And just like that, it’s the end of August and the end of summer, or winter, depending on which hemisphere you’re reading this from. Despite the continued pandemic , geo-political changes and a lot of water everywhere, it hasn’t been all bad: Euro finals, Freedom Day for lots of people and last but certainly not least Love Island returning to our screens – and yes we have blogged about the rise of influencer marketing as a result!
As the old tale goes, when August hits the work slows down due to holiday disruption, but not here at IBA. This month has been another success, keeping us busy through the “silly season”. So, let’s get straight to it!
Momentum: this month’s shining star
Last month Jamie Kightley wrote an excellent blog on how to gauge and sustain PR momentum. As a new recruit to IBA and PR, it was eye-opening to read as it made me realize just how winning journalist mindshare works. If you didn’t believe it, read on and see it in action with our clients.
With the August lull in mind, we have been busily preparing interviews for our A&D client that has seen some good traction this August. Our client’s subject matter experts were approached by some top media outlets to contribute to four journalist-written features which have published online or in August issues in key outlets – the fruit of some hard labor in June and July!
We’ve also started to see similar results from our structured horizontal campaign in North America for our enterprise client. With everyone out of the office, journalists are looking for content, so we’ve responded with multiple horizontal bylined placements but now we can see journalists themselves beginning to cover the client in their own articles without prompting. We had a couple of nice pieces placing our client positively among its competitors. It’s called building momentum in the PR trade – when they start writing about you regularly, they will only write about you more!
Ending the holiday period on a high!
The traction train just keeps on coming. Our contact center client operating across the Netherlands, UK, Germany and South Africa has seen excellent traction this month.
A particular highlight that raised a cheer in the IBA and our client’s office was the placement of a new thought leadership article in one of Germany’s Tier 1 industry publications – a top target media outlet, and a key vertical market and geography in one hit. Not bad for a “quiet month”! We’re already actively planning more pieces of content, bringing in further exposure across their core geographies, keeping that ball rolling into next month.
Forget birthday week, it’s birthday month
Now, aside from all the exposure and traction we’ve seen this month, our label and artwork management solutions provider celebrated their 20th birthday – roll on the celebrations! Aside from the well wishes and looking back down memory lane, we’ve been drafting some pieces highlighting the successes, growth and the changes the client has seen leading up to this milestone – and of course looking at changes to come.
Rolling into the new season with umph
Despite the talk of August being a quiet month, here at IBA we like to keep things rolling.
And guess what – in September, we’re all back in the office – but we’ve taken the popular decision to replace ‘Dress Down Friday’ with #WFH Friday. Friday by the way, unlike in most offices, just like August, is IBA’s busiest day of the week!
Lois Unsworth is PR Account Executive at IBA International.
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