Personalization and quality over quantity are critical for effective cold email outreach and avoiding spam filters. Use compelling, data-driven storytelling and visuals (e.g., maps, tables) to increase PR pitch success and journalist engagement. Segment outreach by intent—PR, link building, Read more

New rules started Feb 2024 for Gmail/Yahoo and expanded in March 2025 to Microsoft—aimed at cutting spam and phishing. Bulk senders (5,000+ emails/day from one domain) must authenticate emails with SPF, DKIM, and DMARC, and keep spam complaints below 0.3%. Failure to comply? Your Read more

Cision – Largest and most comprehensive media database Prowly – Affordable, AI-powered press release builder Hunter.io – Best for email discovery and validation BuzzStream – All-in-one outreach and relationship management Ahrefs – Powerful content ideation via competitive analysis Read more

I set out trying to write a post about creating a successful survey campaign from start to finish. After bouncing a few drafts back and forth, I realized that I was putting the most time and effort into the ideation phase. So, I decided to slash two-thirds of my original post and focus solely on Read more

Within Digital PR there are different types of tactics and formats used for creating content, each designed to achieve links and brand mentions. These different digital PR tactics range from surveys, commentary and quick pieces of data analysis through to large scale interactive campaigns. However, Read more

On the 23rd March, Boris Johnston took to television screens across the UK and the words “we must do more, you must all stay at home” rang across the nation. Our lives as we knew them changed. Our industry as we knew it changed. For many agencies, this was a time of significant growth Read more

They may comprise a mere 9 to 13 words (which is the optimal length according to our recent subject line study), but these words hold plenty of power. As one of the only chances you have of getting your campaign seen by a journalist, subject lines are arguably the most important part of your media Read more

That Digital PR Campaign has been done before - can you do it again? Thoughts on why remakes and remixes fail, and how we might alter our approach to these types of campaigns. This post originally started out as a talk called Difficult Second Album Syndrome which I gave at Drink Digital earlier Read more

¼ of reporters receive 51-100 pitches a week (Cision, Q2 State of the Media Report, 2020). 

With 100 pitches you’re competing against, how do you make sure that your email doesn’t get deleted or worse, marked as spam?

With just a couple of minutes of journalists/editors’ attention (at the Read more

We’ve all read the statistics. There are now six PR professionals for every journalist. For every campaign, project, or announcement you send to a journalist, six others have done the same that day. At the least—some journalists who excel with engagement and reach receive far more pitches from PR Read more