Building Your Reactive PR Strategy with Alice Walker Gibbons

If you missed it, Alice Walker-Gibbons, the Digital PR Lead at Embryo, an independent UK digital marketing agency, wrote a fantastic case study about how they used reactive PR to land some major links (using BuzzStream, of course 😉).

I was intrigued by her success, and since I recently posted about reactive PR, I wanted to investigate her approach because Embryo really seems to have it down.

In this podcast, I had Alice walk me through her process step by step to really understand what it takes to identify a piece of news and run a reactive PR campaign for it.

She talks about everything from setting up a news monitoring workflow to building content banks to crafting pitch emails.

I’d highly recommend checking it out if reactive PR is on your radar.

Key Takeaways

Based on my chat, here are some takeaways for setting up your own reactive PR strategy.

Set Up a Collaborative News Monitoring System

• Dedicate daily time (especially the first hour) to monitor news sources like Google News, BBC, NY Times, and niche industry sites.
• Use a centralized system (like a Slack channel) where team members can share opportunities in real time.

Build a Content & Expert Quote Bank

• Audit client websites early to identify reusable content that can be adapted for reactive stories.
• Develop pre-approved expert quotes on evergreen topics to speed up approval when a story breaks.

Speed is Critical—But So is Precision

• Ensure your pitch, press release, and content update are aligned so journalists see a consistent, timely story.
• Prioritize a smaller, high-quality media list over mass outreach—target journalists who have covered similar topics recently.

Optimize Client & Journalist Relationships

• Develop relationships with “SEO journalists” who cover trending topics.
• Keep an updated, evolving media list (don’t rely solely on databases like Roxhill—double-check journalists’ recent coverage).

Integrate Reactive PR into a Bigger Strategy

• Don’t solely rely on reactive PR—it works best as a supporting pillar to proactive campaigns and SEO-driven content.
• Use industry events, awareness days, and major reports as structured, semi-predictable reactive opportunities.

The last tip here is key: ven if a reactive pitch doesn’t land, the process strengthens media relationships and positions your brand as a go-to source.

Transcript

Here is an edited transcript of our conversation.

Can you tell me a little about Embryo?

Alice: Yeah, sure. So yeah, Embryo is an agency and offers kind of integrated services. So from affiliates, paid social, PPC, creative, um, and then PR as well, obviously, so we have a few different.

streams of activity. So from kind of that reactive press office, um, pillar to more stories. Um, so there, it can be kind of SEO led stories, which hone in on like key focus areas, um, and how to boost organic growth of specific categories, or it could be more brand led stories. So whether it’s to support kind of a product launch or key messages that a brand wants to, uh, Really kind of put out there and then there’s bigger creative campaigns as well.

So that can be multi-touchpoint, multi-channel, and those bigger, more awareness-led pieces, but it can also help to support organic growth.

Vince: Yeah. And I guess I brought up the reactor PR thing because I was writing a piece about it at the time. So it was very top of mind, but it was something that, you know, you specifically said.

Right? Like you have it as one of your three pillars of service offerings. And I mentioned this earlier, but I at least personally feel like the reactive PR piece isn’t as prevalent here in the U. S. And it may just be the fact that the U. S. is so large and the U. K. is so small, but condensed. It feels like it’s, you know, just something that a lot more UK agencies are keen to kind of provide within their services. This is it. Kind of sound like the case for you as well.

Do you think reactive PR is something more common in the UK?

Alice: Yeah, I typically say I’ve always kind of come off, come across a kind of reactive element, um, in kind of agencies here as well. But yeah, everyone kind of has different phrases or terminology, um, I find from agency to agency and even PR to PR.

But yeah, for us, it’s very much kind of a part of that story led strategy. So. It’s kind of a supporting element to it. So it can be anything from, you know, kind of monitoring the news, journalist requests, or that more technical link-building aspect as well. So, um, kind of link reclamation, unlinked brand mentions and converting those, um, and yeah, kind of product pushes as well in response to trends.

So it’s that kind of always on approach and that helps to support kind of the wider strategy as well. But yeah, interesting that it’s not really. Taken off as much in the U S and it feels like, yeah,

Vince: I would say it might be kind of more because of the focus being more on the link-building side of things and less on, you know, tying the digital PR into more traditional PR story-led stuff.

I mean, a lot, don’t get me wrong. There’s plenty of agencies that do it, but I just don’t feel like it’s as prevalent. So I’d like to get into. Setting up the press office as you called it and kind of tactical advice that you have for people but Let’s start instead kind of with outlining maybe a campaign, um, that you’ve had success with this in, because I think it’ll kind of help people understand kind of the building blocks and the, you know, potential end results.

So do you have an example of a campaign that you might be able to kind of walk us through for the reactive PR approach?

Can you give us an example of a reactive PR campaign?

Alice: Yeah, sure. So we’ve. I’ve got a good example recently actually, um, in the UK there’s been a big surge of norovirus, um, which is a sickness bug, uh, which thankfully I’ve not had.

Vince: 24 hour sickness, right?

Alice: Yeah, not good. So yeah, we spotted a surge in cases and the NHS had released some data. Um, I think it was compared to the previous couple of months. Um, and typically for this kind of time of year, the cases were way higher than than usual.

We have a client who provides online training courses, and healthcare courses are one of their key focus areas. Yeah. We already had an existing piece with some relevant information on medications that you shouldn’t take together. Then we spotted this trending news story and thought that could be a great hook.

So we tweaked what we already had with the data and just made it more relevant to the trending news story and added in a couple of additional tips. Then we outreached that to key media titles, and it landed across nationals and regionals with SEO writers as well. It really got on some great titles, including The Mirror, Express, and a few others.

So, yeah, it was a rapid turnaround. It didn’t take us that long, either ehich often, I feel, is the way with reactive.

Sometimes, you can work so hard on a big campaign, and it doesn’t necessarily land as much as a one-hour reactive can. But, yeah, it went on to do well with kind of limited resources, really.

Vince: Yeah. So the turnaround was one hour?

Alice: Yeah. We drafted it in. Yeah, about an hour.

We outreached it the same day we spotted it. So, yeah, speed is quite key, but I think because it was. Just breaking in the news as well as we caught it right at the kind of tip and the only kind of coverage it had got was from the NHS data itself.

So no other PRs have had chance to jump in there yet. I think that’s the key bit. When you’re doing a reactive, you kind of have to assess, you know, is it worth it? Is it worth? Can you do it in the time that you’ve got? It always helps as well.

Thankfully, our clients are really quick at signing things off.

That helps as well.

A longer approval process can make it a little bit more tricky, but in this case, it worked out.

Vince: Yeah, and we’ll come back to that because I think that is a big piece of this, but I want to understand too that, so you saw this trending topic, the neurovirus trending.

How did you come across this? Is this something you actively look for health trends on like a daily basis?

Do you actively look for topics for reactive PR?

Alice: Yeah. So I’d say every day we spend first hour and then we check intermittently, um, throughout the day across different news sources. So, uh, Google news is great for just a snapshot of what’s going on in the world.

Um, and then we check kind of BBC. Uh, news as well. Then, we break it down into industry-specific sections as well.

So, we’re making sure that we’re reading all the niche ones that we might not naturally read, but our clients are obviously, um, really important in that space. So yeah, making sure you’re kind of digesting all that news.

And I think we spotted this one just from a Google news alert that came through and then it made the perfect fit for this piece that we already had.

Vince: Okay. So once you. Kind of find this trending topic. The connection to the existing content was the interesting part for me. And to me that it takes like, you know, you, you really have to be in line with, and in tune with, your client has content, right.

Like to be able to pick this out. I mean, do you always need. An existing piece of content to tie it to, I guess, let’s start there.

Do you always need an existing piece of content (from a client) to pitch a reactive PR piece?

Alice: Yeah, no, you don’t always need an existing piece. You know, if you had the time, you could quickly draft something up, which we do do. But again, it’s about kind of assessing, you know, will this be a great success?

Is it worth putting the time in? Sometimes some reactives, you might think, oh, we, you know, we’ve already got great results already this month. We might park that one. But sometimes, yeah, if it. It is just breaking your thinking this would be so good for the client drafting a completely new expert comment or reaching out to the client for some unique data on it could be a great way to kind of jump on it.

But yeah, typically we do utilize our kind of bank of content and repurpose it for a lot of opportunities. So this works really well in the interior space, especially so for one client, we might draft a story and then we can adapt it and repurpose it. Many times and you can sometimes spot kind of an opportunity and think, Oh, okay, I’ve already got this content on file.

How can I tweak it? Um, and just a few tweaks, um, can kind of make it work for the journalist and their requests. So yeah, that definitely helps. I think as well when it comes to ideation, having that in the back of your mind and kind of focusing on evergreen pieces of content that can be adapted is a great way to kind of get the most out of each piece that you’re producing as well.

Vince: Yeah. I mean, are you doing also like site searches? Like, I’m sure there’s times when you’re like, this would be a great connection for XYZ site, but I don’t actually have, you know, you don’t know off the top of your head what, what posts they’ve written or what information is on the site. So like, yeah, so you talked about having like a content bank, right?

Like understanding and kind of being aware of what your client has already written so that you can kind of repurpose this for your reactive piece. What about those who, you know, have a. Super large content bank, or you’re just not as familiar. Maybe you’re a newer PR to a client. You’re not as familiar with the content.

How do you (quickly) get to know a client/site’s content that could be used for reactive PR?

Alice: Yeah, that’s a great question. I think one thing we like to do when we onboard clients is to kind of do an audit of their site. So their existing blog can be a great place to start. Um, so we’ve had quite a lot of success. from that actually.

So just making sure you’re aware of the content they’ve got. If there’s anything that stands out, um, maybe jotting it down. We have kind of a centralized, um, what we call a hub where we kind of track links and coverage, but also any kind of document links to exit, uh, pre existing reactives that we’ve done just so that we’ve got them all in one place.

We can reuse them basically. But yeah, looking at the blog and kind of making sure we’ve got those key pieces down that we think. could work, but also their social media channels as well as a good place. So if they’ve got kind of tick tock, um, pushing those out, if they’ve got kind of good stuff on there or expert led pieces, that can also be a great kind of quick win.

So I think it’s just getting to grips with each client and familiarizing yourself with all the different kind of. Pieces that they’ve already got to hand that you could potentially use, and then when you see kind of reactive opportunities come through, just double checking, making sure you’re kind of not just relying on, you know, the one piece that you currently are reaching and trying to think in the back of your mind of all the different piece of content that they’ve got and how it could work, um, would be kind of the best way to, to approach it.

Vince: Yeah, it’s something that’s always, you know, I feel like it differs based on the agencies that you speak with here that I speak with. And the thing that I’m kind of curious about how you do this approach is kind of repurposing a piece of content and then pitching it or gathering a quote and pitching that, you know, so like norovirus is trending, you know, the journalists you want to write to.

Are you basically saying like, here’s a quote from my client and here’s a piece that we have, or are you actually putting that whole piece or like, you know, highlights from that piece into the email outreach?

How do you pitch existing content?

Alice: Yeah, so I’d make it as tailored as possible. In the case of the norovirus, we made it really super tailored to that angle.

We included the data from NHS in there, Referenced how to avoid the bug, and just made it super tailored to that angle because it was kind of trending, and then we went out to SEO journalists.

So, I think updating your content not only in the pitch email but also in the press release is really key, just to make sure the story aligns. I think it’s a bit of a pet peeve if a journalist opens something, and whilst the pitch might be super up to date and have all the kind of trending news in there, if the press release looks out of date, it can.

It might look a bit off-putting. So, I’d say make sure the story is aligned from the pitch all the way through to the press release for the best chance of success.

Vince: Yeah. So let’s dig into that a little bit more again, like the press release piece is I think another thing that differs from agency to agency.

Some people don’t send press releases with every pitch. Some people do. It sounds like maybe embryo does. So the pitch itself, the pitch email is kind of. Basically, like a condensed version of the press release, and then you’re also attaching a press release.

Are you actually copying and pasting the press release within the email?

Alice: Yeah, so we copy and paste the press release into the email. Um, just so it’s all in one place, all in there. And we’ll typically kind of, in the pitch, we might Play around with different angles. So, for example, you know, the first angle will be the norovirus that original data, but then in the follow up, we might use a secondary angle in the pitch.

So if there’s anything new that’s come out around norovirus that we can add in to refresh it, or, you know, maybe a more general kind of winter health angle. Um, so the pitch is where you can kind of play around with the follow ups. But, yeah, typically speaking, we’ll include kind of, The obviously the subject line, nice, short and snappy subject line.

Um, and then the pitch will have kind of data and introduce the expert. We might bold certain bits to pull out kind of key messages or, you know, if we’ve got a really great expert as part of that, and then we’ll summarize it with. Um, I love a bullet point. So we’ll summarize with a few bullet points probably.

And then if it is the. Something that has imagery kind of linking out to high res imagery as well. And then the press release. Um, so yeah, that’s the kind of typical format we follow.

Vince: Yeah. Yeah. I like that. I mean that based off of the, some of the journalists I’ve talked to, that kind of sounds like the preferred.

I mean, it’s basically giving the journalist every single thing they need to be able to go off and just write a post, right, without even contacting you back.

Alice: Yeah, exactly. I think journalists, yeah, they don’t have much time, so making sure it’s all there ready for them just increases kind of best chance of it being covered.

Vince: And a very kind of nitpicky detail question, I guess, is the, you mentioned adding imagery.

Are you attaching imagery as file attachments or linking to a Dropbox?

Alice: Yeah, we typically link, to a folder. So just adding in all the kind of imagery, naming them as well. Um, just, you know. Is

Vince: there a reason you do it that way versus attachments?

Or do journalists not like attachments in your experience?

Alice: I’ve just personally always emailed out, but I, yeah, I just think it’s a bit more of a cleaner way. Um, and sometimes as well on kind of Dropbox, you can see if the link has been opened. So it’s another kind of weather, whether it’s got legs and is going to be covered.

But, yeah, typically I’ll just email out to kind of the folder.

Vince: for what it’s worth. I’ve heard speaking to a couple of journalists. The attachments are not a great idea.

I think sometimes it gets caught in spam and they just kind of don’t like it. So yeah, it sounds like the link is, is the best way to do it.

Alice: Yeah. I think as well, uh, adding kind of images into that body copy of the email can sometimes cause emails are going to spam as well.

So sometimes we test it out. I think it’s a bit of an ongoing debate, but yeah, we have noticed a few times that open rates will be a bit lower if we do put the images directly in the body copy.

So I think, yeah, testing it out is a good way to kind of go about it, but typically link out to the images instead.

Vince: Yeah, that makes total sense. One thing I think I want to ask it about before we get into like tactical, even more tactical advice with this is do you think reactive PR is something that you can build an entire strategy off of?

Like, can clients rely fully on this approach or is this more of like a supportive approach that you do alongside of? The SEO content or the, the hero campaigns.

Is reactive PR best as a supportive approach to other digital PR efforts?

Alice: Yeah. So for me, I feel like it is more of that supporting element to the overarching strategy. You know, I have worked on clients previously where it is the sole focus and it does definitely work.

There’s obviously more opportunity in some sectors than others, and that’s kind of the problem with it. So if you were to lean on reactive PR solely. You’re kind of waiting for the news agenda to happen and then for you to jump on it. So there’s not a huge amount that you can kind of do, um, other than in response to the news.

So in that sense, I would say it’s definitely always kind of more valuable to pair it with those stories or. Campaigns. Um, I see it as a bit more of a supporting element, but it definitely yeah, it definitely does help and is kind of helps that always on consistent stream of links and coverage coming through.

But I would always recommend kind of having other parts of the strategy as well.

Vince: Yeah, I mean, I’d love to talk more about the kind of proactive PR approach and if that’s something that you do as well.

Can you tell me more about the proactive PR you do at Embryo?

Alice: Yeah, definitely. So that’s what we call our stories. Okay, gotcha. Yeah, so that is our kind of proactive planning content.

So we’ll have a strategy and ideation session. If it’s an SEO-led account, we’ll work with the SEOs on that account to identify key focus areas, and then we’ll ideate around those focuses, and then we’ll kind of have a story strategy. So, you know, however, once a month or two a month, and then we’ll get in that flow of outreaching them.

Um, and then we’ll use reactive to support them as well.

Vince: Yeah. I mean, if people talk about, you know, depending on the industry, maybe there’s major industry trends reports that come out, you know, in the industry and kind of planning around that, or like there’s a, maybe an event that happens, you know, you talk about like the major sporting events, like that kind of holidays, Black Friday, like you can kind of set those as tent poles or, you know, like lines in the sand where you can kind of then strategize towards them.

Is that what you think about it?

Do you strategize around industry events?

Alice: Yeah, definitely. So yeah, there’s kind of awareness days. They’re quite a good one to do around as well. And then, yeah, like you say, if it’s more, you know, you might have sometimes finding B2B or more niche industries that they have actually kind of industry events coming up.

So then using that as kind of a hook as well.

So yeah, making sure they’re mapped into your kind of calendar, and weaving them into the brainstorm brief as well when you come to that stage will help you kind of align, align the two together and kind of make planned in articles around those, um, events.

Vince: Yeah, one last question again before we get into the tactical thing. Where do you put the term newsjacking? Is that the same as reactive PR for you? Or do you put reactive PR and proactive PR under the newsjacking bucket?

Is newsjacking the same as reactive PR?

Alice: It all gets a bit messy, doesn’t it? In terms of content.

But I think, for me, newsjacking sits under that always on press office.

Reactive is whether you spot a trending news story and then you jump on it. So that, to me, would fall under kind of reactive and press office, but I’m going to contradict myself here. But then there is always, you know, say if you’ve got a big campaign that’s kind of your own outreach and you spot a reactive angle and you go out with that reactive angle, it does kind of blur lines, but generally speaking, say, and uh, yeah, that kind of always-on approach.

Vince: Yeah. I struggled with that a lot when I was writing my newsjacking guide. It was like, how, cause every, yeah, everybody talks about it slightly differently. Okay. So let’s get into kind of the build of this process. We talked about how you monitor news, Google news, um, social media. Monitoring that sort of thing, I’m curious about either as an agency or even as a freelancer is it a team thing?

I guess there’s more agency question, but like, is it one person that does this? Is it a team? Do you, do you get together and talk about events? You know, I’ve talked to some agencies that do that on a weekly basis as part of this like news desk. Talk to me about how, like what the ideal setup looks like.

Do you monitor news as a team?

Alice: Yeah, definitely. So, um, you know, obviously if you work in PR, consuming the news is. Obviously key to your role. So we always encourage, you know, in the morning to check in on that news.

And then we have a centralized Slack channel where we’ll share opportunities with each other, so you know, whether it’s not your actual client, but we’ll kind of put in opportunities for whoever works on that account.

So we definitely see it as more of a collaborative approach. We don’t necessarily have, you know, one person does reactive and that’s their job. I think that could work if you had a client, you know, a lot of clients on for that service.

But as we position it as a supporting pillar, it just makes sense for us all to own it and collaborate on it.

We also have weekly sessions, where we check in on outreach and look ahead to key dates and things coming up that we can comment on for our clients.

So, yeah, it’s always having it in the back of your mind, making sure that you’re collaborating, making sure that everyone is sharing opportunities with each other because some people’s feeds could be very different from others.

So it helps if you kind of all come together and share, share the insight, essentially.

Vince: I love that. And the Slack thing kind of seems like the most obvious choice for that. I’m curious then when it gets to like the client side and having them looped in on things.

That to me seems a little more challenging, and I’m kind of going out of order a little bit, but let’s, let’s stay on the strain of, of, you know, once you have an idea, is it something that you get approval for right away?

Then you’ll build, you know, whatever the pitch is going to be, and then you’ll get approval from the client because that seems like a lot of work to do if the client’s going to ultimately say no.

When do you loop the client into this to determine if they will go with it?

Alice: Yeah, so thankfully we have some clients that just trust us to kind of go ahead.

So that obviously helps a lot because the news works very quickly.

That obviously helps to cut out that middle person.

But for those clients who are a little bit more involved, we would always pitch it to them at that stage.

So we might spot an opportunity, think, “Oh, this is great,” and then just fire it over. As part of the onboarding process, we always like to set expectations for the reactive process with clients.

Ahead of it obviously kicking off just so that they know what to expect, what we kind of need from them.

Um, so then, yeah, if we spot an opportunity, we’ll send it over.

Hopefully they’ll approve it, um, in good kind of time.

And then we start cracking on with the build work as well.

So. Yeah, it can work a couple of different ways, but I think involving the client as well and giving them the heads up that you’re going for it either way, regardless of whether they like to approve it or not, is still good because it shows that, you know, they see that you’re being proactive and that you’re actually, you know, cracking on with things and can see that you’re kind of going after these opportunities and helping to place them, even if it doesn’t actually work out.

I think it’s always a good thing to show that it’s happening.

Vince: Yeah. I mean, do you have any advice for people, it sounds like you’ve, you’ve had some good luck with some good clients. Have you, do you have any advice for people that kind of are getting some resistance from clients or maybe the client is slow to respond?

What, what does that kind of talk look like for you?

What happens if a client is slow to respond or approve?

Alice: I’ve definitely had that as well.

Going back to my point earlier about evergreen content, I think it’s a really great way to ensure that you’ve got content that will work from various angles over multiple months.

So, you know, it might be quite a simple tips-led piece.

But if you can kind of ideation stage kind of ideate for these ideas that you could work for kind of seasonal angles, a more evergreen angle, that kind of thing.

I’d say that could work quite well because then the contents already signed off, so they wouldn’t have to kind of re-approve anything; it would just be a case of pushing it out again.

So that can definitely work and has worked for me in the past as well.

Then I’d also say trying to agree on the kind of named experts or kind of a comment or quote bank can be quite good. So using time and resources to generate quotes and comments that you think will be quite evergreen can tie into seasonality as well, coming up, and then agreeing on the kind of named experts as well.

So again, it just helps to minimize that kind of speed that you need. The reactive time.

Vince: Yeah, I mean I can kind of think of a few industries where really would benefit you to talk and get these kind of out as quickly as possible or kind of get these guidelines and quotes approved as far ahead of time as you can.

Um, which brings me kind of to my next question is are there some industries that this works? Best for and, you know, conversely, the ones that it’s not as easy for.

Are there some industries where reactive PR works better?

Alice: Yeah. I think home and interiors is a great industry. There are so many journalist requests for it every day.

Um, there’s loads of opportunity. So. Yeah, it definitely works really well in that space.

I’d say when it comes to the trickier ones, it’s definitely the more niche kind of industries. Um, you know, I’ve got a client in the trucking industry. Um, and you don’t see many opportunities for that.

So yeah, there’s definitely some where there is more, um, than others.

So, in that case, you know, making sure that you’re leaning on other tactics, um, and it was back to the point that that reactive strategy on its own maybe isn’t the right one if you do have a more niche client.

Vince: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I can see instances where maybe one or two come up a year and you can still just jump on them just as a, a value add to the client, maybe even for free, you know?

Yeah. It’s like, but but you’re not gonna build an entire strategy on it. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. That’s really interesting. Do you put the, like responding to journalist requests in that same bucket as react to pr?

Is responding to journorequests the same as reactive PR?

Alice: Yeah, I would say so. I think, yeah, that kind of media monitoring and building journalist requests and, responding to them would all kind of sit under reactive.

For me anyway.

But I think media intros and building that relationship with the journalist are part of that as well.

Ideally, you’re moving into a place where you’ve got some good relationships with journalists who would reach out to you for commentary as well. So I think it all comes into that press office kind of stream and always-on activity again.

Vince: Okay. So, yeah, you brought up this excellent point.

In the press room, press people build relationships with journalists. I’m really curious about how that practice happens within this.

I mean, is that something that you do at the very onset of taking on clients, like the same time that you’re building your quote bank and building your content bank?

Are you also then having these press, this press room? Just reach out to key journalists and start to develop these relationships.

How do you build relationships with journalists?

Alice: I think whenever you onboard a new client, as part of that onboarding process, identifying kind of the key contacts, in each space is really key.

So, you know, if you’re onboarding a new interior client, you might look through their competitors’ backlink profiles using Ahrefs to identify which journalists are linking to them and then create a key contacts list.

I’m very against having a set media list. I like to always update it make sure it’s tailored, but I do think in some cases key contacts you are always going to have a few like key ones in each sector.

And yeah, just introducing yourself and your new client to them.

Even if you’ve had the client on board for a few months or a year or whatever it might be.

Just checking in every few months and kind of reintroducing your client or sometimes, obviously, from an agency perspective, we have, you know, multiple clients in certain sectors, so it can be quite helpful to both the journalist and us if you reach out introducing kind of several experts in that space, and just a line on what they can comment on or what value they can bring.

And that just helps to keep your  your clients in the journalist mind as well.

And then the journalist hopefully would start reaching out to you as well.

But I think that comes with time. And I think it also comes with making sure, you know, if you do go after a journalist’s request, you’re kind of ensuring it’s what they’re asking for, making sure it’s valuable.

Again, deliver on speed and make sure you’re reliable.

That will help encourage a journalist to come back to you as well.

Vince: Yeah, I mean, those are great tips. And, you know, everybody I’ve spoken to recently who’s talking about journalist requests is all about speed and, and kind of getting that out there.

But they also bring up this idea that, at the end of the day, the more relationships you build, the more you can circumvent these platforms. You don’t even need to worry about checking your Haro’s, Connectively’s, Qwoted’s, whatever platform you use, or journal requests.

I am curious about how detailed you get with your targeting. So, let’s use this case of the norovirus, right?

Are you specifically talking about having your key journalists? So maybe step one is reaching out to the key journalists,.

But then step two and three, is it, or maybe it’s tier two and three, is anybody that’s talked about norovirus in the past few weeks or something, and then are you just kind of backing outward from that, and then kind of how far general do you go? Is it just anybody by the end, anyone who’s talked about health topics?

Can you talk about how you break down targeting journalists for reactive campaigns?

Alice: I would say I’m much more of a fan of a small media list. In my experience, a small media list always gets more results than a big media list.

So, yeah, I’d say step one is reaching out to those key contacts that spring to mind.

So you might be writing the piece, writing the pitch, and you think, “Oh, this journalist would be great for that.”

So adding those in initially. And then, yeah, in that case of the norovirus story, obviously it was trending.

So, going out to SEO journalists and nationals, we’re kind of the next step.

So adding those in and then, like you say, doing Google searches for norovirus and adding in anyone who’s recently spoken about the topic, just make sure if you’re doing that, though, that you’re kind of adding a secondary angle for them.

So if they’ve already written about it. Why would they be bothered by your story? So yeah, just make sure that you’re not sending them what they’ve already covered, essentially. So I think it’s fine. In this case, we did actually do that. But just make sure that you’re adding another element or valuable piece of information, which can help them formulate a story throughout their articles.

And then, yeah, I would extend it a bit more to general health writers, adding in a few more, and using Roxhill to get more relevant contacts as well. But yeah, I would always keep it quite concise and make sure that you’re not just going to anyone and making sure that they are actually writing about health and those kinds of topics.

Vince: Yeah, I mean, do you find the media databases like Roxhill, do they, are they accurate in the way that they kind of categorize people if they say they write about health? Is it pretty much on point?

How do you find journalists?

Alice: I think it can be tricky because journalists do tend to change their beat quite often. So, you know, you might find that you had a really good journalist in mind that wrote about, lamps one day and then you know that over the course of a couple months, they’ve moved their focus away.

It can be quite tricky. So yeah, while I do use those kinds of databases, I’d always suggest triple-checking that they’re actually writing about that topic still. I know it can be a bit of a long-winded process, but I think it ultimately helps you secure more coverage.

So yeah, just making sure that you’re kind of checking things.

That they’re still writing about that topic.

But for broader national contacts, I think it, it can be really good for obviously finding new, new journalists that you might not be on your radar.

Vince: Yeah, one question I had speaking with somebody else was this idea of like, people who cover breaking news, like, there are those contacts, right, at major news publications that just cover breaking news versus the health writers. So are you also reaching out to those as like your first line of outreach as well?

Do you reach out to journalists who cover breaking news?

Alice: Yes, it depends on the piece you’re outreaching. I feel like a lot of our outreach will fall under categories like health, lifestyle, and pets, where there’s a core group of journalists writing about those topics.

Um, so, yeah, we don’t necessarily reach out to kind of breaking news as much as part of kind of our activity.

But I’d say SEO journalists are probably where we kind of feed into that. So, you know, like with the Norovirus, and they tend to cover more kind of PR content as well. Whereas I feel like kind of breaking news tends to cover, you know, more kind of hard news stories, if that’s what you’re calling it.

Vince: Right, right, right, right. Car crashes and fires or something. Yeah. Yeah.

And can you, um, just briefly clarify when you say SEO journalists, are, are these the journalists that write, you know, they have a specific beat, but they’re also like half of their content is SEO driven for the publication?

Can you explain what an “SEO journalist” is?

Alice: Yeah, so typically SEO journalists will cover trending topics, essentially, they will cover pieces that users are searching for. So, for example, if there’s something trend on Google Trends, um, naturally, the perfect fit for that would be an SEO journalist. So they are, you know. Yeah, writing about topics that people are searching for, essentially.

So, they don’t necessarily have a key beat. I would say it can be quite broad, because obviously it can be quite broad what’s trending. Um, but they’re great for anything like, um, yeah, kind of seasonal, uh, pieces, like Bonfire Night was a big one recently. Um, A norovirus, those kind of key moments that happen, uh, adding those SEO journalists in, and typically they can cover content quite quickly as well because of the nature of it.

So if it is something that is literally trending, you’ll find it gets covered quite quickly. Um, whereas, you know, more lifestyle pieces or interior journalists, they can take a lot more longer to kind of cover the pieces because it’s not got that sense of urgency, I guess.

Vince: Yeah. I’ve never actually heard the term SEO journalist.

Maybe I’m wondering if it’s like a UK specific thing or I’m just totally out of the loop, but it sounds like it’s maybe also people who are covering like maybe I’ve seen like trending topic journalists or something like that’s their beat is like trending topics.

Okay, so to kind of put a bow on this whole conversation, it seems like the reactive piece is something that I kind of want to, I don’t want this to sound like I’m casting a bad light on it, but it’s like, it seems like a lot of work to be kind of always monitoring the news and looking for, you know, opportunities.

And, you know, there might not be any opportunities to what, how do you kind of pitch this?

How do you think about this internally? Because it does seem like something I know one of the answers to for sure, I’d love to hear your thoughts on the benefits of this outside of just getting coverage.

What are the benefits of reactive PR?

Alice: Yeah. Um, so yeah, I say there’s two kind of sides to it.

So like I kind of mentioned, it’s that supporting element to the strategy.

So you know when a client is on boarding with us, and initially a lot of the time on the account will go into strategy ideation, it can take a while for the first piece or campaign to be built and launch, so reactive comes in really handy then, um, because you can get quick win results, especially if you’re using kind of on-site content or blog content that they might already have.

So I’d say that’s where it can be really helpful in the first quarter, essentially, of onboarding a new client.

And then I’d also say around reputation management.

So from the brand side of things, having a consistent stream of links and coverage in the media helps to boost your reputation.

So, alongside obviously the campaigns and stories, it kind of helps to support it all. And then from an SEO point of view, it’s again that supporting kind of pillar. So, you know, the key focus areas that you might be targeting again, reactive can just kind of help to support that strategy and essentially just kind of boost the work that you’re doing. It’s that extra kind of layer, and it helps to get more results as well.

So yeah, I definitely see it as part of a holistic strategy, not as a single channel.

Vince: Yeah, what I was thinking about is that even if you do set out to spend X amount of time monitoring news and looking for reactive possibilities or potentials, even if you don’t get any, the fact that you’re monitoring and building relationships with journalists has so many more benefits. So it shouldn’t be thought of as just this isolated thing.

It should be like you’re saying it’s opportunistic, it’s built into everything else you’re doing, and it should just kind of gets the PR brain moving, like how can we make this into a story?

It’s almost like good practice to get into and stay in that mindset, which is invaluable for digital PR, I think.

Alice: Yeah, definitely. And I think, yeah, like you say, it just helps to connect with journalists in the space. So whether the reactive doesn’t result in anything, you know, you’re building those relationships and able to then kind of hopefully go on to secure further coverage through other tactics.

Vince Nero

Vince is the Director of Content Marketing at Buzzstream. He thinks content marketers should solve for users, not just Google. He also loves finding creative content online. His previous work includes content marketing agency Siege Media for six years, Homebuyer.com, and The Grit Group. Outside of work, you can catch Vince running, playing with his 2 kids, enjoying some video games, or watching Phillies baseball.

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Website: https://buzzstream.com