You might despair at the amount of Christmas goods already in the shops, but Christmas doesn’t just come early for shoppers, PROs must have their Christmas stories ready months in advance.

To find out exactly how early you need to plan for Christmas, media communications specialist DWPub analysed the ResponseSource Journalist Enquiry Service to find out how many times journalists had sent out Christmas queries, to see if behaviour had changed since last year and spot any trends.

How many times journalists sent out Christmas queries on Response Source 2010 vs 2011

Daryl Willcox, chairman of DWPub, says that findings show journalists are following an almost identical pattern to last year: “As the chart shows, the hike and decrease in number of requests occur at exactly the same times as in 2010.” Willcox points out that this predictability is useful for planning, because with journalists sticking to the same pattern each year, the PR community will know when information is required and how it can help.

Discussing how particular media plan at particular times, Willcox says: “There are various schedules for different media types. Titles writing about Christmas and sending requests in the peak time of November probably have shorter deadlines, such as nationals and online media. Glossy magazines planning features up to six months in advance will tend to have long deadlines. Christmas-related requests calm down in January and then increase again in June. Numbers continue to rise in the following months and there’s a big surge in September. Our figures show a 61 per cent increase on the previous month in 2011. It will be interesting to see how many requests October, November and December yield this year.”

Discussing the time of year that PROs need to get into a festive mood, Willcox states: “PROs should start looking at their clients’ Christmas communications around June, regardless of whether a target journalist’s schedule is further into the year. They need to be prepared and have information and products in place, ready to go. If PROs have Christmas material ready when journalists start hunting for information, they may have more chance of gaining coverage. It’s also worth PROs giving Christmas communications another push in November because of the big increase in enquiries.”

It‘s not often that the PR professional have plenty of advance notice to plan and time campaigns. As Willcox says: “Seasonal events are probably the only themes in the media which we can be sure will occur and when. PR can be spontaneous, with PR professionals grabbing opportunities at any given moment. But when there’s a chance to plan and prepare, PROs should take it and use it to their advantage.”