Having no news is not an excuse for having no coverage: Get some facts, STAT

One of the biggest challenges in B2B Tech PR is the issue of news, or lack thereof. We are not in the business of having flashy new handsets to release, and while this does help us to avoid getting embroiled in any ‘bend-gate’-like sagas, it does mean that we have to be more inventive.

There are a number of tactics at our disposal, but one of the key ways to create news is through research and statistics. Journalists are often very keen to have new, independent statistics as they make for great headlines and can be used to get a broader picture of what is happening in the marketplace. We have found time and again that research is one of the best ways to get noticed, with the added bonus of being usable across the business for sales and marketing.

However, there is a lot of competition for airtime. The critical thing to make your research stand out is to ensure that the story you build is compelling enough for a journalist to see the news value – it needs to focus on the issues and customer challenges, not products. Journalists are bombarded with research every day, the only way to stand out is to really think about what will be interesting and tie research into current trends and issues. You need to know what message you want to get across and find a way of reinforcing this using third-party data to support your argument. There are many different ways to get this data, with pros and cons to each, but we have the experience to help guide clients on the best route to take, as well as generating creative ideas that get clients noticed. Here are some examples:

• Analyst research: Having an analyst conduct research on your behalf often lends credibility making it more appealing to journalists. However, they can often be expensive, so it is important to think about the broader value and return on investment before embarking on such a project. Should you choose this route, it can be extremely rewarding. Take, for example, the recent iPass Global Market Index. The research not only received top level coverage in the likes of the Economist, BBC and The Independent – it was also turned into a global Wi-Fi map which is being used in customer meetings.
• Headline-driven research: Using an analyst firm is not the only way to get verifiable stats, third-party research companies can too, often at a more reasonable price point. The strength of the story is extremely important though, as often these surveys can be met with journalist skepticism, if you get it right though you can get some fantastic results. For example, a mainframe research piece we conducted earlier this year resulted in nearly 20 pieces of coverage across trade and vertical press, such as ZDNet, The Register, The Manufacturer, and Retail Technology.
• Freedom of Information requests: Under the Data Protection Act, all public bodies have to respond to any reasonable request for information made. This can be a particularly helpful tool if you are trying to illustrate the extent of a problem. Again, story creation is crucial. One example was a hardware encryption client, ViaSat; here we asked UK police forces how many electronic devices were stolen in 2013-2014, to show just how common theft is and why people should take care of their belongings. This resulted in tier one trade and national coverage in publications such as the Register and the
• Media alerts: Another option for using statistics is to actually pull together information that is already in the public domain to create a call to action for the industry in the form of a media alert. An example of this was with our client ElasticHosts, an Infrastructure as a Service provider, who wanted to highlight the cost of wasted capacity to support a new product it had launched. By analysing existing data around under-utlilisation and comparing this with cloud spending, we were able to determine that $1.7 billion is wasted each year, resulting in 12 pieces of tier one coverage with the likes of ZDNet, Computing, and Cloud Pro.

Yet research and statistics are not the only way companies can get noticed and generate coverage outside of the news cycle; in my next blog, I’ll be looking at proactive pitching and how building a thought leadership platform can help to start conversations with the press outside of the regular feature calendar.