Five ways to make the most of December downtime
Unless you work in retail, most B2B companies tend to slow down a little over Christmas. For PR agencies that are on, for what feels like 365 days a year, the wind down to the holiday season is the perfect opportunity to get the jobs done that are essential to the maintenance of the campaigns and clients.
So what can you do to make the most of the downtime during December to make the transition into the New Year a smooth one?
Plan, plan, plan
Planning takes a lot of time, and in the midst of running a PR campaign, it can be difficult enough to work through your to-do list for tomorrow, let alone plan the next three months! So, when it’s quiet, get your account teams together to brainstorm content for the next half. It means you can go to your client on your next call and let them know you have ideas, and by January you’ll have a plan of attack in place.
Admin!
A new year means new reports, refreshed calendars and new features lists. Setting up the next year’s reports and filling it with outstanding content is a job you won’t want to rush when you’re back in January and means you can get straight into the new campaign with a clean sheet – literally!
Spring clean your media lists
Media lists are one of those things we all think we maintain more than we do! Set aside a morning to make sure your list is fully up to date with all new titles and their corresponding journalists are added. On the other hand, if any publications aren’t as relevant anymore, or only accept certain pieces of content, make sure you and your team are aware so they get the content that is most relevant to them.
Get ahead of the game
The first two weeks of January are generally quite quiet, so now is the time to be stocking up on content so get drafting! The chances are, if your clients are quiet, they also have some time on their hands, so if you have a healthy batch of approved content, all that’s left to do is pitch it!
Re-evaluate your strategy
Take a step back and look at the past 12 months. What content worked and what didn’t? Are you working in the most efficient ways within your teams? Do you need more input from your client contacts? Make a checklist of things you want to change, whether it be the way of working or a new strategy.
New year, new PR agency? Get in touch and find out how we can help: +44 (0) 1296 733 867.
