As the year moves forward, many businesses and entrepreneurs continue to tweak marketing plans and budgets for the months ahead. When it comes to setting up your PR/media exposure plan, WHEN you launch your campaign can be just as important to what and how you launch. In the last 16 years of generating media exposure for our clients, my research shows that 41% of our media interest and exposure we generate in a year has happened in the 2nd Q - that's almost double the amount of any other quarter of the year: 1st Q: 18% 2nd Q: 41% 3rd Q: 21% 4th Q: 20% So what does that mean? If you are planning to implement your PR/media exposure campaign for your business or product in the coming weeks -congratulations. Your timing is ideal. Frankly, you can get great media exposure at any time of the year given the right pitch and tending in the media market. But what many people don't realize is that the spring and early summer months are when many media outlets look to run a lot of features on unique products and services: home & garden products; kitchen & food gadgets; auto accessories & car care; pet care and accessories; outdoor/ recreation products; travel products; and more. Also, like all of us, many media people take vacations during the summer, so they like to be able to put together many products features in the second quarter that are relatively evergreen and can run at any time while they are gone on vacation in the weeks and months ahead. But they won't run them if they don't know about your unique product or service. And that's why timely, quality media pitches pitch now can be so mutually beneficial for you and your media contacts. And believe it or not, the latter part of the second quarter is when many of the larger magazines and bigger syndicated TV shows start planning what they call their "Holiday Book" - yes, they start working on their holiday gift guides that early. In fact, some of the bigger magazines are all but finished with their holiday book by August. (I realize July & August aren't in the second quarter - my point is that the early birds who get their releases and pitches in by May & June stand a better chance of being featured than those who wait until months later.) The potential media exposure opportunities are directly dependent upon how quickly and efficiently you or your publicist/PR agency can help the media secure the placement. Media relations is crucial. Your job is to make the reporter/editor/producer's job as easy and as effortless as possible - which will lead to quicker and more numerous placements for you. What we are trying to do is plant seeds in media outlets' editorial minds continuously over the next several weeks and months. Given the right tending, the seeds you plant over the next few weeks/months will indeed germinate and you'll benefit from some great media exposure well into the next couple quarters of the year.
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