Events, interviews, and ChatGPT – how we’ve kept the buzz going
It’s the end of June, so that can only mean one thing – a monthly IBA roundup! We’ve been Busy IBA Bees since our May review, despite now entering the much hyped “summer lull” – an event experienced mostly in mainland Europe but bypassed in the 24×7 NA, the UK, and of course countries on the winter side of the globe (but being a global company, we never seem to notice)!
It’s also the close-out of the first half of 2023 (cue the ‘where has the time gone’ clichés!) as this Sunday (July 2) marks the exact halfway point for 2023! There’s no down tools here as it’s time to get half-yearly coverage reports complete, metric spreadsheets up-to-date, and thinking caps on for H2 planning. The PR-machine truly doesn’t stop at IBA. And with top-tier placements rolling in, international events taking place, and interviews upon interviews – don’t our clients just know it!
Here’s what the IBA team has been up to this June:
International events create opportunities for new industry connections
In last month’s monthly roundup, my colleague Sam announced the beginning of the 2023 event season – a busy period of networking with other industry experts, growing business presences, and showcasing industry developments – and the story is no different for our enterprise software client!
This month we’ve been supporting them with their newest worldwide event, a whistle-stop tour spanning nine countries across the entire event season to exhibit their commitment to business and tech development. Our task was the North America stop (OK, technically we weren’t there, but between organizing travel arrangements, 1:1 interviews, and the flurry of social activity – we felt like we were)! We secured some new faces from tier-one media so that meant our client could break new ground with opinion leading journalists.
Social channels were a hive of activity and post-event features across an array of industries including service and construction and engineering have flown in as we’ve used our strong media relationships to follow-up with our journalist attendees to secure during and post-event feature coverage. We now have a post-event interview locked and loaded in the diary as I’m writing this so stayed tuned on that front!
Listen, it’s so easy to think once you’ve placed the article or got the journalist to the event, you can hang up your PR boots and relax. No way. The job goes on and often some of the best coverage and media relationships are achieved post-event.
Interviews, interviews, interviews – an eye-catching hook to gain interest
But that’s not the only interview that’s been on the IBA radar this month. In fact, interview requests have been in abundance.
What’s the secret, you may ask? Why the use of an effective attention-grabbing hook that leaves the journalist wanting to find out more! The hook can vary, and the theme can be whatever is topical in the industry right now. Take our Nasdaq listed insurance and data analytics client, who announced a new Managing Director of Claims for the UK. Boring? No way. After careful targeted pitching to industry-specific publications, our client’s SME was invited for a tier-one interview to discuss his future ideas for the claims market and developments helping insurers tackle 2023’s critical pain points.
But the classic method of article pitching still holds its value in ensuring unique interviews fly your way. Through pitching one of our automotive client’s CIO thought leadership piece, we’ve secured many top-tier placements to date including the WSJ – but this month we managed to smash our previous accomplishments by securing an interview with the UK’s highly impressive Computer Weekly (a publication with a circulation of 397,636 – a bit smaller than the WSJ but for it’s market impressive none the less)! Both sides of the pond covered and they happen to be our client’s two target markets! Our client’s CIO is on a roll having been featured over 11 times in just a few months.…
Topical articles can go a long way when generative AI and automation are on the brain
So, what about a topical theme to secure earned media coverage? IBA’s bread and butter.
We recently highlighted in our HubSpot 2023 State of Marketing Report blog how generative AI and automation has had tongues wagging in the PR and Marketing world.
Generative AI and the famous ChatGPT have been burning hot topics this year, both in the B2B and B2C news cycles. We explored the match made in heaven between ChatGPT and EDA for our data movement client, which generated huge interest from North American media, with one journalist asking for more and more!
Not only is the topic proving popular for our clients, but also for our CEO, Judith Ingleton-Beer. My colleague Caitlin, recently shared her crystal ball predictions that Judith’s thought leadership piece would land in a top-tier publication – and as last month’s round-up confirmed, this prediction did in fact came true, not once but twice! Well, another month has passed and the good news didn’t stop there as Judith’s article has secured four more placements in June with the likes of eWeek, PRNews, and more!
The busy bees of IBA
So, there’s your whistle-stop tour of how June went down in the (new and swanky) IBA offices – with more pitching underway and interviews on the horizon, I’d better get back to it!
Georgia Harris is a PR Executive at IBA International.
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