How to build awareness days into your 2024 PR strategy
This week, Mail Metro released its 2024 “Moments that Matter” calendar, which for some of us can be a really valuable tool in understanding what’s important to the media in the year ahead.
Now, if you don’t already have this calendar saved and engrained in your brain, it might be wise to download it and have a look over as part of your 2024 planning. Not everything will be of interest of course, but there are some golden bits of insight in there that can most definitely supercharge your PR efforts.
The jury is out on awareness days and their effectiveness. Some have managed to become something of a cultural phenomenon – let’s not forget Blue Monday was originally a marketing campaign – whereas others are, dare I say, a total gimmick.
Whether or not you choose to factor this tactic into your strategy is going to depend on a lot of things. What’s more, no one tactic alone is
What are awareness days?
Before we get ahead of ourselves, I want to put a big fat question mark over awareness days. What are they, should you be using them and perhaps most crucially… when is National Pizza Day?! (It’s 9th February by the way).
Nowadays there are quite literally HUNDREDS of awareness days that might have some relevance to your brand for PR activity. Some are seasonal and don’t need an explanation, i.e. Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, Christmas etc, while others have become major global events, like International Women’s or Black History Month.
There are also a whole host of days created by charities to draw awareness to certain illnesses or causes – Wear it Pink, Stress Awareness Month or World Alzheimer’s Month are a few examples.
Then we have the wonderful world of totally made up days that serve no real purpose but can be fun to have a play around with. World Nutella Day, anyone?
Essentially, all we’re talking about here are dates for your diary that can give your campaigns and content some seasonality and, if used wisely, a bit of a boost.
Your awareness days checklist
Before deciding to hang your hat on an awareness day, it’s important to ask a few questions first. Here’s a general checklist that’s a good starter for ten:
When is it?
No, seriously… What dates do you need to be aware of and are they the same this year as they were last year? Is it different in the UK compared to US or globally (for example, Mother’s Day). Most importantly, when would your activirty need to start to maximise your opportunity?
Is this relevant to the brand?
A seemingly obvious one but I see a painful amount of brands aligning themselves with something that feels totally off base for them and their audiences.
Who “owns” the day?
Do a bit of digging into the event’s origins and who created it. If you don’t you could find yourself tied up in a competitor’s marketing activity (I’ve seen it happen first hand!)
Do people care about it?
Is this something that has been written about in the past? Do people talk about it on social media? Do your friends or family know what it is? If the answer to any or all of these is no then it’s time to rethink.
What do you have to say or do about it?
It simply isn’t enough to make mention of the day and hope that’s enough to make your content shine. Sure, you might pull it off, but let’s not leave it up to chance. If you’ve done all of the above and you’re ready to go, then ask yourself the golden question: “so what?” – why is your brand involved and why should people care about that?
How to properly capitalise on awareness days
Now for the useful bit. You’ve done all your research, you know what you want to do and you’re certain your audience are going to love it.
So when do you hit go?
With the media cycle wilder than ever before, this can seem like an impossible question to answer, but all it takes is some clever research and planning.
First, look at all coverage and online discussions around your day of choice from the previous year(s), then make note of when this started to appear. This can be a bit of a laborious task to do manually, but tools like Roxhill will show you a handy graph that does all the leg work for you.
If the event is longer than a day, consider its “lifecycle” and the opportunities this may present to you. A pre-event announcement could work well at the start of a week-long event, then perhaps some social media noise mid-week and finally a round-up for customers and internal comms. A very basic example sure, but just something to get you thinking.
Once you have an idea of general timings, consider what your activation is going to look like across channels and how they might play out during the event. What considerations do you need to make for PR, internal comms, CRM? The list goes on.
Try and get clear on what’s going to go out and when, so you’re not left scrambling to get content out the door on the day – by which point it’s usually too late.
Most of all, don’t sweat it. Ultimately, in my experience while awareness days can be useful, they aren’t going to make or break your strategy.
If you’re not sure where to start, or want to chat about this in more detail, then get in touch for a free chat about where to take your PR strategy.
