We recently likened integrated Performance PR campaigns to an orchestra.
Each channel – social media, content, media and creative – represents different instruments. When they play together they engage the audience and crescendo to create a powerful, memorable PR campaign.
But imagine this: the oboist is actually really a flautist, the harpist is off sick and the conductor has only been practising a year.
Can they pull it off? If the individual players lack the necessary proficiency and expertise, they likely won’t play their parts correctly, let alone sound good together.
Just as a successful orchestra relies on skilled musicians, an effective PR campaign depends on professionals, knowledgeable in each discipline to build a cohesive and impactful performance.
Expertise
Social media, creative, media relations and content are the instrumental parts of an integrated PR campaign and having extensive knowledge in each component means excellence in each discipline. Fortunately at Whiteoaks we have a team of dedicated experts who know how to hit all the right notes. To prove it, we asked them what it takes to craft an integrated PR campaign and why specialists are essential.
Creative
While other disciplines largely stay in their lane, creative’s role is to straddle multiple channels and bring them to life. If we continue our orchestra analogy, creative is like the percussion section which adds excitement and colour to the soundscape.
In integrated PR, messaging must always remain consistent, but creative is where diversity can be afforded.
“Without a strong message, the execution falls apart; there is no point to it. Creative also runs off the messaging, and the best campaigns are those that bring the messaging to life in a unique and different way,” says Whiteoaks Creative Director, Mark Wilson.
He adds: “The most engaging campaigns are those which take a risk from the ‘norm’ and try something different.”
This is especially important in B2B circles, where audiences see a lot of the same thing. However, while creative needs to be engaging, it should always remain relevant – a fine balance.
Social
Social media offers immense potential for your content – be that blog posts, whitepapers, videos or infographics – to go viral and significantly boost your campaign’s reach, visibility and impact.
Specialist expertise ensures these campaigns are technically sound, culturally relevant and timely.
The tech industry thrives on knowledge sharing and innovation, as enthusiasts, professionals and consumers are highly active on social media. This makes it the perfect conduit for a technology PR campaign.
Natalia Kaczmarek, our Digital Content Manager, highlights the value of social media for tech brands.
“The dynamic nature of the industry demands real-time engagement, immediate feedback and continuous communication, all of which social media excels at providing,” she says.
Natalia’s top advice for tech brands to excel in social media for their integrated PR campaigns revolves around one word: consistency.
“Posting consistently keeps your brand relevant in the algorithm. This doesn’t mean you have to share new posts every day. Consistency helps you meet your target audience’s expectations of when to anticipate new content, which is key to boosting engagement and post reach,” she says.
Consistency in messaging, themes, and narratives helps create a compelling story that resonates deeply with your audience.
Having an expert like Natalia on your campaign ensures you have someone with a robust understanding of the analytics tools needed to provide insightful data on audience behaviour, preferences and engagement – essential for refining and optimising campaigns.
Media
We asked Alex Kent, our Senior Account Director, about the biggest media-related challenges in tech PR. He pointed out that securing media coverage is something most agencies can do, but actually being seen and heard in such a saturated market is one of the toughest hurdles.
“B2B is noisy! There are a lot of people with opinions, especially on LinkedIn, where those opinions are unfiltered,” he says.
Creating a successful media relations tech PR campaign requires a deep understanding of the media landscape and a clear vision of your goals.
According to Alex, you should: “Start with an objective and work backwards. Once you have the objective, figure out what story supports it. Only then can you design the tactics to get that story in front of the right people.”
Having an experienced PR consultant who can place the right stories in the right publications is a powerful way to reach customers.
“As I tell any junior team member, there’s no substitute for experience. The only way to know what to recommend to a client is through years of practice,” Alex adds.
Content
Creating content as part of an integrated tech PR campaign involves producing valuable and relevant materials which resonate with the target audience.
Whiteoaks’ Hannah Buckley, Head of Content and Service Development, stresses the importance of specialist knowledge and how it means that content is created with the target audience in mind and so is ‘written in their language’.
“We write about highly complex topics across everything from cybersecurity to the latest innovations in healthtech, so it’s only right we take the approach of having a team of dedicated, specialist content writers,” she says.
She adds at other agencies, you may find ‘all-rounders’ within a team creating content for your brand.
“When content isn’t written by a specialist B2B content creator, you can really tell,” she says. This isn’t the case at Whiteoaks.
Specialist expertise ensures that content is not only engaging, balances technical depth with accessibility but also strategically aligns with the campaign’s objectives.
Integrated = team
Our experts bring experience, understand challenges and can adapt quickly. Working together with clients is key, and when experts who’ve completed many successful projects team up – as is here at Whiteoaks – they become a single force.
As Mark puts it: “We work really well as a team. We’re a medium-sized organisation, agile, and we can just go and talk to each other across the desks. We’re all genuinely interested in making our clients’ campaigns work – we’re driven by their success. And we love what we do.”
Make sure it’s only experts who are conducting your integrated Performance PR campaign. Take the first step in raising your game by contacting us today
