The key takeaway: Q4 looks quiet from the outside, but it can be PR’s busiest season.
What should businesses be watching in PR this Q4?
Q4 isn’t a wind-down. It’s a set-up. Sure, the out-of-office replies start piling up, inboxes go quiet, and most businesses downshift for the final stretch of the year. But competitors switching off is exactly what makes the ones who stay on look loudest.
Feature magazines and broadcast slots are typically locked in four to six months before publication, which means whatever gets pitched in October and November is shaping what runs in the spring, not this Christmas. Go quiet now, and a business is opting out of an entire season of coverage before a word of it has been written.
Then there’s the lull around the holidays itself. Newsrooms slow down, but they certainly don’t stop. Journalists still need best of the year round-ups, predictions pieces and expert comments, and someone has to be the one they call.
It’s also the season most industry awards close their entries, and a shortlisting or win is one of the few pieces of PR that keeps paying out well into next year, on the website, in pitches, and in front of investors weighing you up against a competitor who didn’t bother entering.
Then there’s the fact that a lot of B2B budgets for next year get signed off in Q4, which means the businesses visible to decision-makers right now are the ones more likely to be front-of-mind once that spending gets approved in January.
Journalists are more selective than ever about what actually lands in their inbox, so a generic year-in-review pitch competes with hundreds just like it. The ones that stand out are the ones with a specific angle, ready weeks before anyone else has thought to send theirs.
How do you get ahead of Q4?
This is where keithbishop.com can help. We spend Q4 doing the unglamorous groundwork that makes January look effortless: mapping the awards worth entering, building the market predictions and commentary angles that earn a place in those year-end round-ups, lining up news hooks for the new year, and getting media lists and messaging ready before anyone else has finished their mince pies.
Done properly, the businesses making the most noise in January were the ones building the groundwork through October and November. If Q4 isn’t already part of your PR planning, get in touch.