomes about the trends and patterns rather than the answers themselves.
Over time, recurring research can potentially become a recognised industry benchmark or annual index, giving you a repeatable PR asset that journalists know to look out for.
Naturally, this won’t work for every campaign, and there needs to be a strong enough reason to invest in the research again. But where there is a genuine trend to track, the long-term value can be significant.
Don’t forget the ideas that didn’t become campaigns
There is one final principle worth keeping in mind: not every PR idea needs to succeed as a PR campaign to be useful.
Perhaps you had a story that journalists weren’t interested in. Maybe the timing was wrong, the news agenda moved on, or the idea simply wasn’t strong enough for the media at that particular moment.
That doesn’t necessarily mean the idea has no value. It might still make an interesting piece of content for your website. It could become an expert article, social post, newsletter topic or starting point for a future campaign.
Don’t throw away your discarded ideas. Keep a record of them and revisit them periodically.
Thinking beyond the campaign
A PR campaign shouldn’t have a hard stop the moment the initial coverage comes in.
The strongest campaigns can continue to generate value through follow-up stories, journalist requests, SEO content, social media, sales materials, thought leadership and future research.
After the initial campaign has finished, ask yourself who else you could reach, what else you could create, or when might this become relevant again. This can help to turn one campaign into months or years of marketing value.