60 Second PR: Data-driven PR smashes press releases out of the park

You’ve got a brilliant brand, a talented in-house team, and a story to tell. Yet, if you’re like 80% of in-house marketing teams, you’re struggling to land the media coverage your stories and news announcements likely deserve. So, why the disconnect?

It comes down to assumptions. Most teams assume that journalists are sitting at their desks waiting for a traditional press release to land in their inbox. This is the last thing they are doing given that most receive upwards of 40 or 50 every day.

The reality is that of the eight primary ways to pitch a story, the press release ranks second from bottom. If that’s your only tool for generating media coverage, you’re fighting an uphill battle.

Like many obstacles, there is a way around this. If you want to move from the "trash" folder to the business pages, you need to give the media what they actually crave: Data.

Recent research from Cision confirms that originally commissioned research is now the number 1 source of information requested by journalists. That has certainly been my experience, too.

In my retained PR agency career, me and my team have worked with a vast array of Professional Services, Healthcare, Charity, Technology, and Sustainability clients among others. We have had some success with press releases, but telling stories backed up with great data has been far more successful in securing media coverage.

So, stop telling journalists what you think and start showing them what you know.

For your next PR project, don’t start with a draft release. Start with a data set. Original insights don't just get you a mention; they make you the source.

We’re a team of current PR agency practitioners who divide our time between supporting retained PR agency clients and working with in-house teams by transferring our real-world practical PR knowledge to enable your people to better manage your organisation’s PR themselves.

We can train your people to do what we do every day. DM me via paul@marcomspeople.com to talk through your options.