World Cup PR planning: the five 'P's

WITH the World Cup approaching, bookmakers will be using public relations to try and secure mainstream media coverage and drive business from those all important occasional punters.

With quite a few tournaments under my belt, and some hard lessons learnt, here are my five ‘P’s of World Cup PR planning.

1) Presence: If you’re a small or medium-sized operator ask yourself if you can really compete with the big boys with their well staffed, full-time PR departments. Back in 2002, I ran a World Cup PR project for Victor Chandler. Although we achieved five times ROI in terms of press coverage, we were frequently beaten for speed of response by the Big Four and their slickly run, well-staffed PR operations.

2) Personality: PR is about building a personality for your brand. Is your brand distinctive enough to attract press interest? For example Paddy Power has cornered the ‘cheeky chappy’ media space, while the Big Four have the contacts and influence to guarantee coverage. What makes you different?

3) Product: Don’t spend too much time and effort trying to get press coverage for your new product. The mainstream media still devote relatively tiny amounts of space to betting, and stories really have to be on the button to break out of the specialist sports and betting pages.

4) Price: Regular punters are, by and large, price-driven in their choice of sportsbook. Price-driven PR is largely in the hands of your trading team, so they need to understand the PR aspect of their jobs.

5) Precision: Set out clear objectives for your PR and decide in advance how you are going to measure your success. Have a plan and set aside some budget for proper measurement.

And if you are a UK-facing sportsbook there’s a sixth one: pray that England don’t win!