Every two weeks our team sits down over lunch to discuss client campaigns that are underway or upcoming and to reflect on recent successes and challenges. Aside from being a great team bonding experience, these lunches offer an opportunity to exchange ideas and to learn about new trends and effective media outreach practices from our trusted colleagues.
During our most recent lunch, two of my colleagues were detailing a laundry list of successes on behalf of their clients, and as someone who has been struggling to secure coverage for a small, startup client, I was eager to learn their secret. Why were these other clients generating so much media coverage when on the surface, their stories weren’t particularly “sexy”?
The answer is also not that sexy: They have data and data opens doors – or it at least gets writers to respond to your emails.
As PR practitioners, we’re more likely to lean toward the power of words to communicate the defining qualities of our clients, but advances in technology have brought us a whole new language and it’s based on numbers. Access to client or industry analytics, statistics and numbers helps us better understand consumer usage and how it impacts our clients’ (or their competitors’) success. More importantly, this data helps us to frame a story or trend that will be relevant to writers who are hungry for meaningful content and reliable sources.
If your client doesn’t already have data to share, encourage them to invest in the research. Consumer behavior is generating massive amounts of data across digital channels and according to McKinsey & Company (see graphic below), companies using big data in their marketing efforts are generating an average of 6 percent higher profits than their competitors. They’re probably also generating more media coverage.
Data can also help us to justify a larger campaign budget or increased resources, so it behooves us to opt out of the age-old theory that PR practitioners can’t do math (we actually can; we have calculators) and to opt in to the numbers game by participating in the conversation with our clients and with media.
For more information about the big impact that data can have on business, check out the following infographic:
