Journalists get bombarded with countless pitches every day, so how do you make your story stand out?
One way is with data. Journalists aren’t just asking for data these days, they’re demanding it. Whether threat intelligence, bespoke research or economic estimates, data gives weight to a story and contextualises the narrative for their audience.
This leaves an opportunity for brands to contribute data to trending stories and create compelling narratives around data to land high-value media coverage.
On this basis, data storytelling is a fantastic route for elevating PR efforts, but finding success is by no means guaranteed.
So, how do you maximise your chances of success?
In our new eBook – Data Wins – we share four proven strategies to help your organisation leverage data for maximum impact.
Below is a preview of one chapter that reveals how to uncover a story that truly sets you apart.
Unearthing a distinctive story
Finding the data is just the first step in data storytelling. The bigger challenge is finding the story in that data and what it says about a topic or trend.
A specific event could be the spark for a story. As part of our work with WeArisma, for example, we leveraged its AI-powered earned analytics platform to create data-led stories that would resonate with fashion and beauty brands. Through media tracking, we saw an opportunity to capitalise on the rise of the Tenniscore fashion trend, partly driven by the release of the movie ‘Challengers’ starring Zendaya, ahead of Wimbledon. This resulted in nine coverage hits, including in Vogue Business, a Fashion Network syndication and Harper’s Bazaar France.
Even when conducting surveys or FOI requests, where the desired headlines and narrative should be mapped before the questions go into the field, the importance of going into the data to find the truly interesting nuggets is key. If you’re too preoccupied with writing the story you envisaged before you received the data, you might miss the golden ticket!
Survey data often presents an opportunity to tell multiple stories to maximise news coverage. For AeroCloud, for example, in the months following the launch of a report surveying airport leaders, we developed a second announcement tied to the report using survey data that wasn’t the focus of the original launch release. This resulted in a ‘second wave’ of coverage without the need for a new dataset.
No matter how you approach finding your data story, it’s important to check you haven’t drunk the Kool-Aid. Sense-check the narrative against existing media agenda to ensure it’s freshy, timely and relevant.
To learn more about leveraging data to secure high-value media coverage, get in touch at [email protected] to receive a copy of our Data Wins e-book.
