The traditional wisdom of PR states that July and August are bad months for news. In the days when the news cycle mirrored a more linear calendar cycle in the wider world, this may well have been true. Parliament in the UK was not in session, meaning there was often no major political news to respond to. Additionally, the Summer holidays and generally improved weather meant that large swathes of clients, journalists, and PR people themselves were not at their desk as much as they had been for the previous 6 months.
However, times have changed. These months, while obviously quieter, present opportunities for PR people as well as challenges.
Lots of journalists are on holiday at various points throughout the Summer, but equally, lots of them are not! Those remaining will be covering their colleagues, but the content that a publication needs to produce will not change. What does this mean? It means journalists who are in more need of PR help than ever before!
If you can continue to provide journalists with the appropriate content to meet their editorial guidelines – commentary on breaking news issues, corporate announcements which could be of interest, or ready to go contributed content – then they can help journalists to push out their content quotas much easier. In the process, they can ensure that their clients are quoted!
This is something we have noted at Eskenzi first hand in the past few weeks. The team has mentioned a significant uptick in responsiveness from journalists, and we’ve also managed to achieve some fantastic coverage. Some examples of amazing summer coverage we’ve achieved so far includes:
Coro Cybersecurity, who had two pieces published in key healthcare vertical publications
The International Cyber Expo, who have achieved 15 pieces of National coverage in July
Veramatrix, who were featured in 4 National newspapers including the Sun and The Mirror
SenseOn, who were featured in 9 different articles across The Sun’s network in July
Centripetal, who have been featured in 9 articles across their key regions of the US, UK and Ireland in July so far
The proof is in the pudding: Eskenzi’s client base have not struggled to gain coverage in the summer so far, and show no signs of slowing down into August. If you’re concerned about your own PR programme slowing down, then just remember that PR success is not seasonal; It is down to the quality of your planning, content, strategy and journalist relationships!
If you’d like Eskenzi to help you to refresh any of these elements of your communications strategy, you know where to find us.
