The PR Challenge
When search and digital marketing platform Searchmetrics entered the UK market, its main PR goal was to support sales by raising its profile and building credibility in the online marketing sector. A key requirement was targeting search engine marketing professionals and agencies – a tightly-knit community that is very active on social media.
Approach
CloudNine PR rolled out an ongoing PR campaign combining media relations, blogger/influencer outreach and social media activity that helped Searchmetrics break the ice with key UK journalists and SEO influencers/bloggers.
An important element of the PR effort was newsjacking – getting Searchmetrics quoted as experts in breaking and trending news covering Google and the major search engines. Searchmetrics’ software supports this by providing in-depth data that can be used to analyse search engine changes and trends.
In one extremely successful newsjacking campaign, we worked closely with Searchmetrics to publicise the company’s analysis of the UK rollout of Google’s Panda algorithm update (impacting how the search giant ranks websites in its results). Within two days of the update going live in the UK, Searchmetrics had posted its in-depth analysis on its blog and CloudNine PR was pitching key UK media targets to highlight newsworthy story angles and offer interviews with company executives.
Influential SEO agency bloggers were sent pitches by email to encourage them to share and write about Searchmetrics’ data within their own blogs and social networks. A concerted effort was made to drive mentions on X/Twitter.
The results
The campaign helped to create a dramatic lift in UK awareness and credibility for Searchmetrics. The UK media results demonstrate how social media (influencer blogs and X/Twitter) and traditional media feed off each other. We landed coverage on the BBC News website, the Guardian technology blog and the majority of the top UK marketing media, including Marketing, Marketing Week and Econsultancy. Technology media coverage included The Inquirer, PC Pro, V3.co.uk, Computer Shopper and Web User.
The campaign produced dozens of mentions about Searchmetrics’ study on leading SEO blogs and many hundreds of X/Twitter mentions. Over 140 comments were posted on the Searchmetrics blog post, which also received over 100 backlinks within two weeks. The UK media and social media attention helped to spread the message internationally, with French national newspapers Le Monde and Les Echos also covering the story.
Traffic to the Searchmetrics website increased substantially, with nearly 20,000 visits to blog in the week of the campaign. 20+ sales inquiries came in on the first day and there was a significant rise in inbound calls weeks afterwards.
Client quote
“The PR campaign to publicise the UK rollout of Google Panda PR was an excellent example of media and social media working together to drive results,” said Dr Horst Joepen, CEO of Searchmetrics.
“CloudNine PR worked with us to pounce on the opportunity to get our data mentioned in the rapidly building Google Panda UK news story. The coverage results, which included high profile national news sites, as well as marketing and technology media and hundreds of social media mentions, surpassed our expectations. It all translated into increased visibility and credibility for us. If the UK search industry had not heard of Searchmetrics before Panda, they certainly have now!”