PR and Marketing Brainstorming Tips

Before you launch a PR, social media or marketing campaign, you want to make sure that you've outlined your objectives, reviewed your marketing approaches and thoroughly mined your PR stories. One of the best ways to do this is to set up a marketing brainstorming session. To start, sit down and make a list of objectives that you want to achieve before starting the process. You don't want to limit your ideas, but you do want to define the objectives you're setting out to accomplish. When it comes to brainstorming your PR and marketing strategies, your goal is to come up with a list of the ideas and approaches that will best serve you, including new business concepts, the unique value you offer, important information you offer your clients, and anecdotal stories that illustrate how you work. I also suggest spending some time focusing on how and why you can be presented as an expert in your overall field.

This type of brainstorming is generally best done as a group process. I know that if you're working on a start up, chances are you're wearing several hats, but if you have others on your team, bring them in. For example, set up a marketing- brainstorming session with your PR consultant, or, if you're doing this in-house, meet with members of your staff. If you're a one man, or one woman show, bring together some friends or associates who understand your business. You want people you can bounce ideas off. You want feedback, plus you want shared enthusiasm and energy. Make it fun; make it a game, but one with a purpose.

When you do set up a brainstorming session, allow everyone involved to speak freely. Set up an agenda but let the information flow. Think out of the box. Be creative. Remember you don't have to use all of these ideas but the deeper you drill down, the better the chances of mining some real marketing gold, so let the ideas fly. Let yourself banter about marketing, social media and PR ideas. Even if these are ideas you might never use. You never know, those might actually turn out to lead you to some golden PR nuggets.

Make a marketing list and break it down into marketing, public relations and social media. Now see how many ideas you can place in each list. For example, when it comes to social media, what are some unique Twitter, Facebook or Google+ approaches that you can take? How can you present yourself and most successfully engage with others? In the PR realm what are some different stories that you could pitch to the media? These ideas can be about your product or service, but they also might be about your journey as an entrepreneur, or they might be stories about how you've impacted others. Each one of those stories can speak to a different target audience.

In the second part of the brainstorming tips I'll be focusing primarily on social media and traditional media relations, but the brainstorming basics remain the same, step out of the box, let go of any preconceived ideas and let your creativity soar.

Copyright © Anthony Mora 2012

I'm Anthony Mora, President and CEO of Anthony Mora Communications, Inc. and author of Spin to Win. We specialize in Public Relations, Image Development, Media Training, Branding and Marketing. http://anthonymora.com

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