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Digital PR starter pack

Got an upcoming interview or perhaps you just want to learn more about the world of PR? Find out everything you need to know in our digital PR starter pack.

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28 min read

Are you interested in a job in digital PR but have no idea how to get your foot in the door?

Then this guide is for you

In a nutshell, digital PR is all about increasing brand awareness and engagement through online channels such as websites, blogs, social media, and online news. This is done by creating relevant and newsworthy content that is then sent out to the media.

For digital PRs, the main goal is to achieve high-quality backlinks from these campaigns which helps signal to Google that your website is reputable, and ideally improves their rankings in the search engine results pages (SERPs).

Starter Pack Contents

How to prep for an interview

At the moment, there are many agencies hiring for digital PRs…

Like any other job, you should do basic preparation including researching the organisation, reviewing the job description, going over your CV and tailoring it to the company and role, and prepping your questions and answers. If your interview is in-person, then it’s also wise to plan your route there and back in advance as well as deciding what to wear.

Potential interview questions

It can be tricky to prep for interview questions as you really don’t know what you’re going to be asked. However, it’s always worth having some answers at the ready in case a question does come up, which should help you to feel more confident going in.

Here are some example questions an interviewer might ask:

  • What attracts you to a role in PR?
  • Which news outlet or magazine do you enjoy reading the most?
  • Who would your dream client be?
  • What would you bring to the table?
  • What are your strengths and weaknesses?
  • How much knowledge do you have of SEO/PR?
  • What experience do you have of the industry?
  • Give examples of recent PR campaigns you love and why
  • Why do you want to work for us?

Useful industry tools explained

At the moment, there are many agencies hiring for digital PRs…

To help get your head around some of the different industry tools you might come across, we want to give some insights into the most popular and useful tools* that we typically use day in, day out as digital PRs.

Buzzstream

Buzzstream is an outreach platform that you can use to launch and monitor your campaigns. No longer do you have to manually send each individual email, instead, you can build and upload media lists to the platform, create and edit different templates to get them distributed with ease.

Vuelio

Vuelio is a key tool when building media lists and during outreach because it is essentially a contact database where you can find all sorts of media contacts from around the world. This is particularly useful when the journalist’s email isn’t within their recent articles or in their Twitter bio.

ResponseSource

A great tool for reactive PR is ResponseSource which is an email subscription service that helps to connect experts, PRs, and journalists who need help or information. Not only can you respond to requests to get your client’s name out there, but PRs can also use this tool to send out their own requests for campaign support, for instance, expert commentary.

Google Trends

You can use Google Trends to research and analyse search trends of a given term or keyword over a period of time. In PR, this can be used as its own data source (something we’ll touch on in more detail later), or to add relevance to an existing piece.

Ahrefs

One well-known piece of software is Ahrefs which classes itself as an all-in-one SEO toolset, and here at c3 this is used across a few of our different teams including PR. Some of the tools you can find on Ahrefs include their site explorer, content explorer, keywords explorer, rank tracker, and link intersect.

Moz

Moz is another tool that allows you to gain SEO insights such as page authority, domain authority, site rankings, keyword research, and auditing. There is also a free google chrome extension you can get called MozBar which is useful as it provides a quick overview of some of these metrics.

Keyword.io

Keyword.io is a free keyword research tool that helps you find autocomplete keyword suggestions from various sources including Google, Amazon, and YouTube. This is a versatile tool that can be used across various digital marketing teams, including PR.

BuzzSumo

Working in digital PR means you always need to keep up to date with what is going on in the news including what topics are currently trending, Buzzsumo lets you do just that, and you can filter or search a certain category. This tool is pretty versatile and can be used for ideation, finding results, and competitor analysis, amongst other things.

Google Analytics

We’re pretty sure you’ll have heard of Google Analytics before as it provides all sorts of SEO and marketing insights and can even help you find results for your campaigns. Google Analytics is free to use but the client will have to give you access to their account in order to analyse the website traffic.

HypeAuditor

HypeAuditor is an AI-power analytics and discovery tool which allows you to manage and monitor influencer marketing campaigns. You can also use it to gather useful data and metrics about influencers from across various social media platforms including TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, and Twitch.

Linkfluence

Linkfluence is a social listening tool that can help PRs to take a deep dive into consumer insights via a live feed of global social data. Some ways PRs can use Linkfluence include monitoring brand reputation, finding results, understanding competitors and data collection.

AnswerThePublic

AnswerThePublic is a keyword and search listening tool and, in short, it provides automated autocomplete results. All you need to do is ask a question related to whatever topic you’re interested in and then you’ll be able to see what Google would predict you to ask based on the most common searches.

Who should you follow?

It’s no secret that the digital PR community is huge on Twitter, and you’ll always see people shouting out one another and just generally being super supportive.

Of course, if you’re new to the world of digital PR you don’t have to worry about being super active online but there are some great accounts and hashtags to follow for all sorts of tips and tricks.

Below are a few of our personal favourites:

Of course, these are just a few examples and there are so many other great people and industry leaders out there offering invaluable advice.

Where to find campaign inspiration

One of the best parts about working in PR is how creative it is but campaign ideation isn’t always planning.

In order to spark inspiration, sometimes all it takes is looking at other sites for inspiration. If you’ve recently joined the industry and aren’t sure where to start, here are a few of our favourites:

The Grapevine

The Grapevine is a monthly newsletter set up by Iona Townsley (@IonaJTownsley), a creative at NeoMam Studios. Each month Iona sends out an email which rounds up all the PR campaigns that she can find for a particular month, even sorting them into categories such as travel, lifestyle, and food to name a few.

PR Week

Another news outlet that is worth looking at if you’re new to the industry is PR Week as it covers all aspects of the PR and communications industry. The only caveat with this one is that some things are hidden behind a paywall, although you can register for free and access a limited number of articles a month.

The Drum

The Drum is a media and news outlet sharing the latest industry news and insights on marketing and media industries from around the world. This includes stories, job search resources, event listings, and features.

Famous Campaigns

Famous Campaigns is an independent blog that covers all sorts of PR and marketing stunts and campaigns. On the blog you can find posts that cover the different stunts and campaigns, split out by sector, explaining them in a bit more detail.

Content, Curated

Mark Porter (@markcporter) the head of marketing at Screaming Frog runs Content, Curated which is a monthly newsletter looking at his top picks for campaigns that month. In his posts, Mark gives a quick overview of his selected campaigns and why he likes them as well as some other honourable mentions, PR stunts, must-read marketing articles, and a must-follow marketer. You can either sign up for the Content, Curated email newsletter or head over to the blog.

Root Digital

Root Digital, a digital marketing agency, has its very own The BEST Digital PR & Link Building Campaigns list of what they deem the best digital PR and link building campaigns which you can go to for campaign inspiration. You can even go as far as filtering the campaigns by format (e.g., competition, interactive, and map), industry (e.g., automotive, beauty, and hone), market (e.g., UK and US), and year. Plus, they also tell you how many links each campaign secured.

Ideation tips and tricks

Now you know where to find campaign inspiration it’s time to put that to use during an ideation session.

Productive brainstorms are crucial in PR as this is where the campaign ideas come from and are the base of future work.

Of course, you’ll be attending brainstorms for your own clients but it’s likely that you’ll support those for clients too. It can be hard to think of innovative ideas all the time so if you ever find yourself in a bit of a rut these are our ideation tips and tricks:

Break down the brief

Typically, you’ll receive a brief prior to the brainstorm which will include key information such as an overview, previous campaigns, industry news, competitor insights, inspiration, and some initial ideas so other people can see where to start.

Try different approaches

Not everybody thinks the same way, so the same approach won’t work for everyone, and that’s fine. There are all sorts of ideation styles including brainwriting, figure storming, round the room, and change of scenery.

Never lose sight of the ‘why’

This can be easy to do when you work on multiple clients and are constantly having to come up with new and exciting ideas. However, one of the most important things to bear in mind when heading into a brainstorm is relevancy and the purpose behind whatever campaign you’re suggesting – constantly question yourself and ask ‘why’.

Remember that no idea is a bad idea

And last but not least, no idea is a bad idea. Sometimes we might randomly think of the wackiest things but there’s always something to take from it. Even if it’s not a developed concept you can still put it forward and potentially spark something from somebody else. After all, PR is all about creativity and standing out.

What are some popular data sources?

Helpful data sources really are the bread and butter of our PR work, especially as they form the basis of our campaigns.

Below we’ve listed just some of the data sources we tend to use here at c3, although you will need to check the terms before using them as some require attribution and/or permission first:

  • Survey providers (e.g., TLF, Censuswide, One Poll, and 3Gem)
  • Freedom of Information Requests (FOIs)
  • Office for National Statistics (ONS)
  • YouGov
  • Our World in Data
  • Statista
  • Numbeo
  • Built-in Excel functions
  • Social media (e.g., Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, and TikTok)

How PR and SEO can work together

Being able to combine PR and SEO will see you achieve better results and supports a wider strategy.

Below are some important pieces of SEO knowledge to have if you’re going to be working in PR:

Types of links and their value

A major part of PR is link-building and getting quality links can have a big impact on SEO, so it’s important to know the difference between each type and their value.

Followed links are seen to be the most ‘valuable’ as they pass link equity and help boost the page rank of the linked-to site which in turn see them go higher in the search engine results pages (SERPs).

No-follow links are slightly different, and you can spot them as they have a rel=”nofollow” tag and are invisible meaning it doesn’t pass link equity, but that’s not to say they don’t hold value, depending on what your clients’ goals are.

There is also content syndication, which is when a journalist, in particular someone who writes for an umbrella media business, publishes the same content over multiple news websites. While Google is not a fan of duplicate content, syndication won’t negatively impact SEO, but it also only tends to count as one link so doesn’t help massively either.

What does DR mean and what figure is considered valuable?

Domain rating (DR) is a metric created by Ahrefs that shows the relative strength of a website’s backlink profile. They determine strength by comparing the given site to others in their database on a 100-point ‘logarithmic’ scale with higher numbers being stronger.

What does DA mean and what figure is considered valuable?

Domain authority (DA) is a search engine ranking score used to see how likely a website is to rank on SERPs, aka how authoritative it is. DA scoring was developed by Moz and you can use their website, or the handy chrome extension MozBar, to find this out. The scoring is ranked from one to 100, with higher scores correlating to being more likely to rank and is based on multiple factors such as linking root domains and total number of links.

What does DA mean and what figure is considered valuable?

If you’re not sure what referral traffic means, essentially it is any time that someone clicks on a link to go to a website from another source. This is pretty much the core of digital PR strategy where you create and outreach content with the aim of getting a link on another site that someone else might click.

Ultimately, good digital PR will result in a diverse backlink profile including links from authoritative websites with a high DA which should see your site move up in the rankings, improve visibility, and lead to more clicks and conversions.

Tips on writing a brief

Depending upon which clients you work with and the types of campaigns you can do, the main areas you’ll probably end up composing briefs for are brainstorms, design and development, content, and potentially video.

Here at C3, we really believe in the power of teams working together. To do so effectively, your brief needs to convey your campaign and client’s message.

Some tips for writing a comprehensive brief include:

  • Whether it’s a brainstorm, design, or content brief, make sure that all the relevant information that those attending or working from the document will need.
  • Always provide examples! From creative inspiration to what’s trending in the news, examples for brainstorm briefs help to provide context, whereas for design briefs they’ll give the designers insight into how you’d like the content to look.
  • Don’t forget to include any no-goes, if there is something the client has expressed, they don’t like or doesn’t work for them, be sure to let those who will be using the brief know.

  • Share it within enough time. Every business or team will work to their own timeframes, and it’s important to ensure that you’re meeting those, so that those who will be digesting the brief have time to ask questions and prepare.

How to write a top-notch press release

A press release is your way of communicating your campaign to the media, which will then be transformed into a story to share with the public.

Not only is your press release your ticket to sharing your asset and securing results, but it’s also your opportunity to build credibility for your client and highlight that they are the experts in their field.

Given that it’s so important to get your press release right and grab the reader’s attention we’ve come up with some top tips:

  • Be clear, concise, and straight to the point. As we know, the media will often skim a release looking for standout information, that’s why it’s important to follow a structure that entices them to read more. If in doubt, refer to the inverted pyramid method.
  • Remember the five W questions and the one H question: who, what, where, when, why, and how.
  • Don’t focus on being too clever with your title, it’s not your job to write the journalist’s headline. Just ask yourself what you find most shocking/surprising about the piece and lead with that. If you’re struggling, wait until you have finished the release before coming up with a title.

  • Don’t forget to add additional value with insight from your client, after all, that’s what is going to make your campaign stand out.

What is newsjacking and how to use it to your advantage?

Newsjacking, aka reactive PR, means reacting to current events and the ever-changing news agenda allowing you to position your client as an expert in their field. It’s also a great way to build extra links.

There are two main types of newsjacking in PR which are using press releases (either new or old) along with expert commentary.

 

Newsjacking dos and don’ts

Getting the most out of your newsjacking is crucial, here are some of our top tips on what to do, and what not to do:

  • Always make sure you’re targeting relevant people; you don’t want to miss coverage by sending it to the wrong person.
  • The comment you’re providing needs to offer something new, don’t just repeat the facts.
  • Pull together a reactive calendar to ensure that you’re prepared for any upcoming reactive newsjacking opportunities.
  • Include some sort of prediction, opinion, or angle in your comment.
  • Don’t worry about using a lot of jargon, the comment needs to be understood by the journalist and readers.

Using press releases

When you spot an upcoming opportunity, it’s always worth seeing if you have any previous campaigns you can use or quickly reangle first. For example, maybe you have a campaign on the UK’s favourite pets that you can quickly edit to reflect National Pet Month. However, if not then you might consider quickly creating an entirely new release. An example of this might be revealing the most popular houseplants in light of Houseplant Week.

Expert comments

Expert comments are probably the most common form of newsjacking and, in theory, take less time. There are different sorts of comments, for instance, you could be talking about a breaking news story or reacting to a planned event or release like car registrations and house price indexes. These tend to be more unplanned than using press releases, so you need to be ready to get a comment out to the media fast.

How to save a failing campaign

It might seem obvious, but you should be monitoring your campaign constantly and unfortunately, there are occasions when things don’t always go to plan.

Perhaps you’ve launched and followed up but you’re still not seeing an open rate that you’re happy with or haven’t had any feedback… now is the time to act!

But what do you do? Here are some of our tips on how to save a failing campaign:

  • Each campaign should have multiple angles when possible. This means that if the hook you’ve gone out with hasn’t landed you can switch to plan B.
  • Trends are your best friend! If something isn’t working, look at what is trending in the news or on social media to see if it can add something relevant and newsworthy to the piece that you might have missed.
  • Check in with the rest of the team. At c3, we find it super useful to have regular campaign calls with the wider PR team to talk through concepts that aren’t performing and get a new perspective from those who aren’t as close to the client.

  • If you’re working on something that isn’t yet in outreach but you’re having difficulty with the data or making it newsworthy enough, don’t be afraid to switch it out for something you have more confidence in.

Mastering your outreach

Outreach is a key skill to master early on in your digital PR career, and this involves building relationships with journalists and earning yourself a reputation as a reliable and helpful PR at the earliest opportunity.

There are several different publications you can target during outreach, with the most common sectors being:

  • Nationals (e.g., Daily Mirror, Express, Metro, etc)
  • Regionals (e.g., Yorkshire Evening Post, Manchester Evening News, Liverpool Echo, etc)
  • Lifestyle (e.g., Cosmopolitan, Apartment Therapy, Refinery29, etc)
  • Niche titles (e.g., Dogs Today, Property Week, etc)

 

Here are some of other top tips for getting the most out of outreach:

  • Do your research when looking for journalists you want to contact and make sure they’re relevant. When it comes to outreach, quality over quantity wins every time.
  • Make your outreach emails personal and friendly but be conscious not to be too over-familiar if you’ve not built up a relationship with them.
  • Keep your pitch clear and include everything they need to know when you first get in touch, your aim is to make their job as easy as possible.
  • If you’re doing international outreach, don’t forget to check what time it is over there to ensure you’re landing in their inbox at the most optimal times.

How to find results

The thrill of launching a campaign never goes away and we still find ourselves looking for results right after the campaign is live and launched, but where are the best places to check?

If you can’t see anything straight away, don’t panic, sometimes you just need to dig a little bit deeper.

Try these tips and see if you can spot something you missed the first time around:

  • It’s no secret that a simple Google search for your client’s name or key terms from your campaign will pick up on links, as well as any syndications that might have come as a result.
  • As well as Google, tools such as Buzzsumo and Ahrefs are the go-to when looking for results, but they won’t always find every single link your campaign has achieved.
  • Social listening tools such as Linkfluence are really useful for finding unlinked brand mentions and turning them into links, as well as monitoring new links that are pointing to your client’s site, all you need is your client’s name and the URL the links would be pointing to.

  • Google Analytics is another great way to find links, but you’ll need to have access to your client’s Google profile in order to do so. All you need to do is navigate to All Traffic and then select Referrals, and Source which will allow you to check all the linking domains.

Conclusion

There you have it, a full digital PR starter pack, to help you feel confident when applying to your next role in PR even if you don’t have any previous experience.

As you can see, digital PR isn’t just about building links, it encompasses so much more than that and holds a lot of value for your clients. It plays a key role in increasing brand awareness and if you can establish a solid workstream alongside SEO and content then it can be game changing!

Here at c3 we’re constantly growing so if you’re ready to start a career in digital PR then head over to our careers page, or you can find even more digital marketing advice on our blog.

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