Victoria Affleck blog avatar
Victoria Affleck
1 May 2022
AUTHOR:
Victoria Affleck
PUBLISHED:
1 May 2022
LAST UPDATED:
3 Jan 2024

Organising Your Day as a Digital PR

So, you’ve landed a role working in digital PR. Now it’s time to start organising your day for optimal success whilst leaving you enough capacity to learn more about the industry. Whether this is your first job or you’re a seasoned professional, here are a few tips for organising your day as a digital PR, or working in a digital PR agency

 

The main responsibilities of a digital PR

Not every digital PR role is the same, and there will be notable differences if your job is within an in-house marketing team or for an agency. However, there are still some similarities between the roles, including the main responsibilities. 

As you start to navigate your new job, you will notice that some stages are similar with every campaign you create. By knowing roughly how long each step should take and what you need to achieve during that time, you’ll be able to keep on top of your responsibilities.

 

 

Brainstorming/ideation 

Brainstorming, or ideation, is a key duty of everyone who works within marketing and online PR. Coming up with some ideas for one particular topic may take just a few minutes, whereas others may be a little harder to think of. Give yourself enough time to get together a collection of good ideas - ideally more than you need, so that you can handpick the best. 

Average time needed:

This can vary from campaign to campaign as you may be brimming with ideas for one topic, but you’ll need to conduct some research to get a feel for what kind of campaigns would work best when it comes to topics you’re unfamiliar with. 

Setting aside around two hours per week for team brainstorming is a good habit to get into. This may seem like quite a long time, but it is enough time to talk through your thoughts with other team members and work together to create an interesting campaign guaranteed to get those all-important links. 

 

 

Collecting data

A good idea is not enough to launch a campaign, and often you will need some data to back up your findings or reach a conclusion. Collecting this data will require precision, otherwise the results will be skewed and your time wasted. 

This should also be where you get your methodology locked down. Make sure it’s airtight, without any opportunity for journalists or readers to pick holes in it. Your sources need to be mentioned, seed lists shown (if applicable), and steps to create the conclusion outlined. 

Average time needed:

If you have a data-heavy piece, this may be the most time-consuming part. It can take anywhere from two to six hours to find sources, collect the information you need, and organise your data. 

 

 

Writing up the press release 

To get your idea out there, you need to create a press release to send to publications and journalists. This needs to be juicy, have visual elements, and have a hook. What is the main focus of your campaign? Ensure this is clear and outlined at the beginning of the press release too. 

Your subject line is also incredibly important. After all, the recipient won’t see the hard work you put into your idea if they don’t open the email in the first place. Make sure it conveys the subject of your campaign, include some statistics if possible (as they usually add some interest), and use buzzwords. 

Do some research beforehand to see who/what is currently in the news and add this to your subject line to pique recipients’ interest. For example, if your campaign mentions a celebrity who is currently prevalent in the news, add them into your subject line. 

Average time needed:

Writing press releases may come easily to some, but others may struggle, and that’s fine. Set aside two hours to write up your email and PR, with an extra hour to make any necessary changes after proofing. 

 

 

Collating contacts

Once you have your idea, collected the data and written it up, you need to think about who you want to send your press release to. You can use applications such as Gorkana or Roxhill to search through journalists and see which sectors they cover. Don’t just blast your press release to all contacts you can find - be picky and ensure it is 100% relevant to them. 

Take time to manually find contacts too. Search on Google to find publications and journalists that have recently covered articles similar to your PR as they may be intrigued by your findings. 

Average time needed:

Over time, you will build up lists of contacts for each sector, saving you some time. However, still make sure you have three hours to build lists of publications and journalists as well as manually searching for contacts. 

 

 

Outreaching

You have your PR perfected and your list of contacts ready; it’s time to send your campaign out into the world. Unfortunately, it’s not as simple as just hitting ‘send’ on a bunch of emails and hoping for the best. Thankfully several Digital PR tools can help you with this. 

Try to personalise your emails wherever you can by adding a few lines about other articles the journalist has written. 

Average time needed:

Outreach is just as important as any other step in terms of securing links and increasing the visibility of your client’s business. You need at least three hours to do this. 

 

 

Following up

Once you’ve outreached, you still have to spend some time following up. Journalists receive hundreds of emails each day from other PRs, so you may not get a response from your first round of emails. If this happens, don’t fret, as it can still get picked up from sending out follow-up emails. 

When following up, consider rewording your subject line, trying out a new angle, or dropping in fresh pieces of data to keep it relevant. 

Average time needed:

The follow-up process can take up to two hours but account for more time if you change the angle or data. 

With this idea of how long (roughly) each stage can take, you’ll be able to organise your day as a digital PR in a manner that will leave you with some time to work on personal development within the industry.

 

 

Resources to help digital PRs

Useful Digital PR tools

Excel shortcuts for digital PRs

The best data sources to use