How brands can utilise the summer season in digital PR
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In Digital PR seasonality is a popular, key theme to focus on, to drive results.
Journalists value content that is relevant, and when Summer comes around, it opens up a whole new host of opportunities for brands to create content, dip their toes into different conversations, and secure those valuable links.
You only have to think about everything that changes in the Summer to get started – from how we amend our schedules to what’s on TV – and then work out how these topics might fit into newsworthy content you could create that resonates with your company.
Examples are the weather, the temperature, our outdoor use, the products we’ll be looking for, our sleep schedules and quality, the Summer holidays, a larger number of weddings – and more.
In this blog, we’ll give you some key tips to help you determine how to create Summer-led content good enough for the press and give you some examples of how it can work.
If you want to find out more about how a Digital PR strategy could work for your brand, which includes content marketing campaigns, call the Embryo office on 0161 327 2635, or email [email protected].
How can brands utilise the Summer season in Digital PR?
The first step is to think about what it is you offer your audience, is it a product, service or advice? It’s not ideal to stray too far away from what it is you actually do.
What we mean by that is, if you were a bed retailer, you wouldn’t create content for the press about the best road trips to take in 2024, but what you might do is offer advice on how to sleep well during a heatwave – with the help of an expert.
The reason content marketing campaigns work so well is that they provide in-depth advice, analysis, and tips for audiences. So doing the above in keeping with your offering is essential because this is how you draw in users who are likely to have a genuine interest in your brand or product and engage with your site in a meaningful way.
Other key themes and events that come with Summer, are:
- Diet changes
- Day trips
- Staycations
- Barbecues
- Looking after your skin
- Hydration
- Garden furniture and use
- Clothing and swimwear
- Beaches and nature
- Outdoor sport
- Euro 2024
- Wimbledon
- Horse racing events
- The British Grand Prix
- Paris 2024 Olympics
- Love Island
- Picnics
- Garden and pool parties
- Festivals and carnivals
- Camping
- Family days out
- Fans and air con
- Flights
- Beer gardens
- Bank holidays
- Summer Solstice
A good, up-to-date marketing calendar can also help to spark Summer-led ideas for content. While creating it is known as proactive (planned PR) – because we know the Summer season is coming, a lot of this content can also be said to be Reactive PR.
This is because, during Summer, we still don’t know what’s going to happen, for example, whether or not we’ll get a heatwave, the results of the winner of a TV show, or sporting events, and so on.
Journalists highly value data and expertise based on current events and trends, so you can plan to create content about something, but be open to what that is, based on what happens.
It’s important to remember that you don’t have to produce everything that goes into your content yourself. You can source and analyse data or trends, use external experts, run a survey, partner with an influencer, and more.
Examples of Summer-led Digital PR content
- For a client in the meal replacement industry, we wrote a reactive press release about the best things to eat and drink to ensure you’re getting in enough nutrients, in summer 2022.
The expert-led story got more than 30 placements in the press, and utilised the knowledge of one of the brand’s nutritionists.
One of her recommendations was to snack on fruit with high water content – including watermelon, cucumbers, peaches, cherries and berries. It was covered on the likes of the Metro, Mirror, MEN, MSN and more.
If you don’t have an internal expert that can offer readers advice, but the topic you want to cover is still relevant to your brand, you can source an external expert.
- This example involves capitalising on a key Summer sporting event, before it even happened – The Euros. Earlier this year, we ran a Digital PR campaign for a client in the football shirt retail industry, ‘AI predicts 12 countries’ Euro 2024 shirts’.
It was timely, with the international game set to kick off in June, and we knew that people were searching for any news of kit leaks or launches, and that search volume would continue to ramp up as the tournament neared.
We used AI image generator Midjourney to design 12 of the biggest and best-known teams’ shirts. A designer in our creative team prompted the tool to use each country’s flag colours, and in a retro design but modern style.
The campaign gained coverage in the UK and abroad, in countries like France and Germany. It was covered on Reader’s Digest, The Sun, the Daily Star, yahoo!, RMC Sport and more.
Joe.co.uk, which has almost 1M followers on Instagram, also posted the campaign to their account – tagging our client and drumming up lots of user engagement.
- With popular shows like Love Island gracing our screens during the summer, showbiz and lifestyle writers are always looking for new ways to cover the dramas we love to watch on TV.
In recent years, body language experts have been called upon to analyse the behaviour of contestants on reality shows, so as to reveal their innermost thoughts – and things they might not be saying out loud.
Body language expert Judi James was featured in the press, such as The Metro, for revealing who she thought was on a previous series of Love Island for fame, as opposed to romance.
Product PR
Journalists start thinking about Summer-led content very early on in the year – especially writers who work on the consumer, shopping or affiliate desks.
They’re always looking for the best Summer-related products, like garden furniture or clothing, to include in round-up articles – and even to review them.
Here’s an example on Good Housekeeping. This means you’ve got to pitch your products to journalists way before Summer comes. They cover offers and deals too.
A final word on how brands can utilise the Summer season in Digital PR
So to utilise Summer-led content in Digital PR you must:
- Think about what your brand offers audiences
- Pick key summer themes or events that fit in with your brand
- Think about whether you need internal or external data, expert advice and so on
- Plan your content strategy, but be open to being reactive based on current events
- Get ahead of the curve with product PR
If you want to find out more about how a Digital PR strategy could work for your brand, or any other services like SEO or PPC, call the Embryo office on 0161 327 2635, or email [email protected].
