Budget 2021: how to boost your PR using current affairs
It’s no secret that events like the recent Budget announcement make big news. You’ll see the national news talking about them before and after the event, while niche sectors pull their own stories to show the impacts on their audiences too.
And indeed, yesterday’s Budget tapped into a whole range of need-to-know areas for HR - the furlough scheme, apprenticeships, reskilling and wage rates to name a few. And this resulted in some big coverage in the HR media - of the articles and news from seven HR news outlets yesterday, 36% of them were about the Budget. And that was just yesterday.
So how can you capitalise on these events in the future, newsjack major stories and use them to boost your PR?
Preparation is key
Firstly, you’ve got to be fully prepared.
Watch the latest news when it drops so you can react straight away. This means when it comes to the Budget, legislative changes, employment court rulings or any major events impacting your customers, you’ve got to be aware of important dates or upcoming announcements, so you're ready to take note.
Beyond this, be prepared to get involved. Find out everything relevant there is to know in order to form your opinions and share your brand’s expertise.
Find the right angle
To successfully newsjack current affairs stories, creating an angle, hook or opinion that appeals to, intrigues, or provides answers for HR audiences is essential.
Answering these basic questions will help to shape your messages for your audience:
Does this new announcement/event benefit or impact my target audiences?
How could the situation be improved?
What needs to be done now to provide support for HR?
What do HR practitioners need to do in response to the news?
Use your expertise to form practical guidance in response to these questions, ensuring that your answers support your audience, demonstrate the solidity of your subject knowledge and keep you in the mind’s eye of ideal customers.
What channels should you use?
Once you have your content and opinions prepared, there are so many ways you can repurpose them to provide guidance and support to your current and potential customers…
Prepare a news release to send to journalists with key facts and original angles on the topic to interest their audiences. (Speed is of the essence if you want to provide new, insightful takes and remain relevant to HR)
Provide journalists with a single quote from a relevant member of your team - this can be useful to journalists who need to write articles on the subject immediately and require expert opinion. (Bear in mind this should ideally be done within the hour of the original news story breaking, so preparation really is key!)
Create a customer briefing to email out
Create guidance to send to customer-facing employees so they are 100% up to date with the essential information their clients will need
Post news updates on your website
Repurpose across other content (write news style blogs, create updates for social media, or use as supplementary information in webinars).
For further support boosting your PR and communications strategy, get in touch. We’ve been helping HR and workplace related brands for over 25 years and we’d love to share our expertise with you too.