Many companies exert tremendous effort to create strategic marketing and PR campaigns focused solely on features and benefits.  While a good plan, this often neglects the chance to connect products and services to real life challenges and opportunities.

For marketing and PR professionals, its important to monitor daily local, regional and national newspapers, industry magazines and related websites for current trends and third party evangelists.  While reviewing the news recently, I found a story regarding Cyberbullying.  The story focused on the King County Prosecutor filing juvenille charges against two girls, ages 11 and 12, on behalf of the victim. 

Just prior to finding the piece, I began work with an author of a new book focused on how parents can deal with this issue.  This is an excellent chance to outreach to the family and prosecutor to help provide a solution.  At the same time, local newspapers will likely be interested in the follow up story.

Although it takes some time, the effort to monitor news and connect to your product and services could result in the highest quality exposure of any typical campaign