Creating PR survey stories that journalists love and want to cover in their editorial content, can be a very tough nut to crack. However, if an agency can get it right they can generate media coverage that gets clients seen in high profile national, trade and regional press.
As a team of former journalists, Aubergine has a unique ‘journalist first’ approach when it comes to creating survey stories and as a result, we have a brilliant track record for securing insight-led media coverage. Having worked behind the scenes in print, television and digital newsrooms for so many years, we’ve been ‘sold’ stories by countless PR types ourselves, so we know what works and what doesn’t.
Here’s how we make survey stories work, time and again, for our clients:
Nail the brief. We begin by working with our clients to find out exactly what sort of key messages they want to convey
Journalist interviews. We then spend a great deal of time talking to our extensive network of journalist contacts to find out what sorts of headlines, angles and stories are of interest to them, which fit in with the client’s key messages
Work on the questions. Once we have an idea of the angles and headlines that will work for both the client and the media, we work with the chosen market research agency to develop the questions for the survey. We never take it as a given that these questions are right first time, we work on them to hone them and ensure we know they are going to give us strong results
Analyse, analyse, analyse. Once the survey has been into field and we get the results, we analyse them to find out the best angles that have been uncovered. We are unique in the PR world in that we work with an independent market research consultant specialising in quantitative research, who takes a deeper dive into results and finds angles we perhaps didn’t spot initially
Develop the story. Armed with our brilliant statistics, headlines and angles, we develop a press release for the client to approve. We ALWAYS create several versions of the same release to ensure we’re tailoring it to the various target media. If we think it’s relevant, we also develop infographics or even an in-depth report, to accompany the story
Selling in. When the press releases are approved, we hit the phones, speaking one-on-one to our huge journalist contact database, or we meet them for face-to-face briefings. We think speaking to journalists first then following up by email is the best approach as it’s the best way to get feedback and insight into their interest in the story. Blanket emails are a no-go for Team Aubergine
This formula has seen us secure some amazing results for our clients, for example:
Flyt – We worked with YouGov to launch a survey to establish why the dining industry has been struggling of late. We integrated the results in a bespoke thought leadership report, which we wrote in-house using our journalistic writing skills, accompanied with infographics and a press release to sell-in. This resulted in widespread national coverage including standout pieces in The Times and the Telegraph. See the full case study here
The Ice Co – Europe’s largest manufacturer of ice came to us with a brief that they wanted to create buzz around their brand during the World Cup 2018, coinciding with the hottest summer on record. Our survey found Millennials were shunning the pub to watch the World Cup at home and were drinking less than ever before, which peaked several journalist’s interest. We saw widespread consumer coverage including in the Daily Express, Sunday Express Daily Mirror and Women’s Health. See the full case study here
Glorious Soups – The brand wanted to establish itself as a thought leader in health and lifestyle, taking a new approach away from product-focused PR. Our survey uncovered unique headlines around how people were ditching ‘fad’ diets and instead opting for a more balanced approach to being fit and healthy. We backed this up with a report from a food futurologist and infographics, securing coverage in Telegraph online, Huffington Post, Daily Mail and Waitrose Weekend amongst several other pieces. See the full case study here
In a nutshell, we love working on survey stories for our clients because we get such a buzz when we see all the lovely coverage filtering through once the hard work has been put in.
If you’re considering launching a PR survey campaign why not get in touch for a chat? Alternatively, if you work in PR and have been working on a survey story that doesn’t seem to have gone anywhere, we can help with that too.
