How to Set Up a Campaign

Campaigns are the heart of Preston and are how you generate, send, and track emails.

Each “Campaign” should be on a unique topic, on which you have a specific message you want to communicate. These could be general topics like “cybersecurity” or more specifically, limited news stories like “reproductive health legislation.” 

Steps on how to create a campaign:

1. Log in to your account. 
2. At the left-hand side panel, you’ll find the Campaigns section. Once you click on it, you’ll be able to access launched and drafted campaigns, as well as statistics of the emails sent. 
3. At the top right-hand corner of your screen, you’ll find the New Campaign button. Click on it to start creating your campaign.

Once you’re in the new campaign creation, there will be four steps to successfully launch it. 

First step - enter information: 

1. If you’d like to generate a new pitch from scratch with the help of AI, you can either:

• Generate a pitch based on a relevant story by providing a news link and point of view on the content, or
• Generate a pitch with an original idea by writing 3-4 sentences based on your talking points and click on the “Generate” button. The platform will fill out the campaign name, subject line, and pitch content. Feel free to adjust any of this content to make it more accurate to what you want to communicate.

2. If you want to write a pitch manually, first name your campaign in the box at the top of the screen. The name of the campaign will be useful for you to locate and keep track of what you have sent.
3. Enter a subject line. This is what the recipients will see as the subject in the email.
4. Write or generate your pitch. If you wish to use an already-written pitch, you can copy-paste it in the box below the subject line.
5. Enter a call to action. Write a short sentence at the end of your message that encourages an immediate response.

Pro Tip: You will likely find more success with pitches that are focused on something interesting in your industry rather than your company itself. 

After this, you can go to the next step, which is selecting the contacts for your campaign.

Second step - choose journalists: There are two ways to select who you want the campaign to be sent to. 

1. “Use a List”: When selecting this option you will be able to select an existing list saved within your account or to upload a .csv file if you wish to be more specific in your contact selection. Important: Make sure to check and agree to the Intelligent Relations Privacy Policy. After you select or upload the list, click on “next step” and select the journalists you think will fit your campaign, then click "next step.”
2. “Find Journalists”: When selecting this option, the platform will search and recommend journalists from our database based on the content of the pitch. Use filters to narrow and customize your search results and select the journalists you think will fit your campaign, then click "next step".

Third step - final checks: In this step, you’ll be able to check your email preview and a list of the journalists you selected will appear. You can click on each one of these if you wish to verify the information individually. In case you notice a common mistake in all of the emails, there’s an option to update the template at the top right-hand corner.

Recommendations: Check the “Send Follow-Up Email” box to draft an email that can be sent automatically if a journalist does not reply after three days. 

Note:   If you have  questions or need help, please contact [e-mail]