PR is all about increasing brand awareness and positioning your business as a credible voice within your industry, and in many ways, this relies on how you ‘hook’ your audience and journalists.
Newsworthy content should be engaging, insightful, and spark emotion. That’s not to say you should be writing clickbait headlines just to get people interested; in fact, quite the opposite.
Why not look much closer to home? Use the data and unique insights your business can provide and turn these into smart PR hooks that reveal something new, all while becoming a recognised thought leader.
What kind of business insights can work as PR hooks?
New and interesting insights will always get people interested, and as a business, you have plenty of unique data that can be used. Here are a few types of business insights that can be great PR hooks:
- Customer demographic shifts: Highlight changes in your customer demographics, such as an increase in younger customers or a shift in geographical locations.
- Surprising sales trends: Showcase unexpected patterns in your sales data, like a sudden surge in sales for a particular product or during a specific period.
- Unique purchasing behaviors: Share insights into your customers’ buying habits, such as an increase in online purchases or a preference for eco-friendly products.
- Product usage data: Highlight how customers are using your products or services in innovative ways, providing valuable insights into their needs and preferences.
- Industry-specific research: Conduct and share research relevant to your industry, uncovering trends, challenges, or opportunities that can position your business as a thought leader.
- Customer feedback insights: Showcase feedback from your customers, highlighting testimonials, success stories, or areas of improvement that demonstrate your commitment to customer satisfaction.
Here are four steps for repurposing those business insights into PR hooks:
1. Identify your unique insights
The first step is uncovering any interesting insights from your business. No matter what industry you’re in or how big your business is, your internal data and knowledge can be turned into a great hook that’s of interest to your audience and captures journalists’ attention.
Look closely at sales figures, customer demographics, buying habits, customer feedback, behaviors, and other trends within your business or industry. You can often gather this information from any data collection software connected to your business or speak to team leads about any new patterns or findings they’ve noticed.
Consider what sets your insights apart from others in your field. Are there any patterns or trends that are particularly noteworthy or surprising? Don’t worry if at first glance the insights don’t seem particularly exciting, often, seemingly mundane findings can unveil compelling narratives when examined more closely. Delving deeper into your data may reveal hidden correlations, unexpected trends, or unique perspectives that set your insights apart from others in your industry.
2. Find a newsworthy angle
Once you’ve identified your key insights, analyze them to uncover potential newsworthy angles. Look for trends, statistics, or findings that have broader implications or challenge common assumptions—you don’t want to regurgitate the same insights people have heard before.
You should also lean into the current media landscape and identify topics or issues that your insights can contribute to. Is there a timely news hook or trend that your data can speak to? For example, let’s imagine you run an ecommerce store specializing in outdoor gear and equipment. After analyzing your customer data you uncover a fascinating trend: a surge in purchases of camping gear during specific lunar phases! Considering current trends, you also notice a growing interest in alternative lifestyle trends and unique experiences, and plan to launch your story around the next lunar eclipse when interest in the topic is high.
Here, your hook is the data you’ve uncovered about buying habits relating to lunar phases.
This angle not only adds interesting insight surrounding consumer behavior but also positions your ecommerce platform as a pioneer in understanding and catering to niche preferences.
3. Align your angle with wider PR goals
It’s important to consider your wider PR goals when coming up with hooks. Securing PR coverage can be great for online visibility, so try to align your efforts with wider PR goals, such as highlighting a particular product, increasing overall site traffic, or boosting your rankings.
One effective strategy for maintaining alignment with wider goals is through collaboration across departments. Each department within your organization can contribute valuable insights to your PR initiatives, ensuring that the hooks you develop add value across the business.
Collaboration can enrich your PR efforts and amplify their impact, whether it’s insights from SEO specialists, social media managers, or sales teams. While it may not be feasible for every team member to attend every PR meeting, organizing quarterly ideation sessions for major campaigns offers an excellent chance for cross-team collaboration. Make sure to schedule occasional inter-departmental meetings—the results may leave you pleasantly surprised!
4. Craft a strong story
Now it’s time to use your business insights to create a strong story. When pitching to journalists, ensure your hook is prominent, whether it’s incorporated into your subject line or headline. Phrases like “research reveals…” or “data study unveils…” can lend credibility to your insights and pique journalists’ interest from the outset.
Next, it’s about crafting your narrative, using your insights to build out a story that’s newsworthy and of value to your audience. Having an in-house copywriter can be invaluable for writing effective press releases that link your business insights to other important elements together such as current trends, relevant products, or services that secure coverage.
However, if you aspire to achieve global coverage through your PR efforts, consider the option of hiring internationally. This approach can enable you to tap into diverse expertise and perspectives, ultimately enhancing the reach and impact of your PR campaigns. Remember, your PR hooks need to be relevant to your audience so cultural understanding is a must!
When working on PR campaigns, always use the data you have readily available. Your business insights can reveal a whole range of interesting behaviors, trends, and statistics that journalists will want to get their hands on, so use them to your advantage for great PR campaigns!
