Building news momentum and tapping into timely hot topics means the good media leads come to you!
H2 is in full swing, but there certainly isn’t any sign of PR traction slowing down!
While, particularly in mainland Europe, these months usually involve OOO’s as execs and journalists take a seat in a deck chair, the IBA office has taken a step forward with another month of all go!
Without further ado, let’s waste no time and dive into the media occurrences this month:
News is only news when it appears in print (and other formats!)
One thing July has not been short of is press releases! Press releases are a great way for B2B brands to share key company developments and build a corporate narrative. They are particularly effective during the quieter summer months in the Northern Hemisphere, offering media outlets quick, reliable news wins.
Our emergency air medical provider client and data centre infrastructure client seized the initiative to very good effect. We worked with our emergency air medical provider client to breathe human interest life into a press release celebrating 35 years of life-saving emergency services at the Virginian air medical bases and a time-sensitive deadline for residents of City of Globe in Arizona to sign up for family air medical coverage. The outcome? Seven further media placements for July, including targeted coverage in local newspapers and radio mentions on the airwaves!
From services bringing life-saving help to small communities in the U.S., we move to massive data center projects across Europe and the Americas, and for this client we tapped into multimedia to share their story, with a video news release (VNR)! Visual content is typically well received by journalists, and VNRs help provide other formats of news. And the coverage doesn’t lie – so far we have seen four placements and counting across North American financial publications as well as a briefing secured with a top capital market investment firm!
Taking hot off the press to a new level
Tapping into timely hot topics is another great way to gain high-impact media coverage over the ‘quieter’ months. For PR pros and marketing experts, hot topic tracking means being in the right place at the right time with the right content!
With our data movement client, we gained traction over multiple geographies with local tweaks made to a data center sustainability article on power usage – timely as execs lay on their sun beds, mobile in hand, surfing the great world wide web with the likes of Claude, Gemini, Co-Pilot or whatever their search partner is in their back pocket! The piece was an instant hit with a top-tier one UK data center publication, with further coverage locked in other geographies through August.
And we’re on a roll! With our asset investment planning and management software provider, we tapped into the top-of-mind topic of wildfires, as Europe now feels the heat and joins North America experiencing wildfires following unprecedented dry spells. Our client’s article on how utilities can plan mitigation strategies with wildfire prevention budgets has already seen a number of quick placements, including with one of the top utility media outlets in the U.S..
Tapping into hot topics hot off the press (apologies for the pun) secures media authority, brand trust, relevance, and even expanded visibility. Don’t wait until the topic has gone cold!
PR thought leadership comes full-circle
Once you have established news momentum with press releases and you’ve nailed relevant thought leadership with timely hot topic tracking, you’re getting journalist mindshare and trust. You know a brand has nailed their influence when interview opportunities come to them – and they come in different shapes and forms, but this month we had a triple hit!
One of our manufacturing journalists, with whom we have excellent relations, who attended client events and we have always kept in the loop regarding key product and thought leadership updates across our client base. Well their publication started a new editorial channel based on manufacturing automation, AI, and data, and our grounded relationship opened up not just one immediate pipeline opportunity, but three of our clients’ experts are to take part in this new industry series, with topics ranging from AI pilots to reshaping industrial organisations.
This is testament to how threading the PR needle can secure your place for future opportunities!
Close the loop of people-to-people relationships – no PR drought here!
When you successfully connect strategic news with PR thought leadership content, and media hot topic tracking, your pipeline will practically fill itself during leaner periods – well, not quite on its own!
Daniel Bellamy is Graduate PR Executive at IBA International.
