Can you run like a girl?

PRMarketing.com with Big Budah from Fox 13 and Run Like a Girl Retreat Owners

Lori and I can. After attending a three day running retreat, called Run Like A Girl, in Midway, UT, we learned the proper biomechanics, nutrition, and (most importantly) motivation, to get out and run like a girl. Our company sponsored the retreat by taking care of their PR and online marketing.

And I would like to say that not only did Lori hit a homerun in the 5k, but our team hit a home run with their marketing. (Too many baseball analogies for an article on running?)

Our marketing was only successful because we tailored their campaign to their needs. Campaigns are not a one-size-fits-all kind of thing. Each client is unique, their needs are unique, and the solution must be unique. This was the first year for Run Like A Girl Retreat. They needed increased public awareness of their brand and more attendees to register. We found success by addressing each need through a unique blend of traditional and online public relations.

What are your needs?

In order to create a successful PR and marketing campaign, you must first identify your needs. If you’re selling lemonade on a street corner what do you need to do to sell more lemonade? Should you increase the number of cars driving by? Increase the number of people who actually stop their cars and buy some lemonade? Or increase your brand awareness among neighbors, so they can’t stop thinking about lemonade while they’re outside mowing the lawn?

If your lemonade stand is on a busy street, or your street doesn’t have parking, or you don’t have a lot of neighbors (note: if you’re facing all three problems at once, you need to go to a different street corner), then you’re going to need specific solutions that are tailored to your needs. Increasing traffic on a busy street might help a little bit, but you should probably focus on increasing the amount of people who actually stop the car.

Lori Gilson in an interview with Big Budah from Fox 13

Bottom line: Analyze your marketplace and identify your personal needs.

Creating a solution

So you’ve figured out your website’s needs. How are you going to address them?

As an online marketing and public relations company we’re really good at writing optimized press releases and submitting them to major news sites so they drive national awareness. But Run Like A Girl didn’t need national awareness, yet. They needed women in a specific geographic location to learn about their first-ever retreat so they could actually attend. Because of this, we chose to do things differently and submitted their optimized press release to media outlets surrounding the Midway, UT, area. Through the years the retreat will grow and eventually have different locations around the nation, but for now, they have one location, and they need women to go to it.

Bottom line: Think outside the box and be willing to change set routines or routes to perfectly address your specific needs.

Successfully implementing the campaign

How do you make sure the campaign works? Well for starters, you don’t give up. For Run Like A Girl Retreat we identified their needs, created a solution, submitted it to news outlets, got stalled when a higher-up from Fox 13 wanted us to change our story. So we did. We made it better, resubmitted it, and eventually got Run Like A Girl Retreat featured on their morning show.

Figure out what it takes to implement your solution and do it. If it’s a social media campaign, map it out, make goals, stick with it. If it’s getting your story published, write it and send it out. If they don’t run it, rewrite and resend.

Bottom line: Be persistent, be creative, and make sure to implement those ideas.

What we did

Lori Gilson and Mary Houghton after completing the 5k at Run Like A Girl Retreat

For Run Like A Girl Retreat we combined online and traditional public relations. They needed more awareness and attendees, so we worked hard and got them featured on Fox 13’s Good Day Utah. They also needed to boost local traffic to their site so we wrote up an optimized press release and submitted it locally.

That left us with only one thing left on our to-do lists: rock the retreat’s 5k/10k on Saturday morning. I unfortunately didn’t implement my pre-retreat work-out plan so left this goal to Lori. Lori picked up my slack and, like always, went the extra mile.

Literally.

She accidentally merged the 5k (3.1 miles) with the 10k (6.2 miles), running a total of 4.5 miles.

Bottom line: Instead of placing in the 5k, Lori placed first in the 7.2k.

About the author

Mary Houghton

Mary is a copywriter for PRMarketing.com. Before joining our team she worked as a copywriter at Euro RSCG Chicago and the Church History Library. She received her degree in advertising from Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah.