One thing I’ve noticed recently is that a lot of Digital PR campaigns are still being built the wrong way around.

The process usually looks like this:

👉🏽 Find some data
👉🏽 Run a survey
👉🏽 Write a report
👉🏽 Try to figure out a story afterwards

That approach almost always leads to a campaign that feels… fine.

But not publishable.

The strongest Digital PR campaigns actually start somewhere else.

They start with the headline.

Before a single dataset is pulled or a survey question is written, you should already be able to imagine the story running on a news site.

Something like:

“Searches for X have doubled in the last year”

or

“Brits are spending £X more on X than they were five years ago”

If you can’t picture the headline, the idea probably isn’t ready yet.

Another common issue I see is campaigns that are technically interesting but don’t contain any tension.

Journalists need friction in a story.

Something has to be changing, rising, falling, or contradicting expectations.

Some of the most reliable angles sit inside a few simple patterns:

✅ Something is growing quickly
✅ Something is disappearing
✅ Something now costs far more than it used to
✅ People are behaving differently than before
✅ What people believe turns out to be wrong

You don’t need an overly complicated dataset to build a story.

You just need a clear shift people can understand immediately.

If you’re trying to decide between running a survey or analysing real behaviour data, the behaviour data will almost always produce the stronger story.

Think about what people actually do:

🤔 What they search
🤔 What they book
🤔 What they spend
🤔 What they cancel
🤔 What they avoid

That type of data reveals patterns journalists can explain.

Opinion surveys often just reveal what people say they think.

Those two things are rarely the same.

This is a step a lot of teams skip.

Before the campaign exists, you should already know where the link needs to land.

Not after the coverage.

Before the ideation.

Because the question you’re really asking is:

“What page actually benefits from this authority?”

Too many campaigns send links to the homepage or a random blog post when the page that actually needs authority is a commercial category page sitting on page two of Google.

Digital PR builds authority.

SEO captures demand.

When those two things are aligned, the results are far more powerful.

One of the most common questions I get from clients and SEO teams is:

“Can we use this anchor text?”

The honest answer is that in Digital PR, you rarely control anchors in the way traditional link building suggests.

Editors change wording.

Copy is shortened.

Links are sometimes added by someone who wasn’t even the journalist writing the piece.

The goal isn’t forcing a perfect anchor.

The goal is making sure the link makes sense inside the story.

If the link feels natural and relevant to the topic, it has a far better chance of surviving the editing process.

Most inboxes at news desks are chaos.

Which means your pitch needs to be instantly scannable.

The structure I almost always use looks like this:

👉🏽 Lead with the headline
👉🏽 Show the strongest statistic early
👉🏽 Explain why the story matters right now
👉🏽 Add a quote that says something interesting

And remove anything unnecessary.

Long introductions and background paragraphs rarely help.

Editors don’t need the full brand story.

They need the story angle.

The biggest shift happening in Digital PR right now isn’t tools or AI.

It’s editor attention.

Journalists are receiving more content than ever.

Which means the stories that succeed are the ones that are instantly understandable.

Clear tension.

Clear numbers.

Clear relevance.

The simpler the angle, the easier it is to publish.

If you enjoy these breakdowns and there’s a topic you’d like me to unpack in a future issue, just reply and let me know.

Sophie
Founder, Cupid PR 💘

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