How calendar appointments can be PR pros’ secret weapon

Well, there are those who don’t organize at all, but they’re probably not PR people.

I used to be an old-school-written-planner person, but lately I’ve adopted the e-calendar life personally and as a PR tool.

● Press appointments and briefings. This is the most common use. Whenever we’re connecting a client with a press appointment or phone briefing, we make sure both sides know everything that they need to know for the meeting. For clients, we can include information about the writer and publication, and what they’re interested in covering during the interview. On the other side, we use it to include information about our clients and their products—perhaps the press kit—so they have access to anything that they might need during or after the briefing.

● Events. For press events and trade shows, it’s important to have information at your fingertips. A calendar appointment is an easy way to plop a bunch of information and make it accessible so it doesn’t get buried in email. You can send these to both your own team with information that they need to know, and to press people attending so they can find your event and contact you as needed.