What is Reactive PR and How Does it Differ from Proactive PR?

We all do two kinds of PR: proactive and reactive.

You’ve either planned it or reacted to an event or trend.

These days, the news is running a mile a minute, with platforms like TikTok uncovering and proliferating trends and new platforms like BlueSky establishing brand-new information streams.

So, to make the most of this influx of data, a sound PR strategy must have a solid mix of reactive and proactive campaigns.

So, in this post, we’ll help define reactive PR as it compares to proactive PR and show you how to use it to build coverage.

What is Reactive PR?

Reactive PR, sometimes called newsjacking, is when you respond to trending topics, events, or even crises. It’s quick and agile.

One of my favorite examples is when KFC ran out of chicken in 2018 and published this full-page ad apologizing for it:

In digital PR, reactive PR campaigns typically pitch quotes, data, or new stories to journalists that tie into a trending topic or news event.

Think of it as adding something new to a trending story.

For example, when Squid Game was trending, digital PR agency Rise at Seven pitched a story about how their client saw a rise in shoe sales for a type of shoe popularized by the show’s participants.

Later in this post, I will present several examples of reactive PR. (Jump to it now)

Reactive PR vs. Newsjacking

As far as I’m concerned, reactive PR and newsjacking are the same. But this may change depending on who you speak to.

Our post defined newsjacking as “leveraging trending or breaking news to spotlight your brand and earn top-tier news coverage and links.”

It sounds pretty similar to reactive PR, right?

What is Proactive PR?

Proactive PR is any planned PR story.

These stories can be tied to holidays, recurring events, or significant changes within a company, such as a merger or product launch.

For example, during Mental Health Awareness Month in May every year, NCAA released a campaign on May 1 explaining how they were promoting mental wellness.

This proactive, planned campaign was tied into a major social “event.” Then, as soon as the event occurred, the campaign went live.

Another example is the eco-friendly toilet paper brand Who Gives A Crap’s “Flush Your Ex” campaign that rolled out in time for Valentine’s Day.

As you’ll see, these proactive campaigns can also become fairly crowded, depending on the space that you are in.

Reactive vs Proactive PR

Let’s take a quick look at them head-to-head:

There’s no reason to compare potential results, such as the number of links or coverage, because results depend on several factors.

Some industries, like Finance or Entertainment, are more conducive to reactive PR opportunities and may yield more coverage overall.

Essentially, any industry with a higher frequency of news stories is ripe for reactive PR.

But that certainly doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be on the lookout for opportunities when you are in other, slower-moving industries.

When To Be Reactive vs Proactive?

Before we get too far into setting up a reactive or proactive workflow, I want to introduce a concept from Mark Rofe, which he calls his Reactive PR Matrix. He explains it in detail in our reactive PR podcast discussion.

It breaks reactive PR into four quadrants: unplanned vs planned, and low media interest vs high.

I’m amending it here to help explain the difference between proactive and reactive PR.

In Mark’s opinion, it’s best to focus on reactive PR opportunities in areas of high interest.

Why?

Because your email can easily get lost in a journalist’s inboxes for proactive (or planned) PR events.

For example, each year, there is an interest rate hike in the UK.

Just look at this snapshot of a journalist’s inbox below:

These emails are all (most likely) planned, proactive PR pitches.

It’s virtually impossible to stand out if everyone proactively plans to pitch a story or quote about the same event.

So, that’s where reactive PR as a strategy stands out.

Let’s look at how to be reactive, and then we can also touch on some proactive strategies.

How to Do Reactive PR

There are six steps to reactive PR, which aren’t all that different from proactive PR.

The difference is that reactive PR usually adds to the story in real time.

I’ve outlined setting up a workflow in our newsjacking post, but I’ll reiterate a slightly shorter version below:

1. Identify Your Areas of Relevancy and Expertise

You must establish where you or your brand can establish expertise and relevance.

Why?

Because that is what journalists want from their pitches and sources.

Data from Muck Rack’s State of Journalism 2024 report backs this up directly.

The first stat shows that journalists reject pitches because they are irrelevant to the journalist.

So, if your post isn’t relevant, you won’t even have a seat at the table.

The second is that credentials matter when pitching yourself as a source (like providing expert commentary—a key reactive PR tactic).

Journalists reported wanting actual subject matter experts as sources (82%) — not self-appointed experts (8%).

So, if I’m working with a brand that sells farming equipment, I must stick to farm-related stories.

I’m going to quote Unearth PR’s founder, Georgia Gadsby March, from our podcast conversation, who said:

“You want this expert to be seen as an authority. You want them to be seen as a market leader in that space.”

Simply put, the further away you get from your expertise, the less likely you will get coverage.

With fewer journalists, thinking about quality pitches over quantity is best. So, next, let’s dig into how to identify journalists.

2. Find Your Trends

The trending topics, stories, or events can be found in several places. In our newsjacking guide, I recommend finding your news using the following:

• Google Trends
• Trending hashtags on social channels
• News sites (both general and industry-specific)
• Industry newsletters
• Google Alerts or Talkwalker alerts

Google Trends has become particularly useful lately with its update on the “Trending Now” tool.

You can search trends based on category:

This plays directly into our previous step of identifying areas of expertise and relevance.

With these categories, I can narrow down my search for areas that you may be able to leverage for reactive campaigns.

I might use a social media tool depending on my target demographic.

For instance, TikTok is huge with Gen Z.

Their Explore tab is broken into categories that you can use to identify trends, like the sudden influx of drone sightings in New Jersey 🤖:

I’ll determine my value add once I’ve found a potential topic.

3. Identify Your Value Add

With reactive PR, you can create new content or provide commentary for a journalist. Either way, you should add value to a news story or topic.

Adding value might be:

• Data angle – do you have proprietary data that you can provide to further the story?
• Personal angle – journalists always look for “case studies” and real people impacted by current events.
• Emotional angle – the stories that perform best are often the ones with strong emotional hooks — especially negative emotions like anger or frustration.

As Georgia Gadsby-March said on our podcast:

“It’s adding value, adding a comment that is going to change the way the journalist thinks about the topic, or it’s going to bring something new to the conversation rather than just explaining the situation.”

“(Instead of) giving a top tip or hack that everyone’s already heard of, you need to add something completely new.”

This is something that Amelia Selby, Head of PR at SEO Travel, echoed in another podcast conversation as well:

“Share something different, you know?

Dish some, maybe some insider secrets or maybe even just give an opposing view. That’s definitely how we’ve been able to, to cut through the noise because obviously, journalists will just get the same tips, just written slightly differently.

Give them something that will make their readers shocked or feel some sort of emotion.”

Let’s look at an example.

As I write this, the top trending weather-related news is snow in Wisconsin:

Imagine I represent a large-scale home improvement chain that sells equipment like snow shovels and rock salt.

Maybe I could get data on the increase in rock salt or snow melt and provide that to journalists. That’s data that no one else has access to, which makes it valuable.

Or maybe local stores are running out! That’s an emotional hook!

Either way, I’m adding something of value to a trending topic.

Next, let’s figure out what to do with that value-add.

4. Identify Relevant Journalists

Once I know the story, I’ll want to pitch it.

I’ve already written a guide on how to find journalists that gives an entire run down.

There are two ways that PRs identify journalists: media databases or manual research.

Media databases like Muck Rack or Roxhill can find journalists. However, due to journalist churn, these media databases quickly become outdated.

So, the easiest way to identify journalists is to look at those who have covered similar stories.

I can do this with a simple Google News search. Set the date to the past 24 hours.

In the below, I Googled, “wisconsin snow.”

Then click into any of the stories and look for an author.

Note: Weather topics get tricky, as I wouldn’t want to pitch a meteorologist. So, in this case, I might just find another reporter at this outlet covering a similar topic:

In our post on contacting journalists, Nicole DeLeon, Founder of North Star Inbound, told us about the priority list for news outlets:

In order of importance…

1. Assignment editor
2. Reporters & producers
3. Executive producer
4. Digital producer/web team*
5. Anchor

I can craft your pitch once I’ve identified the correct person to pitch to.

5. Craft your pitch

The pitch process for reactive isn’t any different from proactive PR. We’ve also covered that entire process in our media pitch post, but there are two main things to point out:

Match the subject line to a journalist’s existing headlines.

This is a straightforward rule to follow.

Use an author page or Google search to uncover previous articles written by a journalist.

Then, try to find a pattern and match it.

For example, if I look at journalist Megan Lee’s author page, I see that she typically begins each headline focusing on people.

So, my email subject line would do the same.

If we are following the same example of the home improvement store running out of supplies, the subject line might be:

“Wisconsin residents needing snow shovels may be out of luck”

Then, I write the body.

Give the journalist everything they need to write a compelling story.

One of the first things I remember learning about PR was that you want to make the journalist’s job as easy as possible. That makes it much more likely that they will take action on your pitch.

So, I need to focus my email on giving the journalists everything they need to write a story.

In our media pitch post, Worderist’s Hannah Smith outlines this workflow:

So, a reactive PR pitch for my home improvement snow pitch may look something like this:

With the pitch written, it’s time to get on with the emailing.

Reactive PR with BuzzStream

I use BuzzStream to email my respondents as its an easy way to personalize my emails but more importantly, keep track of ongoing journalist relationships.

With BuzzStream, I compile email lists using the Research flow.

Research and List Building

First, I’ll create a project in BuzzStream.

Then I’ll choose Search News.

Now I’ll essentially copy my search queries from step 4.

For instance, I can search “wisconsin snow.”

Here’s the important piece, however: I need to make sure I change the date range to the previous week so that I make sure I only capture recent articles:

Now BuzzStream pulls in articles that I can review:

With the title and reporter name listed I get a pretty good sense of the article and whether or not it is a fit.

But, I can also use the Research Flow to see the site for myself.

I’ll highlight and hit “Review on the Web” which will open tabs for me.

Then, I can go through and evaluate each website:

More importantly, I can see what previous contact history I may have with journalists at the site:

Once my list is set, I can move on to the email phase.

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Crafting Emails

Before I send an email, I’ll craft one using the Sequence editor.

I’ll click New Sequence and build a new template that I can use to email my media list.

Then, I can pull in the target prospect’s [First Name] using Dynamic fields.

Otherwise, the rest of the template is pretty standard.

Once this is set up, I’ll also set up a follow-up.

This can be set to whatever timeframe I’d like.

Once this sequence is set up, I’ll name it and save it.

Sending Emails

Now, I can send some emails!

I click on the Outreach button and pick “send individually.”

This then brings up the Outreach flow, which shows me the contact history and other information on the left and the email draft on the right—allowing me to edit and personalize based on any previous history I might have with the contact.

5 Examples of Reactive PR That Anyone Can Do

Now that we know how to do reactive PR, let’s look at some examples of reactive campaigns.

As I pointed out earlier, these differ from proactive PR campaigns because they specifically react to a significant trend or news event.

1. Expert Commentary About Ted Baker

Mark Rofe saw an opportunity for his client, ABC Finance, when this headline appeared:

Since the story involved finance, there was a clear, relevant connection to his client.

He pitched a quote from Gary Hemming, a finance specialist with ABC Finance, to 50 journalists and scored major coverage like what you see below:

Mark said, “I sent it to under 50 journalists, and within a couple of hours, we had coverage in the MailOnline, The Express, Evening Standard, WhatJobs.com, and Retail Wire.”

2. Stairmaster TikTok Trend

UK digital PR Agency, North, saw that a Stairmaster workout was trending on TikTok.

So, they wrote a piece on their client’s website, fourfive:

Then, they pitched expert commentary to several sites and got covered on numerous sites like Tom’s Guide below:

The results: Aside from the numerous press mentions like the Daily Star, the blog (at the time) outranked TikTok for the keyword “TikTok stairmaster workout” and drove 15% of their site’s email signups.

3. FinanceBuzz’s Fast Food Reactive Campaign

This one takes a little background.

First, FinanceBuzz created a study that asked Is Fast Food Affordable Anymore? which went insanely viral, and has just under one thousand linking root domains today.

As Chris Lewis of Launch Potato, the digital agency behind the campaign, told me:

“It also prompted a response from McDonalds in a letter from their President on their corporate site (our response here).

A few weeks later, McD’s launched a $5 value meal, which pressured other fast food chains to create their own value meals.”

So, in reaction to these $5 value meals, they did another DPR campaign for FinanceBuzz about “which value meals save you the most.”​

This piece gathered 49 linking root domains, including coverage from Fox Business, Yahoo, and more.

4. Ikea’s Ronaldo Water Bottles

During a UEFA Euro 2020 press conference, soccer (football) star Christiano Ronaldo removed two bottles of Coca-Cola and replaced them with water, saying “saying “Agua (water in Portuguese), no Coca-Cola” to the press.

This moment caught the attention of the press and spread across the internet.

Ikea saw an opportunity to capture the trend with a reactive campaign. They used social posts on their Instagram to promote a fake ad for an Ikea water bottle simply named “Cristiano.”

This garnered a lot of press and eventually landed several advertising awards for the agency behind it, Rethink.

5. Auto Trader’s F1 Cars

As Netflix’s Drive to Survive returned for a second season, Auto Trader capitalized on the buzz around the show’s return.

Their team compiled a list of the personal car collections from the popular racers in the show and pitched it to industry news outlets.

This got them coverage from sites like Indy100.

They also used their expertise and data to estimate the costs of the cars:

Auto Trader appears to continue to use this strategy whenever there is a trending news story around F1.

With the popularity of Netflix’s new show about Ayrton Senna, you can see them providing expert commentary on a MailOnline story.

Below, you can see the mention and expert commentary from Erin Baker, Auto Trader’s editorial director:

Keeping the Healthy Mix of Reactive and Proactive

The successful agencies I’ve talked with always employ a mix of reactive and proactive campaigns.

There are a few reasons for this, but the main one is that you never know what the news cycle will bring.

If you put all your eggs in one basket with a major proactive hero campaign and something overshadows the news that day, you may lose a lot of traction.

Conversely, if you plan to wait it out and find the best high-interest, reactive PR campaigns, you’ll most likely see fewer opportunities, each with a minimal window.

So, spread out your tactics, and keep your eyes peeled.

Good luck!

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