Taking a New Approach to Public Relations: A Case Study

By Bethany, PR & Social Media Strategist | June 24, 2019

According to a 2018 study from Muck Rack, 53% U.S. based journalists do not rely on press releases at all. That’s over half of the media industry. Also, 27% of journalists said in the study that they choose Twitter as their primary news source.

As public relations practices evolve, communications professionals are changing their tactics to approach publications and writers for earned media. It’s hard to make a connection to a writer when their inbox is constantly flooded by emails, and unfortunately most media don’t look at press releases that come to their inbox anymore.

We’ve changed our approach to pitching media, by making it more personal. Instead of sending mass emails to long press release lists, we take the time to carefully research and craft a list of niche writers that would actually open our emails.

Then, once we’ve narrowed down a specific list, we craft personal messages to writers on these lists to grab their attention and prevent our emails from being ignored.

In early April, we sent out a story for our client Overlook Pointe using this method. We narrowed down a niche list of writers that wrote about the real estate market in the Greater New York City area. Instead of using traditional press release tactics by email, we wrote a personal pitch to each writer, with highlights from an attached long-format story.

The open rate for this personal email was 22%, higher than average industry open rates of 17%, and we landed an article for our client in the Westchester Business Journal, which fit their targeted audience personally.

Changing our approach to public relations by sending a personal pitch rather than a standard press release has improved our public relations statistics for our clients.

Do you need to change your PR strategy? Set up a consultation with me: bethany@bbggadv.com.