Your campaign or product launch didn’t quite hit the mark. Missed targets can feel deflating and often trigger a quick impulse to blame external factors or dive into another big promotional push. But there’s a smarter path. Turn setbacks into powerful learning experiences with thoughtful collaboration across PR, sales, and marketing.
Let’s look at what happened. Move beyond surface-level issues and dive into what’s happening from every angle. This is where PR, sales, and marketing should sit together to do a deep dive. Maybe the campaign reached the right people, but the messaging didn’t hit home. Or perhaps the message resonated, but it didn’t get enough qualified leads. These are insights your team can’t find alone—they need each other.
Action Step #1: Conduct an Unfiltered Meeting. Get everyone in the same room and encourage full transparency. Marketing shares the data on what worked and what didn’t regarding reach and engagement. Sales shares direct customer feedback—what objections, questions, or hesitations did potential buyers have? PR brings forward any patterns in media responses and influencer engagement, showing where the message was strong or where it might have been missed.
Tip: Encourage honest critiques over defensiveness. It’s about understanding, not assigning blame. The goal? A cohesive narrative on what needs to shift, both strategically and tactically.
Action Step #2: Develop a Unified Message that Addresses Real Objections. Based on your learning, create a focused, unified message that addresses the gaps or misunderstandings. PR can take this message and work it into more targeted media narratives, thought leadership pieces, and influencer engagements. Sales can shape it into responses to top objections and conversations that clarify product benefits.
Tip: Keep the message customer-centric. What value does your product or campaign bring to real people? How can you prove it or illustrate it in a way that resonates deeply?
Action Step #3: Re-launch with Precision. Coordinate a small, strategic re-launch with a cohesive message, this time laser-targeted to the audience segments you know will respond. This might mean personalized email outreach from sales, a series of PR stories that address customer pain points, or even a special promotion to test response. The aim is to create momentum without the need for a full-scale re-launch.
Why This Works: When PR, sales, and marketing approach a problem collaboratively, the solutions get more insightful, personalized, and targeted. Sales benefits from PR’s ability to craft a narrative; marketing benefits from sales’ on-the-ground feedback. Together, you create something more substantial than any single team could alone.
A campaign that doesn’t go as planned is a chance to refine, improve, and reconnect with what your customers truly need. Take these insights and watch how your next move speaks to your market like never before.
