Prezly PR CRM and Media Contacts Management Training Course

Course overview

Public relations teams lose time and credibility when journalist records are duplicated, pitches are sent without context, coverage is logged inconsistently, and contact history sits in personal inboxes rather than a shared system. Prezly provides a practical PR CRM for managing media contacts, newsroom content, story distribution and relationship activity, but its value depends on disciplined data design and team workflow. This course helps communications professionals turn Prezly from a contact database into an operating system for media relations.

Participants learn how to structure a usable media-contact database, define contact fields and tags, segment journalists by beat, geography and outlet, and maintain accurate relationship records. They build targeted pitch lists, create and publish newsroom stories, distribute releases through Prezly, manage outreach activity, and record coverage and engagement. The course also addresses consent, privacy, duplicate management, workflow ownership and reporting, enabling participants to make informed decisions about media-list quality and campaign performance.

Teaching combines guided configuration in a Prezly training environment with realistic PR scenarios, including a product announcement, a sensitive issue response and an executive thought-leadership campaign. Participants practise reviewing poor-quality records, designing a tagging taxonomy, preparing segmented outreach and interpreting campaign results. By the end of the week, each participant leaves with a documented Prezly media-relations workflow pack: a contact-data model, segmentation plan, pitch-list criteria, newsroom publishing checklist, outreach process and measurement dashboard specification ready to adapt for their organisation.

The course is suited to communications professionals who own media databases or press-office processes, as well as managers introducing Prezly across a team. It is particularly valuable where organisations need more consistent journalist engagement, clearer ownership of media records and defensible handling of contact data.

Course objectives

By the end of this course, participants will be able to:

• Configure a Prezly workspace structure for newsroom, campaign and media-contact management
• Design a media-contact data model with fields, tags, source rules and ownership conventions
• Segment journalists using beats, outlet types, geography, interests and relationship history
• Build targeted Prezly pitch lists from documented audience-selection criteria
• Create and publish a newsroom story using media-ready copy, assets, links and metadata
• Execute a tracked outreach workflow covering distribution, follow-up, responses and activity logging
• Apply duplicate-control, consent and GDPR-aware contact-data maintenance procedures
• Produce a media-relations workflow pack and campaign measurement dashboard specification

Benefits of attending

Target competencies

Who should attend

• PR Managers — who need a governed system for team-wide journalist relationships and outreach activity
• Media Relations Officers — who build lists, pitch journalists and must retain reliable contact history
• Communications Executives — who publish news, coordinate campaigns and report on media engagement
• Press Office Managers — who need consistent ownership, data standards and follow-up processes
• Corporate Communications Managers — who require clearer visibility of newsroom and media-list performance
• Marketing Communications Specialists — who support earned-media launches alongside content and campaign teams

Requirements and prerequisites

This is a foundation-to-intermediate course. Participants should understand the basic purpose of media relations, including journalist beats, press releases, embargoes and pitch follow-up, and should be comfortable using web-based business software and spreadsheets. Access to a Prezly account or trial workspace is helpful but not required for attendance; guided exercises use a training environment and sample data. No prior CRM administration, coding, database design or advanced analytics experience is required. Complete beginners can attend, but should expect to practise core PR terminology and contact-management discipline before moving into campaign workflows.

Training methodology

Each day combines instructor-led demonstrations of Prezly features with guided build exercises using a realistic media-relations brief. Participants inspect sample journalist records, repair data-quality issues, construct tag structures and lists, publish newsroom content, and run an outreach workflow. Short case discussions examine poor targeting, consent failures and weak handovers between press-office colleagues. Small-group reviews test list-selection decisions and reporting logic. On the final day, participants assemble an application plan that maps the course workflow pack to their own organisation’s contacts, approvals, campaigns and reporting needs.

Course outline

Day 1: Establishing the PR CRM foundation

• Prezly workspace navigation and role-based working practices
• PR CRM records versus spreadsheet-based media lists
• Media contact record anatomy and essential profile fields
• Contact-source rules, record ownership and activity history
• Data-quality indicators for journalist and outlet records
• Duplicate detection and contact-record consolidation
• GDPR-aware consent, suppression and retention considerations

Workshop: Participants audit a flawed media-contact import and produce a prioritised data-clean-up plan with ownership rules.

Day 2: Designing media data and targeted lists

• Tagging taxonomies for beats, sectors, regions and outlet types
• Custom-field design for editorial preferences and relationship intelligence
• Journalist, publication and influencer segmentation logic
• Saved search criteria and reusable audience definitions
• Pitch-list inclusion and exclusion rules
• Contact-list quality assurance before outreach
• Spreadsheet import preparation and field-mapping controls

Workshop: Participants design a tagging taxonomy and build three approved pitch-list segments for a product-launch brief.

Day 3: Building newsroom stories and campaign assets

• Prezly newsroom structure and story lifecycle
• Story creation with headlines, body copy, boilerplates and calls to action
• Media asset management for images, documents, video and links
• Embargoed content and publication timing controls
• Story metadata, search visibility and shareable URLs
• Press-kit assembly for launches and executive announcements
• Editorial approval checklists and version-control practices

Workshop: Participants create a publish-ready newsroom story and press kit from a supplied announcement pack.

Day 4: Executing and recording media outreach

• Matching pitch angles to journalist interests and outlet audiences
• Prezly distribution workflows and message personalisation
• Audience selection checks before sending outreach
• Follow-up timing, response handling and relationship etiquette
• Logging outreach, replies, meetings and editorial requests
• Managing unsubscribes, bounced addresses and contact updates
• Team handover protocols for active media opportunities

Workshop: Participants run a simulated outreach sequence, document journalist responses and prepare a handover note for a colleague.

Day 5: Measuring performance and embedding the workflow

• Campaign measurement questions for media relations teams
• Prezly story and outreach engagement indicators
• Coverage logging categories and qualitative outcome notes
• Media-list health metrics and maintenance schedules
• Management reporting for activity, responsiveness and coverage
• Standard operating procedures for recurring press-office work
• Ninety-day Prezly adoption and governance planning

Workshop: Participants complete a media-relations workflow pack and present a 90-day implementation plan for their own team.

Tools & standards covered

Prezly, Google Sheets, Microsoft Excel, General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)

A typical training day

Live online deliveries follow the same structure in the East Africa Time zone, with shorter screen blocks and longer breaks.

What the fee includes

How you can take this course

Certification

Participants who complete the full five days receive the Skillset Development Certificate of Completion, stating the course title, course code, dates and delivery format — suitable for professional-development records and employer reimbursement.

Frequently asked questions