Working With Consumer Tech PR Campaigns
In the latest instalment of our Working With series, Miek Gielkens from Progress Communications shares her top tips and best advice for delivering a successful consumer tech PR campaign.
Pro-tip 1: Remember Your Audience
Consumer tech companies need to ensure that their content appeals to both the early adopters as well as the general public. On the one hand, this means you need to highlight the specs and features of your products for the tech savvy audiences, but also develop content—whether written, video, or audio—that is understandable and relatable for a broad audience. I say this tongue-in-cheek, but you need to “make your story understandable to both a 14-year-old and your granny.” You can’t make the story too complicated. The content and storylines must be translated into plain and simple language.
Pro-tip 2: Communicate the Measurable Benefits
Consumer tech companies also need to demonstrate that the story has clear benefits for the user.
In B2B PR, we often focus on numbers and data, such as return on investment or other financial gains for a business, productivity improvements, or efficiency metrics.
For a consumer tech story, however, we need to focus on how the new technology makes the consumer feel— but in a measurable way. How will it make life easier? Will it save time? Can it make someone healthier? Can it improve sleep patterns? What does the consumer gain from using it?
The stories in a consumer tech campaign should still be factual. They’re feature- and benefit-oriented.
Pro-tip 3: Try to Go Beyond the Product
It can be difficult for consumer tech companies to think beyond their own products. However, the best campaigns do this well by finding a common concept that ties all their products together. The common concept ideally should link back to the gain it offers to consumers.
For example, is the new product or gadget part of a smart home ecosystem or a wellness product? Is it a smartwatch or a productivity app? There are specific media outlets and journalists who follow these categories or industries, so it makes sense to elevate the product accordingly.
It’s rare for a product to create an entirely new category, but it can happen. I recently spoke with a tech company that was potentially (in my view) creating a whole new industry called “smart home cleaning.”
Pro-tip 4: Utilise PESO
B2C tech companies need to consider the entire PESO communication mix to ensure campaigns leverage earned, paid, and social media, while ensuring everything online is in alignment. Consumers respond well to integrated communication, often far more so than B2B buyers. Working with influencers is especially important as they are often considered as a reliable source of information for consumers.
Pro-tip 5: Reviews Are Still Really Important
Managing product reviews is a real skill, and they are a key part of consumer tech campaigns.
A good agency will ensure that you have products available, can distribute them efficiently to the media, and ensure they’re returned!
Consumer tech companies need to remember that access to the product is essential If you want 20 reviews but have only one product for the market, it’s going to take us 40 weeks to achieve those 20 reviews!
Preferably review devices should be available well ahead of the product landing in retail. Journalists and influencers are keen to review a product well ahead of consumers getting their hands on it.
Pro-tip 6: Seasonal Events Are Not to Be Missed
In B2B tech PR, you might have several trade shows throughout the year that need to be integrated into a campaign. However, in B2C, we have many seasonal events—Christmas, Spring, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, World Cocktail Day, International Picnic Day, World Cleanup Day, International Podcast Day, Cybersecurity month, Black Friday, and more.
These seasonal events or national days can and should be incorporated into a campaign.
Media alerts are often tied to seasonality. Our partners in Spain, the Noizze Media team, call this tactic ‘day-keting’ and frequently include it in their local campaigns.
Pro-tip 7: Measurement Matters
Determining whether a consumer tech campaign has been successful can be difficult (just like in B2B).
Sometimes, brands ask, “What is the AVE (Advertising Value Equivalent)?” This can be uncomfortable because it’s no longer a preferred measurement tool.
Luckily, more common metrics now include reputation. Share of voice is quite often used, and sentiment—whether reviews are positive or negative—is also important. However, it often comes down to how many reviews were achieved.
Typically, these metrics are quantitative—pure numbers—and lack qualitative insight.
My view is that all of these factors matter, but the collective weight of them is a better measure of a campaign’s success. PR should be evaluated on multiple levels, not just one (like AVE).
Consumer tech PR
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