47 Expert Digital PR Tips (From 50 BuzzStream Newsletters)

When I started (re-started) the BuzzStream newsletter in February 2024, it was just to get some extra eyeballs on the content I was producing.

But plenty of those newsletters are out there, so I wanted to do something different.

The newsletters I really look forward to have actionable advice that I can use every day.

Since I have amassed a bucket of tips, secrets, and tricks over my ~ seven years of agency work in digital PR and link building, I thought I’d start sharing them in the newsletter.

I added a section called Outreach Tips, which eventually became the “Tip of the Week” because I had expanded beyond outreach.

After getting some great feedback from readers, I recently started expanding it to include tips from other digital PRs and link builders in the game.

So, in the interest of repurposing content (thanks, Ross Simmonds!), this post collects digital PR tips from 50 BuzzStream newsletters.

Content Ideas and Tips

No amount of personalization can save a poor piece of content, so I’ve collected all of the tips and tactics around content ideation in this section.

1. Lean into city rivalries

When I was with Siege Media, I created a piece for a construction client in which we surveyed people to see if they could distinguish a city based on its skyline.

We strategically set up the survey to include some cities that looked like each other.

But what we didn’t realize is that regional journalists had their beefs with rival cities.

For instance, Philly journalists were shocked and appalled when people mistook their city skyline for New York City’s.

Cities take pride in who they are. So, if you have regional angles, lean into that.

If you are doing a city index type of post, point out when a city has “beat” another “rival” city.

When ideating, you can get strategic about planning your post to set up those head-to-head comparisons.

For instance, with the construction client, we could have really leaned into more US city rivalries, like NYC vs. Boston or Houston vs. Dallas. I could have expanded this world-wide. UK cities have massive rivalries based on football ⚽️.

Remember, this is all in good fun.

2. Use the freemium model as a link building tool

If you can create an incredibly valuable, free version of your software, you open your doors to the wide world of tool posts.

All of the free tools out there have built-in linkability because no one really wants to pay for things online.

Take Screaming Frog, for example.

If you have a freemium model and are missing out, find a competitor who does and do a link-intersect analysis on Ahrefs.

Or, just Google “best free X tools” in your industry. Reach out to every tool post that doesn’t list yours.

Here’s a fun, practical bit of outreach I received asking me to include a link to their tool.

But Free Tools are Expensive to Maintain!

A common argument, yes.

But even if your tool costs money to upkeep, compare it to the amount you would typically spend on a link.

Does your tool cost $1000 per year to maintain?

If so, that’s under market value for a high-quality link. So that’s an excellent trade.

Plus, it doesn’t violate any of Google’s link building spam policies.

Note: Not all tools make sense as a freemium model. Sometimes, limiting functionality for the sake of a freemium model takes away the tool’s usefulness. (For instance, BuzzStream doesn’t have one.)

But if you can make it work, it can pay dividends.

3. Proprietary data is a gold mine for digital PR

If you have access to it, you can use it to generate high-authority, relevant links over time.

For example, I found this great study on food delivery trends based on proprietary data from GrubHub.

However, one thing is in the way of this post getting a lot more links and coverage: they aren’t targeting a high link intent keyword.

Most people publish statistics posts because journalists and researchers often search for the term when doing research for a post.

So, this post could target “food delivery statistics.”

This is a high-intent keyword that, while it may only have 60 searches per month, has shown that it generates hundreds of unique links from referring domains for other ranking posts.

Digging into these backlink profiles, you can see that they are, on average, high DR from relevant sites that can move the needle.

Sites like Investopedia and Mastercard are a few examples.

While GrubHub’s goal may not have been to gain coverage for their report, using search traffic to your advantage will help get the most out of your content strategy.

(And who says no to free links!?)

4. Use Google Trends’ New ‘Trending Now’ section for reactive PR

According to the leaked API documentation, Google seems to prefer getting links in these kinds of fresh news stories.

The filters are where it becomes really powerful.

In the News

The “in the news” feature, which displays the top news stories related to the topic, is located at the bottom right.

The authors of these stories can quickly become journalists to target for follow-up stories, additional quote pitches, and more.

Hourly Search Filter

You can search for trending topics in the past 4 hours, 24 hours, 48 hours, and seven days.

You can also see a zoomed-in version of the trend line.

Search Volume Filter

You can look at a trending keyword’s search volume to leverage organic search.

You’ll notice that Google displays “Top Stories” higher in the SERP for many trending keywords.

So, the more search volume, the more potential for getting coverage.

Many agencies have trouble integrating this kind of reactive PR and newsjacking into their workflow. Between creating content and pitching, I barely had time.

If you can create a workflow like Mark Rofe outlined in our podcast conversation, Google Trends becomes more valuable.

Define Your Workflow

First, identify high-level topics that you think you’ll leverage. (If you are a banking client, you could talk about inflation) and pre-write some quotes for those topics.

Get approval from the stakeholders on those quotes.

Then, work Google Trends into your daily routine.

Check the trending topics at the beginning of each day and see if there are opportunities to pitch. Set it to 4 hours and then expand it to 24 hours.

5. Use emotion to lead your content ideation process

In virtually every interview or chat I’ve had with content marketers and digital PRs, they talk about how important emotion is to the success of your content.

I came across this great graphic from the folks at 6sec.org about Inside Out 2, and I thought it was an excellent way to think about content:

This graphic gives me a great starting point for content ideation or content analysis.

Pop some emotions into ChatGPT and ask for some headline ideas based on your topic.

In my post about survey ideation, I ask if your topic or headline elicits the “Pineapple on Pizza” response based on a great post from Porch called Food Fights, where they surveyed Americans on all kinds of fight-inducing topics.

So, when I was at Siege Media, we’d push our team to propose content ideas on a group Slack to see what kinds of response or conversation it could elicit.

By adopting this easy workflow, any content team can elevate their posts to the next level. This process improves the quality of content and inspires growth and innovation.

6. Visual Capitalist’s Content Library is a hidden gem

If you’re in digital PR, you’ve heard of Visual Capitalist.

But, what you may have missed is their Content Library.

This is a hidden gem for digital PR campaigns—especially those with lower budgets.

Behold, Visual Capitalist’s Content Library:

They offer a service where you can purchase a unique data visualization and use it on your site.

Most of their infographics only cost 1 credit, which is $345. (It seems like you save money if you buy multiple credits.)

Purchasing the credit unlocks the graphic, which you can then edit, add your branding, and work into a campaign.

You can even request the data and design files.

What to do with them?

Many are perfect for a city study type post, which Jodie Booras outlined in our city study post.

For instance, Europe’s Top Personal Income Tax Rates are perfect for an international campaign.

You could write a story around it and then do some link outreach to major pubs in each country.

Check the sources

However, be sure to look closely at the sources.

I’ve found some that are data visualizations of existing content, like these grocery prices mapped by state:

This data is visualized from a report by Delish, so doing outreach on it may not net you as much coverage.

7. Leverage X for data studies for cheap with Twibot

This week’s tip is for leveraging X data for content.

The tool is called Twibot, and I discovered it after talking to many PRs who said they had trouble finding a cheap alternative to X’s more restrictive API.

I was analyzing the hashtag #journorequest to determine the geo breakdown:

What is Twibot

Twibot is a very simple Tweet scraper that scrapes Tweets based on hashtag or search terms:

It pulls in information like geo, content, date, mentions, and much more.

You can then export to CSV:

The Pro version costs only $10/mo, which gives you unlimited access and is a much cheaper alternative to some of the major brand monitoring tools.

How can you use this data?

Many brands have used Twitter/X data for their digital PR campaigns.

One that I remembered was BrandWatch’s during the pandemic, which looked at Emoji usage.

Maybe BlueSky is your better bet

However, X data may not be as impressive or trustworthy going forward. Many journalists are flocking to Bluesky. So, you might want to be a first mover there.

I found a great scraper for Bluesky via Chrome extension here here.

It works similarly to Twibot (but unfortunately doesn’t show geo data).

Pricing is similar to Twibot at $10/mo.

(We did a complete study on #journorequest usage if you are interested.)

8. Check previous years for content ideas

Stuck for new content ideas?

This week’s tip comes from Victoria Schmid, Senior Digital PR & Influencer Marketing Specialist at KURU Footwear:

If you’re planning future campaigns but struggling to develop something, go to Google News and filter for news around your vertical. Narrow it down to 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, and even 2019 (skip 2020 to avoid COVID-19 saturation) and see what was happening in your vertical at the same time in previous years.

For example, if you work on a website in the fitness vertical and need an idea for October, go to Google News > Search “Fitness” > and filter to the specific date range “October 2023,” etc.

This will help you spot industry trends for that period!

My take: This is one of the best shortcuts to understanding what news outlets like to cover.

As Victoria explained, you simply go to Google News:

Then click Tools and choose Custom Date.

Adjust the date to 1 year ago:

There is a lot of talk about fitness centers opening and closing.

I wonder if there’s a way to map all of that?

There’s also a lot of talk about joining gyms as a New Year’s Resolution.

Can we study how long these resolutions last?

Thinking like this will give you a head start on building stories that tie into trends and significant events and help you understand how the news likes to cover them.

Check out our full conversation on the BuzzStream podcast with Victoria Schmid here.

Evaluating Sites for Outreach

Not every site is a good fit for outreach. Some are not relevant to your brand, others might not be quality sites, sometimes both.

Even if you have the perfect email crafted, its still worth evaluating the site for quality and relevancy.

Here are some tips for understanding the sites you are pitching.

9. Just because a site links to a resource doesn’t mean it’s open to your pitch

An easy way to find link building targets is to search similar content and pitch to the same sites.

However, not all links are due to a pitch. In fact, most isn’t.

Use the anchor text and post title as your guide.

Ahrefs has a helpful feature that shows the anchor text and the surrounding text.

In many cases, sites that link to a site based on a pitch link to the brand name or mention the study specifically.

Here’s an example of a LendEDU study that was most likely pitched:

Sites that use a keyword or stat most likely found the link organically to support their article.

Here’s the same link, but most likely found organically:

In many cases, sites that link to a site based on a pitch will link to the brand name or mention the study specifically.

Based on the post titles below, the writer most likely found the post organically while researching the topic. The second post is all about the LendEDU study:

I want to be clear that just because a journalist mentions a study organically doesn’t always mean they won’t be interested in your pitch. However, it’s a stronger signal when the story is only about the link.

10. Look closer at those sites you are getting links from

This week’s tip comes from Jasper Morris.

In our podcast, he recommends evaluating a site using a checklist. He also pointed out that sites can artificially inflate authority metrics like DA/DR.

To avoid sites like this, look at their top-ranking keywords.

Some sites rank for a mess of jumbled words. Jasper provided me with this example:

I dug a little deeper and some of these strings of letters appear to be real things that show up when Google searching.

“sfahigherone” or “SFA Higher One” appears to be related to a Stephen F. Austin State University Online Degree programs.

But, some are not:

Taking this one step further, you can ask yourself: does this target site have any business ranking for the particular keyword?

For instance, the site in question (which I won’t put on blast here) is a fitness site and has nothing to do with online degree programs.

Bottom line is this: you need to go beyond the basic metrics to truly evaluate a site.

Read more about the importance of link relevancy.

11. Check the local forecast before you pitch a local journalist

This week’s tip comes from Collin Czarnecki, Founder of NOBLE Digital Studio:

Pitching to a local TV or online newspaper?

Check the forecast before you schedule your pitch.

These areas often lack the infrastructure to handle the situation, such as resources to salt or clear roads, leading to school, business, and government office closures.

As a former journalist with experience in local newsrooms, I can tell you firsthand that inclement weather will push nearly any other news story or pitch to the back burner.

When severe weather hits, it’s all hands on deck in the newsroom.

Regardless of a journalist’s beat or typical coverage, they’re likely to shift their focus to the weather — especially in understaffed newsrooms (a reality for most newsrooms across the country).

This is especially true for cities and regions that don’t typically experience inclement weather (such as the recent snowfall in the Southeast).

This ripple effect dominates local news coverage.

This strategy is even more important for areas experiencing extreme weather such as the recent hurricanes in Florida and the wildfires in Los Angeles.

Not only is it unlikely that a non-weather-related pitch will resonate during extreme weather, but it’s also simply just an insensitive time to pitch your story to those affected areas.

Before you hit “send,” take a moment to check the weather in the region you’re pitching to.

My Take: As we saw in our State of Digital PR Report, “personalization” means a lot of different things to a lot of different people.

One of them is remembering that there are humans at the other end of our outreach emails.

This is why it’s crucial to pop into a journalist’s feed to see what’s going on in their area before pitching.

As I write this, it’s currently freezing rain and snowing here, which has closed all of the schools. It’s all the local press wants to talk about.

Learn more about personalization tips or watch our video on the topic with tips from Britt Klontz, Jaclyn Lambert, and more.

Email Crafting and Personalization

One of the main things that users asked for when I polled them was more help on email personalization. So, here are the tips pertaining to writing, crafting, and pitching your outreach emails.

12. ChatGPT can help you personalize

I’ve found that ChatGPT can help you brainstorm better ways to personalize your email based on insights from a piece of content.

Use it to level up your outreach email beyond a generic statement like, “Your content is really interesting.”

Copy and paste the article into ChatGPT and ask it to summarize the post and extract insights into one-sentence snippets. Be sure to direct ChatGPT with a voice and tone.

For example, I asked ChatGPT to provide some insights for this article about link insertions.

It provided me with the following:

1. “I really liked how the article dives deep into link insertions, showing them as a smart, but not always used, way to boost site authority and bring in more visitors.”
2. “The way you categorized link insertions into articles, lists, and resource lists really cleared up how to spot the best opportunities out there.”
3. “The strategy of choosing between pitching our homepage or a detailed guide makes so much sense for targeted link building efforts.”

The second is pretty strong without feeling too generic. You can (and should) always tweak ChatGPT’s outputs after you get your answers so they don’t sound so robotic.

13. Data shows journalists ignore pitches that are irrelevant.

MuckRack recently came out with their State of Journalism 2024 and told us something interesting about pitch relevance.

One of the study’s main takeaways is that the number one reason users miss out on coverage is a lack of relevance.

So, here are a few easy ways to ensure your pitch is relevant to a journalist (for free):

Click on their name

On most publisher sites, the author’s name will appear just below the feature image.

Click on their name, and it will bring you to their bio page, which usually hosts their most recently-published articles.

Read the bio and, more importantly, check their most recently published articles to ensure they are writing for the industry you are pitching!

Perform a site: search

If you can’t click on their name, perform a site: search on Google:

site:https://www.EXAMPLESITE.com “JOURNALIST NAME”

You will usually find a contact page listing everyone with a biography.

You will also find articles that they’ve written.

Adjust the Google search date parameters to show the past week or month, and you’ll find their most recently-written articles.

Search Muck Rack

Muck Rack will display the most recent articles and Tweets on an author’s profile page (if they have one.) You don’t need an account for this.

The easiest way to do this is to Google Search with the journalist’s name and the word “Muck Rack.”

Check what they’ve recently written about to ensure it fits your pitch’s industry.

14. Troubleshoot outreach in six steps

I saw the below posted on Upwork back in Jan. The poster was looking for a blog outreach coach because they were specifically having a hard time hitting inboxes.

So, I thought I’d share some quick thoughts in the hopes that the BuzzStream user finds this (and anyone else who could use the tips).

If you’re having trouble hitting inboxes or getting opens, clicks, or links, here are some reasons (and quick fixes).

Your sender reputation score is too low – landing you in spam

Use Google’s Postmaster Tools to see your spam score. You are most likely hitting spam boxes if you consistently exceed .1- .3 %.

Read about ways to fix your spam score here.

You are reaching out to the wrong sites

If your pitch isn’t relevant to the site, they won’t even bother. To check relevance, manually confirm that the site talks about the same topics as you.

Use Ahrefs’ Site Explorer > Organic Keywords OR > Top Pages to see what kinds of topics your target site is posting about.

You are reaching out to the wrong person on the website

Avoid general info@ email addresses or addresses you can’t confirm. Use our post on finding email addresses to learn how to identify and verify emails.

Your subject line isn’t standing out

At Siege Media, we found that putting the site name in the subject line helps open rates for blog outreach.

Hannah Smith (future BuzzStream podcast guest) writes at least 25 email subject lines when brainstorming media pitches.

Here’s a tool for getting to 25.

Your pitch needs work

Blogger outreach can be more personalized than journalist outreach, but if you are going to do it, you can’t fake it.

Specifically, call out something you genuinely like or appreciate and why.

If not – get right to the point.

Here’s a post about crafting the perfect email with the C.H.A.M.P. method.

Sometimes it’s just luck

Sometimes, there’s no answer as to why it didn’t work.

But if your pitch is laser-focused, you put yourself in the best position for success.

15. Give your outreach target enough information to take action on your request

Whether you are doing traditional link building or pitching journalists, your target should never have to do any (significant) work.

For digital PR

In our podcast episode with Hannah Smith, she talks about how, when pitching journalists, you should try to write a story based on your pitch email.

This means giving the journalists everything they need:

• Headline (this is your email subject line)
• A sentence or two demonstrating why this story is relevant to the journalists’ beat
• Lede
• Three key stats or findings
• A short paragraph about each key data point
• Data tables
• Methodology
• Company Boilerplate Copy
• Contact Details

For link building

The same applies to link building outreach.

Your pitch should never be as open-ended as the one I received below:

You might think that leaving this open-ended feels less aggressive, but it puts more work on my plate (a.k.a. your target’s plate).

Instead, when you do link building outreach, you need to give them everything they need to make the call or take action:

• Context (where did I link to a competitor? Why is this email relevant?)
• Link to an article where you want to include a link
• Exactly where on the page you wish to the link placed
• Provide new copy if it’s necessary

Here’s a great example:

The same goes for guest post outreach. If you want someone to agree to let you publish on their blog, you need to provide them with all the information to make that call.

In my guest blogging article, I outline a new outreach technique that requires keyword research to ensure your pitch provides value.

16. Consider the “worst” cities, state, or countries for your content

One of the effective digital PR campaign examples I highlighted in a post last week were regional data studies like the one you see below:

Although a vast majority of these kinds of cities focus on the “best” cities and that’s where the search volume is, don’t underestimate the power of a “worst” city.

Elicit Emotional Response with “Worst”

Typically, with a “best” study, you highlight the best region or city as a type of ego bait.

You hope the journalist will want to show off their city’s achievements.

But with a “worst” study, you lean on a strong negative emotional response.

For example, in the worst cities for bed bugs by Pest Gnome, some of the emotions you rely on are anger, outrage, and sometimes fear.

And ultimately, that’s the kind of response they received.

Tie the topic to where you/your site is a solution

“Worst” studies can also serve as potentially lower funnel content if your service/site is a solution to the topic covered in the post.

For example, Pest Gnome is a local pest control service. So, highlighting cities with high pest infestation could attract potential customers from exposure in those cities.

(They also pitched during Bed Bug Awareness Week, which as an added strategic win.)

17. Personalize your follow-up emails more than you think

In general studies have shown that follow-up emails are effective.

So, I wanted to share two tried and true approaches to follow up emails.

Reiterate the Value

You want to avoid generic emails that make your prospect do the work of re-reading your previous email.

Take a look at this one I received:

Instead, remind them why you reached out, what you are pitching, and why its valuable.

Here’s an example email you could use:

Mention Something New

The second time around, you can also change up your tactic a bit.

If you mentioned one specific takeaway the first email, try a new one.

In our email outreach templates post, Gisele Navarro from NeoMam Studios recommends utilizing the follow-up pitch to unresponsive contacts as an opportunity to try completely new angles and approaches to your pitches:

• Offer new insights that you didn’t utilize in your initial pitch
• Conduct additional research or data analysis to uncover new findings

Reference Their Newest Story or Social Post

I know a lot of folks don’t like to reference posts or stories in journalist outreach.

It can be time-consuming, and if you’re not careful, it can come off phony.

However, as a follow-up technique, mentioning a recent social post or the post they wrote the day you are reaching out shows that you are actually serious and that you’ve done your homework.

Prioritize Follow Ups Based on Target

Since a personalized follow-up process is time consuming, save this follow-up process for the prospects that you really want to get a link from.

18. Personalize outreach emails using info from bios, stories, or social

Not all outreach necessarily requires personalization (something Hannah Smith talks about in our recent podcast episode).

But for the ones that do (typically most link building campaigns and some hyper-targeted digital PR), connecting with the person you are reaching takes some social engineering.

Email personalization is not as nefarious as social engineering, but the principles are the same: make personal connections so they are more likely to trust you and respond.

For instance, if someone contacts me and says they are a baseball fan, I am immediately more interested in what they say.

I talk a lot about this in the C.H.A.M.P. outreach method.

When doing outreach, you can find connection points with your targets in four areas:

• Their bio
• Their recent social posts
• Their most recent published content
• The content they’ve written that is most relevant to your pitch (if it’s different than the recent published content)

Then, extract something unique and comment on it.

I once saw that a journalist Tweeted about a root canal, so I mentioned that in my outreach email and she responded thanking me for my concern.

Here are some ways to personalize:

1. Location-based – Do you live in the same area as your prospect?

2. Interest-based – Do you share the same interests or hobbies as your prospect?

3. Content-based – Is there something specific in a recent or relevant post that you liked, learned or found surprising?

For instance, Nate from Positional saw that I posted about Positional on LinkedIn. So, he emailed me and mentioned that post.

This automatically stood out to me because he had done the extra work to personalize, so I was more likely to respond to his subsequent link request.

19. Don’t toss those bad email pitches you get—you can learn from them

I receive about five guest post and link exchange emails per day.

I wanted to pull some takeaways from a recent one.

I see two good things in this email and a handful of improvement points.

The good:

1. The writer provides guest post examples of what they’ve written.
2. The writer offers guest post ideas for BuzzStream.

The bad:

1. The writer says they’ve been “perusing the content on BuzzStream,” but I doubt it because the topics are irrelevant to BuzzStream readers.
2. The writer provides 20+ guest post ideas.
3. The writer addresses me, “Hi there,”

So, what can we do to fix this?

First off, get the content ideas on point.

Head over to the blog home to better understand what the blog writes about.

The BuzzStream blog lists the categories we write about: digital PR, link building, and content promotion.

Next, let’s address this to the right person.

Address your guest post email to whoever runs the blog. Usually, this is the Content Marketing Manager or Director, occasionally the editor.

This email feels like a bulk send, so adding a [First Name] to your email mail merge should be easy. (Plus, my first name is in my email address, so it’s not too hard to find.)

Make it feel less like a mail merge.

I personally dislike emails that include the full URL of my site because it tells me that this was a bulk-send email and the person couldn’t take the time to write out “BuzzStream.”

So instead of:

“I’ve been perusing the content on buzzstream.com”

— we get specific:

“I’ve been perusing the content on BuzzStream.”

(Notice I’ve spelled it “BuzzStream” vs. “Buzzstream” — an easy detail to miss, but it makes a big difference for me.)

Let’s personalize this email.

(The first line, where the sender tells me who he is and where he works, is not shown. I obscured that so as not to call them out.)

Instead of a general statement like:

“I’ve been perusing the content on the buzzstream.com blog, and I’ve quite enjoyed it!”

— say what you liked about it, be specific, and engage.

“I really loved all of the examples you gave in your SaaS Link Building post — especially Betterpet’s Dog Age Calculator – (my dog is 56 but still acts like a teenager.)”

or

“I’ve been perusing the content on the BuzzStream blog and really like how you weave real-life examples into your content. It makes it much more helpful for readers like me!”

Personalization may feel like an unnecessary time sink, but if I get five emails per day offering guest posts, and only one is highly personalized, guess which one I’m going to stop and read?

Let’s fix the subject line

Currently the subject line is: “Request for Guest Post Partnership: Unlocking Synergies.”

This subject line screams AI generation (and most of their guest post titles also do).

This may be a personal pet peeve, but I hate the word “synergy,” I’d venture to guess that most marketers do as well.

Let’s adjust to “Request for Guest Post for BuzzStream.”

When I was at Siege, we found that including the site name in the subject line increased opens and engagements.

Let’s find some better content ideas

One tactic is to find content your target post isn’t ranking for, but their competitors are.

Use Ahrefs Content Gap Analysis for this.

I won’t get into the full run-down in this email, but you can email me, and I’d be happy to walk you through it.

A Content Gap Analysis of BuzzStream vs some competitors of ours shows that we aren’t ranking for:

So, I see a lot of topics around press releases, pr strategy, and pitch emails.

Once you choose those, provide the search volume around the keywords and the potential traffic value.

To do this, look at the top-ranking post for that keyword and the value.

For instance, the traffic value of the top-ranking post for “pr strategy” is $795 per month.

(They won’t make this money, but you can think of traffic value as the money saved on PPC.):

While you’re at it, you can sweeten your own experience by calling out the value you’ve brought to other sites with your previous experience.

You don’t always need to call out search volume. You can also show results like backlinks or conversions.

For instance, I wrote a post for Ahrefs that got them 54 LRD.

So the result email might look something like this:

Learn more in my post about guest blogging.

20. Think about your pitch during the ideation process

You should be thinking about it from the very beginning.

This lets you answer: what makes your idea unique and different than anything else out there?

For example, if I know that I’m going to do a post about the “best cities in the world for artists,” I need to know how my post is going to be unique from these top-ranking posts:

So, to be effective with your outreach, you should first identify what is going to make your post stand out from the rest.

Remember, journalists get pitched constantly, so our hook needs to be compelling enough to stand out.

So, in our artist post example, we should be thinking about our pitch process. What is going to make ours unique?

We could go big and make an interactive piece like HighSpeedInternet did a few years ago with their “Best Cities to Live and Work Remotely.”

Or could choose to get more narrow and choose a specific market like young adults, senior citizens, small cities, large cities, US-based, UK-based, and so on.

Let’s choose “Top Cities for Senior Artists.”

This helps us hone our pitch to call out our core differentiators.

For example, maybe our pitch would include a line like:

“Most studies about top artist cities don’t take into account things like public transportation, handicap access, or senior discounts, despite the fact that 27% of artists are senior citizens.”

If you can think through your pitch in the ideation process, you’ll not only have an easier time in the outreach process but you’ll ensure your idea stays focused throughout production.

The fact that two of our podcast guests mentioned this in interviews tells me that this is worth calling out.

Will Hobson talked about this when he talked about protecting the idea. Hannah Smith also talked about having a “North Star” for each project to ensure that the core of your idea doesn’t get lost as you work through your content creation process.

21. Make better first impressions in your emails

Every time I step off the train in Brighton, the train station grabs me immediately.

It’s steel-beamed vaulted ceiling reminds me of a greenhouse, putting you at odds with the industrial setting of a train station.

It’s an amazing first impression for the city that I’ve grown to really enjoy.

When you think about it, your email subject line is your first impression on a journalist.

It’s the first thing they see, and if it doesn’t stand out, they will most likely gloss over it.

There are several subject line studies about keywords, emoji usage, and more.

But, the best way to personalize your subject lines is write yours based on the way your target journalist writes headlines.

For instance, if I’m pitching Darren Orf from Popular Mechanics, my subject line better start with the word “scientists”:

This is the “A” or “Adopt style” from the C.H.A.M.P. Outreach Method that I talk about so freqeuntly.

As Amelia Selby put it in our recent podcast episode:

“What I would try to do is mirror exactly how they write their subject lines. So, I would look at that journalist.

Do they capitalize the start of every word?

Do they have like a punchy little phrase at the start?

They see something written exactly how they would write it and it stands out.”

For some more insights into subject lines, we did a full study on what drives open rates.

22. Expert commentary needs to stand out

Pitching a quote to a journalist or expert commentary platform has some nuance to it.

You need to provide a compelling answer but still cut through the noise.

Bring something new

In our podcast conversation with Georgia Gadsby March of Unearth PR, she said:

“It’s adding a comment that changes the way the journalist thinks about the topic, or it’s going to bring something totally new to the conversation.

What value are you adding rather than just explaining the situation?

A lot of the time it’s like giving a top tip or hack that everyone’s not already heard of.”

Bring something surprising

Another recommendation comes from our podcast with Amelia Selby, Head of PR at SEO Travel.

She said:

“Give them something that is going to make their readers shocked or feel some sort of emotion.”

Ensure you are relevant and authoritative

Journalists and publishers vet their respondents on platforms like Featured, Qwoted, or SOS.

So, if you aren’t relevant, you’ll probably get tossed out.

James Brockbank, founder of Digitaloft, recommended a simple question to ask yourself in our podcast episode on content relevancy:

“What do you have the authority, the expertise, and the experience to talk about?”

Let’s look at what this looks like in action using Qwoted.

Now, I know this isn’t exactly a journalist I’m pitching, but the same principles apply.

Here’s a quote asking for SEO book recommendations.

My reply is:

“I’ve been in the link building and SEO space for over 10 years and I always recommend “Trust Me, I’m Lying: Confessions of a Media Manipulator” by Ryan Holiday.

This is what sparked my interest in the field.

It helps understand how to tell compelling stories and more importantly, leverage the goals of publishers and journalists to your advantage for coverage and links.”

Why this works

• I’m shoehorning in why I’m an expert.
• It’s a book that I don’t think anyone else is going to say.
• It’s short and to the point.

I ended up getting placement on a LinkedIn post:

(Unfortunately, it’s not a link, but I should have read the original Qwoted request closer because it said it right in there. So, my takeaway was learned the hard way: always read the requests closely. 😏.)

Want to learn more? We cover a lot of this in our post on newsjacking.

23. Approach your outreach email with the mindset that a journalist will need find you again

Not every email gets coverage.

But a well-written, relevant email will usually spark enough interest from a journalist to make them squirrel it away for later.

Here’s how to make sure they can find your email again:

Pitch Relevant Stories

I mentioned this previously, but a good, relevant pitch is a given. If it’s irrelevant, there’s no reason for a journalist to notice your email at all.

“Keyword Stuff” Your Emails

This comes from Mark Rofe. He’s using this term tongue and cheek of course, but here’s how he put it:

“I’ll also kind of keyword stuff it a bit…I’ll kind of make sure I’ve got some keywords wherever I’ve got like a little about section about the company…

So what I mean by that is that, if I was doing it for like my, Christmas tree website, maybe I would call myself like a “Christmas tree expert” or something within the bio or “Christmas tree retailer”

Check it out in our discussion here around 38:00.

Use a Boilerplate

This one comes from Bekki Ramsay. She essentially talks about the same strategy:

“Include a boilerplate. We always explain what Mojo Mortgages are so that in the future, if the journalist is looking for an expert comment from a mortgage advisor, hopefully, they’ll go to their inbox, search for previous campaigns and previous pitches, and Mojo will appear.”

Check it out in the video around 18:40

24. Follow up with a journalist twice tops!

Our State of Digital PR survey found that this was the overall consensus.

But, if you really want to cut through the noise, a follow up shouldn’t just be:

This may work on occasion and is way easier to scale, but it won’t improve a relationship.

In our email templates post, Giselle Navarro of Neomam Studios recommended trying completely new angles or even updating your data to make it fresh.

I typically look at recent articles they’ve written to see if there’s a connection I can make.

For example, in my screenshot above, there’s no connection. It’s not even easy for me to see the video.

I would make something like this:

An approach like this focuses on what’s most important. (It also makes things easier by reiterating the value and adding something new.)

Is this time-consuming?

Yes!

But, to me, the second round of emails is where you can hone in on your key prospects.

25. Use AI to guide your pitch, not write it for you

Let’s start by looking at what not to do:

As you can see, in an attempt to make a personalized connection with the journalist, AI fabricated a book that was never written.

Why did this fail?

The secret lies in the amount of information given to AI.

AI will “hallucinate” if it doesn’t have enough information

AI has its limits. And there is a nuance to it.

The more information you provide to AI, the better it is. The less you give it, the more prone it is to “hallucination,” which is where AI can make something up to “fill in the blanks” to complete its task.

So, is all AI bad?

We set out to test this.

In our study of using AI in PR, we used AI to write a pitch and surveyed respondents.

We found that 62% of our respondents thought the AI-produced pitches were better than the last they received or wrote themselves.

So what’s going on here?

Our AI personalization technique was different

In our study, we had AI focus on connecting to a recent article. (This is one of the several personalization techniques outlined in my post.)

Here’s an example pitch:

The template was essentially:

Hi [NAME],

I just saw your [relevant post] + [unique comment about it].

[Pitch relevant article/story pitch].

—

In the case of our AI study, we provided a recent example article from a journalist from which to craft the pitch.

In Kashmir’s example, the PR most likely had AI generate a pitch based on a web search of the journalist’s name.

AI requires education and a watchful eye

It’s tempting to use AI to generate a ton of pitches or respond to journalist requests, but you need to walk before you can run.

We are hard at work with some AI-powered tools that will make pitching easier, but the amount of quality control needed is incredible.

My advice for incorporating AI in your PR efforts:

1. Learn everything you can about AI
2. Feed AI as much information as you can
3. Don’t use it to scale, use it to enhance your pitches

Guest Posting and “Traditional” Link Building

To me, “traditional” link building can still work but these are tactics that aren’t as scalable as they once were. I like to roll guest posting into these—especially after March 2024’s Helpful Content Update.

That said, guest posting and other tactics can still be utilized. Here are some tips for making sure you’re doing it the right way.

26. Ahrefs’ Content Explorer has an author feature you may not be using to its fullest

An easy way to find guest post opportunities is to find authors who have written guest posts for multiple sites.

Go to Ahrefs’ Content Explorer. Enter your industry and “guest author” OR “guest contributor” and search everywhere.

For example:

link building “guest author” OR “guest contributor”

Then, toggle to Authors and find authors who have appeared on multiple sites. These sites are more likely to be open to guest contributions.

Click on the Authors with multiple websites, then toggle back to Pages and export those sites as a CSV.

Then open a new Research List in BuzzStream and choose Import Existing to import the list as a CSV.

Now you have a list of sites ready to qualify and pitch for guest post outreach.

Most sites will have guest post guidelines with specific requirements when pitching.

For the most part, you can email them with a template like the one found on our email outreach templates post:

Or check out my whole post on guest blogging.

27. Buying links from those online spreadsheets is never a good idea

With HCU in full swing, we continue to see large sites slammed.

Sites we thought were safe are not.

Link building tactics that were once safe are not.

Since starting at BuzzStream, I’ve received hundreds of messages offering paid guest post placements like what you see below:

Here’s why I don’t think it’s ever worth buying a link from an email offer like this —especially after the recent Helpful Content Update.

It’s not a guest post

First, this isn’t a guest post—at least not in the true sense of the word.

MSN doesn’t do “guest posts.” It has a network where you can create a profile and submit articles. Despite being on a DA 93 site, these aren’t valuable from a link perspective.

Think of it this way – if anyone can contribute, it’s not valuable.

Read some contributor articles on MSN and ask yourself if they provide what Google deems “Helpful Content” (spoiler: most don’t).

Google is getting smarter about paid links

SpamBrain can find and devalue links from sites participating in paid link placements.

Poor placement

With a low-cost “guest post” contributor network post, you will be placed on a page with no traffic and quickly buried on a site with over 25 million pages.

Lack of relevance

Specifically for BuzzStream, what type of post or article on MSN.com could possibly be topically relevant to link building or digital PR?

Is there potentially an angle like the business of link building? Maybe?

But realistically, a guest post from a site like Moz or Ahrefs would be way more valuable than one on MSN’s.

Even if you paid, it won’t be high quality for that price

I’m going to level with you: a quality link on a large news site like MSN—especially one for

$330—will not get you the quality you want.

A quality link on a high-end news site will cost $1000+. We broke it down in our link building costs post.

At that cost, generating your own digital PR campaigns and getting links naturally through outreach is becoming much more cost-effective.

Be wary of link offers that come from lists

One line in the email strikes me: “Please let me know if you want to see our full website list.”

In general, a good rule of thumb with link building is that if you can get it with very little work, chances are it’s not as valuable.

Plus, with “lists” floating around, this screams of a link network, which is a significant risk.

Link networks typically have low-quality sites that can harm your link profile.

Plus, all it takes is for Google to find the list and devalue outbound links.

Read more about evaluating sites and links after the Helpful Content Update.

28. Evaluate backlinks more closely after HCU.

Relevance and quality are still critical, but quality is much more nuanced with the new HCU ranking system.

Quantitative assessments like DA/DR, site traffic, link placement, and anchor text are all still necessary, but Google also pushes a qualitative self-assessment of content quality.

Google is giving us a checklist!

So, I popped it into ChatGPT and created a quantitative scoring system to evaluate content on the page.

Based on the Helpful Content System self-assessment, you can now ask ChatGPT to evaluate the page for quality.

The output is a scorecard with helpful suggestions for improving your content.

Use it to assess your content or the content from which you are trying to get links.

So far, I’ve gotten some really positive feedback from others who have tried it.

You can download it yourself here.

29. Never go to Reddit to buy links

Somehow, people are still pushing spammy link farm sites and link networks as a way to get links on Reddit.

And as I wrote about in our buying links post, these strategies are getting way riskier.

(And if you’re wondering, the sites that saw no recovery from the new August Google update were those that were using spammy link practices.)

Here’s the Reddit post:

This is essentially just someone offering up links to their site that covers multi-niches, like sports, travel, crypto — which screams low-quality link  (or potentially link farm) to me.

Yet, the Reddit post immediately received multiple requests.

So, to protect yourself, here’s what you should be looking for in a site (or link):

• High DA/DR
• High PA/UR (if you know the page)
• High Organic Traffic
• Low Spam Score
• High Site Relevancy
• Low Outbound Links
• Few Clicks from Homepage
• Normal Link Acquisition Velocity
• Display E-E-A-T & Helpful Content
• Unobtrusive Ads

What’s the better way to build links?

I outlined a ton of tactics that still work in our link building strategies post, but here’s a few that I use daily:

• Content-Led Digital PR
• Responding to Quote Requests
• Link reclamation
• Unlinked Mentions
• Publishing Content with High Link Intent (like stats posts)
• Mention Outreach

If you’re ever curious or wary about the quality of a link or a site, let me know by email, LinkedIn, or X and I’m happy to provide some feedback!

Outreach Tools and Tactics

After 50 email newsletters, I realized that I had laid out several tactics brands can use to get links and coverage. I’ve collected them in this section.

30. Chatbots can be a great outreach tool

When you are doing outreach and happen to see a customer chat box at the bottom right of your page, try reaching out and asking to get connected with the manager or editor of the blog.

This works about 90% of the time for me.

Typically, they will refer you via email, or if it’s a smaller organization, they will connect you directly within the chatbox.

Occasionally, you will reach an AI chatbot built with a very specific set of responses. That is really the only time that this is ineffective.

Check out our full post to learn more about finding email addresses.

31. Use the “double-touch outreach method” for better relationship building

Double-touch is when you reach out to someone on two separate platforms to help support your message.

To better illustrate, let me give you an example. Here’s a LinkedIn message I got as the first touch:

For background, I had mentioned Positional’s new tool in a LinkedIn post and tagged them. The founder, Nate (our podcast guest), reached out.

After this, I received an email requesting a link insertion.

In sales, I’d essentially be a “warm” lead. After the initial LinkedIn message, Nate is now on my radar; he isn’t a complete unknown.

So, that’s the idea.

If you are reaching out to a journalist, find their social account and contact them there. If you are reaching out to a blogger, contact them on LinkedIn or Facebook first.

It can be a simple comment on a recent, relevant post.

Or it can be a direct message on the social platform.

Here are some common double-touches that I’ve used:

• Tweet first, DM next
• DM first, Email next
• LinkedIn message first, Email next
• LinkedIn comment first, LinkedIn message next

There are important caveats for this to work, because this can border on spamming if you aren’t careful.

You aren’t sending the same message to both platforms. One is the main message, the other is a nudge.

You only get one shot at this approach. Multiple nudges become spam.

Your pitch must be relevant. This whole approach hinges on your content (and message) being relevant to the user you are trying to reach. If it is not relevant, then you are spamming.

Always ask yourself, if I received this message, would I reply?

32. Use email newsletters and round-up posts for outreach

Towards the end of a digital PR or link building campaign, I’d tell my team to see if we could squeeze out some last-minute links through newsletters or weekly round-up posts.

We’d end up with a link like this one I got years ago on a construction news roundup:

So, let me walk you through how to find your own opportunities.

How to Get Links from a Roundup

Roundup posts are great because they are typically blog posts that get crawled as backlinks.

Sometimes, you’ll get lucky, and the roundup will also be a newsletter, increasing the exposure of your post (which could also potentially lead to more links).

To find them, try these searches:

industry + roundup

industry + weekly roundup

industry + monthly roundup

industry + link roundup

industry + weekly links

industry + monthly links

(I’d ignore quarterly unless you really want to play the long game.)

You’ll get results like this:

Click on the links and look for results that provide external links weekly or monthly.

You’re looking for posts that list links like this:

You can quickly confirm that these sites share external links by hovering over the link and looking at the bottom left of your browser.

If it’s all links from the same domain, they probably don’t accept outside submissions, they are just sharing a collection of their own content.

Then pitch them your link!

Just ensure your content is indeed a good fit or you are going to burn the bridge VERY quickly.

How to Get Coverage on Email Newsletters

Email newsletters are one of the most highly-used content promotion engines that exist today.

Not only will getting on these lists help exposure, but many newsletters also exist on the web as an html version and get indexed (so the links count (though not very much).

Try a few of these Google searches to discover newsletters in your industry:

industry + newsletter

industry + weekly news

industry + monthly news

industry + monthly newsletter

For example:

Find one that is relevant and reach out to see if they’ll include your piece in their next newsletter.

Like this newsletter from GardenCenter.com:

For example, I knew Ahrefs’ had a fantastic newsletter and I talked about them in this video and post about backlinks which highlighted one of their tools, and reached out on LinkedIn for inclusion in their newsletter:

For added success with newsletter outreach:

First, sign up for the newsletter. After a week or two reach out to the newsletter owner and let them know that you are enjoying their content (don’t lie…obviously.)

Then after a few weeks, pitch them your link.

This way, you have an established relationship.

This is known as the double-touch outreach method.

33. “Do the work” to get the link

Here’s an email pitch I  received.

This person’s approach was direct and candid, which I don’t actually mind.

Better this than trying to butter me up with fake flattery (real flattery is a different story, for a different newsletter.)

However, what they didn’t do was HELP.

They asked for something but offered nothing in return.

In my C.H.A.M.P. outreach method, the H stands for Help. You should provide as much help to your prospect as possible.

What does Helping look like this in this case?

• Show me exactly where you’d like a link
• Tell me what value I’d be getting out of linking to you
• Offer to write some content you’d want inserted
• Maybe offer me a link back or social share

In another recent outreach email I was offered that last one:

There is a lot more overlap between traditional link building outreach and digital PR than I think people realize.

I’ve done both and the most common strain is “don’t make them do any work”.

In our podcast episode with Hannah Smith, she talked about how you should write a pitch so that a journalist could write a post just from everything in the email. (She even practices doing so herself.)

You should keep a similar mindset when doing link outreach.

Give them all of the information so that they don’t have to do any extra work finding a post, writing copy, etc.

So, a potential email template might look like this:

Learn more about the C.H.A.M.P. Method in the video below.

34. Get links without asking for them with some pyschology

Here’s an email I received last week:

First off, there is very clear personalization in the beginning. The person highlighted a personal connection to the BuzzStream brand.

It’s authentic and I really appreciate them going the extra mile.

But what’s next is the critical piece:

There is no ask for a link or coverage of any sort.

Instead, the emailer asks for my opinion or thoughts.

This appeals to my ego.

And that, folks, is how you can use ego bait to build relationships and get coverage.

Now, I’m compelled to read the article and engage.

This article is also top of mind if and when I write about the topic (which the emailer also strategically suggested).

Ego Bait for Journalists

This doesn’t work on everyone. If I were to send this to a journalist as is, they most likely won’t provide their feedback. They are too busy.

However, if you were to pitch an idea to a journalist and get their feedback on it, then you have yourself some bait.

Hey [Journalist Name],

We are working on some ideas around the environmental impact of celebrity homes, is that something you’d be interested in covering?

–

Work out a more specific idea with them and offer them an exclusive and they’d be even more keen.

35. Spend a day in a journalist’s shoes

I have two screenshots that should make you rethink your PR pitching strategy.

The first comes from travel site owner @ShawnaNewman via @sacha_vyzz (thanks to both).

Shawna’s Tweet reads:

“An email address for one of my sites has ended up on the distribution list of one of the big digital PR agencies. It is insane. Based on just my inbox they are making a killing.”

Shawna runs a travel affiliate site but never shares any content like this.

So, why does she get content like this?

She’s based in NV and she runs a travel website. That’s it. Two filters on a media database might get you Shawna’s email.

But, unfortunately, if that is all the filtering you are doing, you will never make it through to a journalist.

Instead, target specific articles.

I like using Ahrefs to find relevant articles with lots of coverage and then working backwards to build a media list from there.

I cover a lot of tips in my media list building post.

Let’s take a look at another journalist inbox.

This one comes from @iamrofe” (our previous podcast guest, Mark Rofe 👋) via journalist @laurapurkess.

This is what a UK journalist’s inbox looks like after the Bank of England increased interest rates:

It’s total overload!

Since the interest rate news occurs at a pre-determined time, PRs have these ready to go.

In our podcast, Mark Rofe actually recommends trying to avoid those planned news events and stick to pitching during unplanned news event.

36. When the outreach market gets crowded, be prepared to change strategies quickly

Aside from normal things like end-of-summer vacations, journalists are mired in major news events like the Olympics, the assassination attempt, and the upcoming election.

Senior Digital PR and Influencer Marketing Specialist, Victoria Schmid, put it best:

While this is a call to clients, I wanted to provide some insights into what worked well during the last crazy time in PR: the pandemic.

While this isn’t the same exact situation (fortunately, we aren’t all still locked in our homes), we can still learn a few things.

It continues to gain links because it ranks for the keyword. (See the blue line in the below:)

Go Hyper-Local

Even on the most crowded national news days, local news publications need to write about topics that are relevant to them.

The easiest hyper-local strategy is the city study, in which you highlight and rank cities and contact the highest-ranked ones.

We outlined the entire “city study” strategy here.

Set Realistic Expectations

Returning to Victoria’s initial LinkedIn post, it all comes down to setting client expectations.

The sooner you can get on your client’s radar about potential delays, the better.

At Siege Media, we would always check in mid-month to let clients know where/how campaigns were trending.

If there was a chance we’d miss the target coverage amount, we would always communicate why and what strategy change we were going to make.

I ended up writing a whole post about pitching during elections.

38. Use “sore” losers to cover your city studies

On the surface, this feels like a repeat of another tip, but I promise it’s not.

We learned that when ideating and pitching a city index study (using the process laid out by Jodie Booras), not every pitch needs to be to the winners.

Try pitching to the “losers” or the non-best cities.

After all, anger or disappointment is just as powerful as happiness and joy.

But, I came across this study from Explore.com on the Best US Cities for Book Lovers and found an interesting piece of coverage from a Portland publication.

As you can see, the journalist was disappointed that Portland wasn’t higher.

Portland ranked sixth on the list.

People take pride in their cities—especially journalists who cover them day in and day out.

The reporter tore down the study for omitting Portland’s literary landmarks, which she thought should have helped Portland rank higher.

Whether the team behind this study knew it or not, putting Portland sixth struck a nerve.

So, while this may serve as a cautionary tale to ensure your data is on point for these kinds of studies, this type of response can also spark a new outreach angle.

If you are confident in your data, why not reach out to other Portland publications and stress that they only came in sixth.

But, double check your data

Obviously, the data is huge here and I’d always recommend getting experts to review the data.

Expert quotes and reviews can also add a level of trust to the story.

If you are unsure how it will be received, Neomam posted about how they test their content ideas on Reddit. We used to try this at Siege Media as well.

Post an image without the brand logo on there just to see how the internet trolls poke holes in the data.

38. Everyone should use Qwoted for easy coverage

This week I want to highlight Qwoted as a resource that everyone should be using to getting coverage. (This isn’t a sponsored placement.)

It’s a lot more common in the U.K. for journalists to Tweet looking for #journorequests.

In the U.S., however, I’ve found that more and more journalists are using platforms like Qwoted.

I haven’t used Featured.com, but I can personally vouch for Qwoted.

I mentioned them in our media databases post because they have a small, free media database in Beta. But, their bread and butter is connecting journalists with experts.

Here’s an example of a link I got through Qwoted that took me all of five minutes to do:

Here’s how to do it yourself:

You can sign up for free on their site and fill out your profile (be thorough and descriptive).

You’ll start to see expert requests come through via email like this:

Respond to some requests, and you’ll start to see journalists reaching out based on your profile as well.

After pitching, you’ll receive a notification that a journalist has read your request. Sometimes they will ask follow-up questions—be sure to respond in a timely manner.

You’ll (hopefully) receive a confirmation message that they have included your link in their story.

That’s it!

I strongly recommend setting up a personal account or one for your clients that you manage so that you can get these quote pitches going.

Qwoted Alternatives

Qwoted isn’t the only platform for responding to expert requests.

Here are a few others:

• Featured.com
• ExpertClick
• ProfNet
• Intro.co
• ResponseSource (also mentioned in our media database post.)
• Sourceofsources.com (formerly HERO and created by the original creator of HARO, Peter Shankman.)

39. Press releases are the top source journalists use to generate content and ideas. Use them!

This stat comes from Cision’s 2024 State of The Media Report.

If you’re unfamiliar, here’s a great breakdown of what to include in your press release:

• Headline – Catches attention. Focus on why this is essential for your audience (not your company)
• Dateline – Today’s date
• Lead–in – Introduce your brand to the reader.
• Key Facts – This is what you want the journalist to highlight. Focus on the most interesting pieces.
• Quote – This should support the story and should come from a relevant thought leader in your company.
• Call to Action – This can be a link to your site, content, landing page, etc.
• Boilerplate – Explain more about your company. Use some keywords so that when a journalist mentions your company you get the benefit of contextual keywords.
• Contact Information – Let them know how and where to get in touch with you.
• Additional Media – Include any data or images that might make it easier for a journalist to write about your release.

Here’s a visual breakdown/example:

When strapped for time, use tools to help write a press release.

We evaluated several in our PR AI tools post, but ChatGPT can get you most of the way there.

(Though I never recommend using an AI tool without rewriting in your own voice. AI can get you the bare bones, but it needs to sound natural—and it can also make mistakes.)

What About Press Release Newswires?

According to the same study, journalists use newswires like PRNewswire and Businesswire only 25% of the time to find their stories, the lowest percentage of the group.

So, I’d only recommend it if it’s free or if you are in a super niche industry where your release won’t get lost.

Better yet, ask a journalist in your industry on X.

Make connections! Build relationships!

Read more about building a press release.

40. Build relationships with journalists — without pitching them anything?

This may sound obvious because this is PR 101.

However, digital PRs, especially those in the agency setting, are often focused on scaling campaigns and tactics, which can lead to a loss of relationship building.

So, what does that mean for you?

Here are a few ways to do this:

Introducing yourself to the key journalists when new to a market

For example, in our podcast with Amelia Selby of SEO Travel, she mentioned how she monitors journalists who cover breaking news and include quotes in their pitches.

Then, writing to them, saying, “Hey, I know you often like insight from experts.

These are my experts. If you ever need any support, I’m here potentially sending through a few quotes.”

A simple X/Twitter search can find journalists in your niche, but you can also just look at publications.

See who is frequently publishing by looking at the most recent articles.

The key is ensuring the journalist is hyper-relevant to your industry.

Follow key journalists on social media and interact with their content.

In another podcast episode, Britt Klontz and Jaclyn Lambert of We Earn Media discussed establishing relationships.

Britt said:

“You could just go out of your way to share their stories. Journalists love that.

Journalists take note of that. That’s the biggest compliment you could give a journalist.”

For example, I saw Britt commenting on a story from a journalist on X:

It’s real, it’s authentic, and it stands out for a journalist.

I also saw that she frequently reposts requests from fellow journalists:

This kind of stuff that helps journalists out goes a long way.

41. Find your outreach VIPs

Most successful agencies and PRs I talk to follow the VIP outreach approach.

This is where you gather a list of websites and/or journalists from which you really want to get links and coverage.

These are the contacts that you spend the time building relationships with.

Unsure how to build these lists? Here are some ways to think about it:

What sites do my competitors have links from?

Use Ahrefs’ Competitive Analysis and look at competitors with links from referring domains that aren’t linking to your site.

Aim for relevant sites with high authority.

You can also do this from a page perspective if you are trying to get a post or keyword to rank.

What sites do my customers spend time on?

If you’re looking to squeeze the most out of a digital PR or link building campaign, you’ll try to identify sites that can help convert to leads.

Tools like Sparktoro tell you the kinds of sites your customers spend time on.

These are the sites you’ll want to prioritize pitching and building relationships with.

What sites will syndicate my content (to help reach)?

As far as I know, there is no centralized place to find content syndication networks, but BuzzSumo did a fantastic analysis two years ago:

Overall, it really depends on your industry, but in their study, they determined that the publishers that send links to the greatest variety of publications are:

Quality over quantity

You don’t need to send out thousands of outreach emails.

In fact, Google is pushing users further away from the bulk outreach approach with their newer email requirements.

Focusing on the “VIP” sites will save you time and yield better relationships and stronger coverage.

42. Use Google Image Search to find missed image links

This week’s tip comes from digital PR pro, Matt Seabridge, who also has a great newsletter, Digital PR Observer, that you should definitely check out.

My take: This is a very simple, yet effective tip.

Here’s the process I take:

First, identify the images you want to search for.

Then, you either upload the image or paste the image address into Google Image Search:

Then, you’ll see a list of potential matches.

Open all of the sites or publications that use your image and ensure they properly link to you.

I tend to look at “Exact matches” first, then move to visual matches because they can be a bit noisy.

Although, the “Visual matches” uncovered someone using this image and cutting off the logo and attribution to Preply!

(They also don’t link to Preply anywhere in the article.)

Note: Not every link reclamation is worth your time. Be sure to evaluate the site itself.

If you’d like to see a full walkthrough of this image link reclamation process, including an email template to use, I’ve added a section about this in my unlinked mentions post.

43. Familiarize yourself with key journalists in your industry

This week’s outreach tip comes was echoed by several recent podcast guests, so I wanted to get it in writing.

Before you start any digital PR campaigns, you should familiarize yourself with the key journalists in the space.

Then, introduce yourself.

As Jaclyn Lambert said in our podcast about earning media:

“If I see that somebody who’s really valuable that I really want to work with, I definitely send an email and letting them know I liked their article or their segment and introducing myself.

I might not have something for them that I’m pitching, but I want to make the connection.”

In the same conversation, Britt Klontz echoed:

“You can do that on social media, too. It doesn’t have to be an email. Go out of your way to share their stories.

Journalists love that. Journalists take note of that. I think that’s the biggest compliment you could give to a journalist.”

What does this mean for you?

The workflow when taking on a new client or site might look like this:

1. Find 10 journalists in your immediate space.
2. Follow them.
3. Share and comment on their social posts when you find them interesting.
4. Introduce yourself via email referencing the social post you liked.
5. Wait a bit before pitching anything.

Any contact you have with journalists sent through BuzzStream via email will be tracked and you’ll see it in the Contact History for the specific publication they are attached to.

If you are messaging them on social, you can track the conversations manually as notes on the contact.

44. Use the Case Study Link Building method

Here’s a link building idea for virtually any online company.

Essentially, you pitch a case study to any of the tools or software platforms you use at your company.

A study from Productiv found that most teams use an average of 40 to 60 apps.

Even if only half have websites with blogs or case studies, that’s a solid 20-30 new backlinks.

How to do it in 5 steps

First, make a list of all of the apps you use on a daily basis. This can be:

• Website plugins
• Chrome extensions
• Apps like Asana or Zoom

Then, compile the URLs for each website. (A simple Google search will help.

Next, do a site search for each of them for the word “case study.” Ignore the ones that don’t have a case study section or include case studies in their blog.

If you have access to a tool like Ahrefs, assess their site metrics. Look for sites with high traffic (over 10k per month) and high authority (65+).

Now you have your list of potential sites and you are ready to pitch.

Pitch your case study idea.

Focus on the Value

For case studies to be successful, they need compelling angles. Tell the story that makes the target tool look great.

Focus on the tool’s wins, such as increased productivity, time saved, or traffic gains.

Here’s my pitch to Ahrefs:

Sure this approach requires some writing and analysis, but links featured in case studies are some of the longest lasting links on websites because they serve as marketing materials.

This is an excellent example of providing value and Helping the person you are pitching (which is the H in C.H.A.M.P. outreach method.)

SEO and Digital PR Impact

Most of the respondents to our State of Digital PR survey told us they have trouble measuring the impact of digital PR. So, here are some tips from the newsletter that drew from those problems.

45. Use internal links to their fullest potential in PR

Internal links are great for SEO. But, I’ve found that some digital PRs don’t utilize them to their full potential.

Using internal links correctly transfers value from your digital PR assets to priority pages and rankings for specific keywords.

However, if you put too many links on your page, you risk diluting the link value that you are passing.

Check out my favorite post from Signs.com, Branded in Memory.

Aside from the navigation links, they have a whopping one internal link, which directs users back to the home page.

See “custom signs” below:

It links back to the homepage, driving link value and helping the homepage rank.

Interested about how this works?

I cover this all in our digital PR impact on SEO post.

46. Control the links you get from digital PR

I’ve heard some link builders shy away from digital PR because you can’t control the links you receive.

Why this happens (and it’s usually a good thing), I think you have a great deal of control when you pitch to journalists. You also have control from the start of the content ideation process.

Since people are usually paying for your services, you should be laser-focused on the sites you contact so that they get the best value.

Here’s how:

Create content that is relevant to your brand

Starting from the top, this isn’t precisely an outreach tip, but the further away from your brand you get, the less relevant your links will be.

So, in the ideation phase, you need to ensure your topic will bring in relevant links.

If you are a suitcase brand, you want links from travel sites, not sports sites.

Choose contextually relevant sites

When you evaluate a site to pitch, the first thing you should do is gauge its relevance.

High-end news sites should have strong enough category relevance.

If you don’t see many articles written about your topic or the site buries the category, your link will likely not carry that much value.

Avoid sites that offer nofollow links

If your goal with digital PR is to boost your SEO, nofollow links provide little direct value. (They can, however, send you traffic, but the post needs to feature your link prominently.)

If unsure, use a Chrome plugin like Nofollow, which highlights Nofollow sponsored links.

Avoid sites with affiliate links

Similarly, you’ve probably encountered sites with affiliate partnerships.

On the podcast, we talked about this with Connective3’s Will Waldron.

The best way to avoid this is to find out which sites you or your client has partnerships with.

Yes, you can lose some control

Of course, if your piece gets picked up and spread, then you lose a bit of control. But that’s a good problem to have, right? More links!

And since you’ve solidified the relevance, you should continue to pick up relevant links.

Rarely will you get organic spammy links that will actually hurt your SEO efforts. (And if you do, you can disavow them.)

47. There are lots of ways to measure digital PR impact

​​According to our (soon to be published) State of Digital PR Report, measuring digital PR success is one of the top challenges facing PRs in 2025.

So, I wanted to break down some great advice from Sage Singleton, from our podcast episode at around the 18-minute mark.

She lists a ton of metrics to consider:

• Backlinks – Still a cornerstone of success. Quality over quantity always wins.
• Coverage – Broadcast segments (TV & radio), unlinked brand mentions, interviews conducted, newsletter & podcast inclusions.
• Traffic Trends – Referral traffic from backlinks, organic traffic growth, direct traffic (trends analyzed over 6-12 months for meaningful insights).
  
  Brand Visibility Correlations – Spikes in Google Trends or direct traffic often align with successful campaigns.
• Owned Audience Growth – Campaign-driven increases in: social media followers, email and push notification subscribers, YouTube subscribers.
• Search Visibility – Leveraging Google Search Console to track clicks, impressions, and keyword rankings.
• Experience, Expertise, Authority, Trust (E-E-A-T) – Monitoring the number of interview placements to strengthen the brand’s authority.

Using that framework, let’s quickly analyze the FinanceBuzz article from this week’s podcast conversation with Chris Lewis.

First Let’s Look at Google Trends.

This is one of the easiest and most direct ways to show a client/stakeholder that your campaigns are making an impact.

Using the FinanceBuzz example from our podcast this week, here 12 month trend search term for “Finance Buzz.”

You can see a huge peak during the week of April 21:

Next, Let’s Look at Links:

If we look at some of the coverage around that time using Ahrefs, you can see that a lot of links started coming in for their fast food inflation post around that same time.

This was really supercharged by coverage in USA Today on April 12th, which then was spread through a ton of sites through syndication.

This doesn’t even account for interest driven by social media.

Last, let’s look at Reddit:

If we look at Reddit, you can see a post about the FinanceBuzz article with 7K upvotes and over 500 comments on April 17, just a few days before the big spike on Google Trends.

This is how you can tell a story with your data to highlight the success and impact of digital PR.

I outlined all of this in a new post on tracking digital PR metrics.

Want To See the Rest of Our Tips?

We publish tips like this every week via our newsletter. We’ve also recently launched a “fact of the week” segment highlighting data.

Each week also highlights new podcast episodes and other newly-published content to help digital PRs and link builders get better at their jobs.

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