Clientversary: The Hampton Trust

The Sunny Bird PR team is celebrating its ‘clientversary’ with The Hampton Trust. Established in 1996, The Hampton Trust is an award-winning domestic abuse charity which delivers domestic violence perpetrator programs within the criminal justice system to reduce re-offending. The charity first approached the team with two objectives; to raise awareness of the work of The Hampton Trust in both regional and national press, educating those in the third sector industry and the wider public on their services and expertise, we’ve gone above and beyond securing 40 pieces of coverage for the charity over 12 months, reaching over 7.7 million people, with an advertising value equivalent of over £287,000!

To achieve these results , Sunny Bird PR ensured The Hampton Trust were considered experts in their field placed side-by-side with their competitors, other high profile domestic abuse charities. As well as this, we shone a light on the innovative work the charity are doing and we have made sure that the press are continually up to date with their program offerings. We are always scouring the press for reactive opportunities also, recently securing regular coverage in The Daily Express, with comments from Chantal Hughes, CEO of the Hampton Trust, on Coronation Streets coercive control story line, these pieces of coverage reached over 3.6 million people!

Here are some more examples of the work we’ve achieved for The Hampton Trust over the last 12 months:

CARA Workshop Press Visits

SBPR interviewed an attendee of one of The Hampton Trust’s CARA (Caution and Relationship Abuse) workshops and compiled a feature for the national press. This feature resulted in journalists from both Cosmopolitan Magazine and The Daily Telegraph visiting CARA workshops for themselves and compiling high-profile features in 2020, due to reach over 523,000 people.

CEO Profile

To ensure The Hampton Trust was positioned as the voice of authority in its sector, the SBPR team complied a feature on the CEO of the charity Chantal Hughes. This feature led to a series of exclusive opinion pieces running in Third Sector online, a coveted publication read by 123,000 voluntary sector workers.

Woman & Home Awards

SBPR nominated Chantal for the Woman & Home Awards, which champion women doing extraordinary things, in the ‘Changing our Country’ category. Chantal won the award in 2019, attending a photoshoot and a high-profile awards ceremony at London’s Claridge’s. This raised the profile of The Hampton Trust not only to the attendees, but to the 237,000 readers of Woman & Home Magazine.  To celebrate Chantal receiving this award SBPR complied a post event press-release, sharing the news with the regional press and achieving further coverage, which reached over 186,000 people.

Reacting to Television

The SBPR team know the importance of reactive media opportunities, and for The Hampton Trust we knew that prolific television storylines would bring domestic abuse into the public eye and into the news. Making sure we were up to date with the content of primetime soaps and dramas meant the team secured interview opportunities for Chantal in the Metro Online, the Daily Express Online and Tyla Online. These pieces of coverage reached over 4 million people, establishing The Hampton Trust as experts in the field and raising awareness of the charity as a go-to for comments on domestic abuse news for the national press.

Project White Ribbon Day

White Ribbon Day, and the 16 Days of Action is an annual event which raises awareness of domestic abuse against women. The SBPR team compiled press releases to highlight all of the work The Hampton Trust carried out during this time to raise awareness. The team also pitched Chantal as a spokesperson to target titles and broadcast media. The team’s PR activity secured 10 pieces of coverage for The Hampton Trust, including three features on the BBC South Today TV news programme, reaching over 2.7 million people.  

Regional Press

SBPR knew the importance of highlighting the work of The Hampton Trust to those who would need it the most, so the team ensured that regional press was given updates on essential news from The Hampton Trust. We secured 25 pieces of coverage for The Hampton Trust in Avon & Somerset, Hampshire, Dorset and the West Midlands, across broadcast, radio, online and print press raising awareness of the CARA workshops, the link up with the regional Police and the Hampton Trust’s ADAPT (Accredited Domestic Abuse Prevention Training) program. All of this coverage reached over 3.2 million people and would have cost over £29,000 in advertising!

We have loved working with The Hampton Trust over the last 12 months and are pleased to continue working with them in 2020.

Clientversary: Bliss Sanctuary for Women

The Sunny Bird PR team are celebrating another year ‘clientversary’ with Bliss Sanctuary for Women this month!

The luxury women’s only retreat in Bali first approached the team back in 2015 with the objective of raising the brand’s profile in UK press and the launch of its second sanctuary in Seminyak, following the launch of the first in Canggu.

Fast forward to 2019, and the SBPR were tasked with promoting the new sanctuary in relevant national press titles, securing celebrity trips to promote the sanctuary, as well as creating content and advertising on Bliss’ social media.

As the largest most luxurious sanctuary of the three, we knew we could use this to our advantage in attracting press coverage and celebrity trips. To start with we compiled a press release announcing the new sanctuary and pitched it to relevant travel, women and lifestyle titles as well as the national papers for inclusion in round ups, travel news and general features which focused on Bliss’ unique offerings.

Press coverage achieved included Bliss being featured in ‘Top Destinations of Women of the World’ in the Metro as well as ‘The World's 24 Hottest New Hotels Opening in 2019’ in The Telegraph. We also pitched Bliss in line with key awareness days such as International Women’s Day which resulted in coverage in The Independent for the ‘10 of The Best Female Only Trips for Solo Travellers’.

Our next approach was to secure well-known celebrities and national journalists for press trips in order to achieve national press coverage and increase social media followers.

The SBPR team used Bliss Sanctuary’s USPs, such as unlimited food, spa treatments and yoga, and the brand’s ethos of following ‘bliss on your terms’ to attract both media and celebrity attention.

We approached luxury titles, national newspapers, women’s titles, spa and yoga titles, tailoring each pitch to resonate with the publication and its readers, whether it was the luxury angle, solo travel, women’s only travel or the focus on wellbeing. We invited journalists to come and stay at Bliss and review the new sanctuary themselves in exchange for press coverage.

The team also researched and targeted celebrities to invite to Bliss in exchange for media interviews, photoshoots and exposure on their social media channels. We researched potential celebrities and the press angles, focussing on those that needed to take time out for themselves, spend time with the girls and focus on their mind, body and soul.

We only targeted celebrities with over 1 million followers on Instagram and negotiated the terms and conditions of their trips to maximise social media and press coverage.

As a result of this strategy we secured TOWIE stars Lydia Bright, Debbie Bright and Georgia Bright to take a mother-daughter trip to Bliss, as well as Love Island stars Zara McDermott, Ellie Brown, Samira Mighty, Jourdan Riane and Elma Pazaar for a ‘Love Island Reunion’ girls trip. We also secured two trips for Malin Andersson after she’d experienced a traumatic year, as well as well-known TV personality Vicky Pattison and her mum Caroll. The celebrity trips alone resulted in 40 pieces of national coverage in titles such as Daily Mail, The Sun, Metro, Closer, Soul & Spirit and Heat magazine.

Over the past year we have secured a total of 11 celebrity trips, with more big names booked to visit in January, as well as press trips for the Metro, Fabulous, Stella and Glamour magazine.

Alongside our PR campaign we have written regular Bliss News articles for the website on topics that women can relate to, created engaging content on Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest as well as advertising campaigns to secure more bookings to the sanctuaries. We also positioned the Founder of Bliss, Zoe Watson, as an expert on hot topics such as wellness bathing, yoga and essential oils.

In total, over the past 12 months SBPR has achieved 56 pieces of coverage for Bliss Sanctuary for Women in top publications such as The Telegraph, Daily Mail, Metro, The Independent, Marie Claire, OK Magazine, Closer, Yoga Magazine to name a few. The total coverage reached over 55.1 million people and would have cost £1.7million if the same space was bought in advertising! Over the past year we have increased Bliss’ Instagram following by over 30,000 followers and positioned the brand as the number 1 women’s only Bali retreat for celebrities across the world.

We are looking forward to what the next year brings for Bliss and SBPR!

Reaching Your Consumer and Creating A Media List

Knowing you consumer will be key to you and your brand reaching millions. In today’s ‘digital age’ people consume new messages about brands and products in a variety of ways. The newspaper and magazine market may well be shrinking but top titles still boast readerships in the hundreds of thousands. Cleverly targeting TV or radio, online news and lifestyle websites, blogs and social media sites will get your message to your audience in the right way.

When trying to reach your target market, start by thinking about your consumer, target audience or end user.

·         Who are they?

·         How old are they?

·         Are they professional/white collar/blue collar/student/retired/homemaker?

·         How do they spend their time?

·         Where do they shop?

·         Which social media channels are they most active on?

·         How do they consume their media? Via blogs/TV/radio?

·         What media do they consume?

You should know the answer to all of the above and answering the last three questions is particularly crucial in gaining coverage that counts. All of this information will contribute to reaching your target audience and achieving the relevant coverage. Knowing which type of media they consume will also determine who you approach with your brand, story etc.

Once you know who your consumer is, you can target the media accordingly. The average ‘early adaptor’ must read, hear or see a message seven times, before they act on it. It’s therefore important to target multiple mediums to give your consumer different ‘touchpoints’ to absorb your message.

I’m sure you’re thinking where do I start? Well, below is a list of just a few of the different types of media on the market.

Trade press – these are industry-related titles meaning whichever industry you’re in, there will be accompanying trade titles. Such as Transport News, The Grocer, The Hotelier etc.

Regional press – newspapers and magazines specific to your area, such as Manchester Evening News, Yorkshire Post, Dorset Echo etc.

National Newspapers

Broadsheets – The Telegraph, Observer, Guardian, Financial Times etc.

Tabloids – Daily Mail, Daily Express, The Sun, The Daily Mirror, Daily Star etc.

Supplements – You Magazine, Style, Stella, Notebook, Observer Food Monthly etc. (These are magazines inside the weekend editions of national papers.)

Women’s glossies – monthly magazines focusing on a mix of news, fashion and lifestyle such as Woman & Home, Good Housekeeping, Cosmopolitan, Glamour, In Style, Marie Claire, Red etc.

There is also online, social media, radio and TV.

For a free list of media, you can try sites such as www.mediauk.com and www.holdthefrontpage.co.uk. These contain a variety of useful information including readership stats, key staff members, personal email formatting and so on.

To do your own PR you need to be in the know, so sitting around reading magazines, watching TV, or scrolling through social media is a valuable way to spend your time. Try making notes while scouring the media such as - who are the journalists that keep reappearing, find what titles apply to your brand best and look for themes; is there an awareness day or an awards ceremony this month that applies to your business? Remember to always keep an eye on online media as well, coverage online could take the consumer to your website instantly. Once you get into the habit of doing this, you’ll never be shocked when news props up that you could’ve got in front of!

Media List

Once you are sure who your consumer is and what media you should be approaching it is time to create a media list. This should include specific and up-to-date contact information for key journalists, bloggers, social media influencers and editors across print, online, blogs, radio and TV.

 Organisation is key when creating your bespoke list. Here’s some tips on what to include in your list –

·         Include the type of medium – magazine, newspaper, radio etc

·         Frequency – daily/weekly/monthly/bi-annual

·         Readership or audience numbers

·         Specific contact details for each journalist or editor and their regular slots or segments

·         Job title (editor/features writer/sportswriter etc.)

·         Extras - You could also include a column or tab for any other notes as you go forward, such as how and when they prefer to be contacted, recent topics they’ve covered etc.

Finding the details of the journalist can be tricky, below are just some ways you can do this –

·         Look at the journalist’s name/names in the relevant publications

·         Look at the credits of TV shows for researchers/producers

·         Googling contact sites for specific TV channels such as ITV will give you access to valuable information.

·         Response Source – with journalists continually moving around it can be hard to keep up. Response source has a ‘Media Bulletin’ segment where you can not the movement of journalists.

·         Contacting influencers is great as you can usually message them directly, try their website of their social media page.

·         To find a specific phone number, try calling the media outlets switchboard first, when you get through ask for the relevant journalist and gather their details from there.

Talking to journalists can be daunting to begin with, however in time it’ll get easier and you’ll find your flow. A few things to remember is that journalists are time poor, it’s unlikely they’ll monitor their voicemails, so don’t waste your time leaving a message. Keep an eye out for freelance journalists, they will most likely have their own websites and a personal email to contact them with.

Final tips and tricks

·         There’s no time like the present! Start compiling your media list now.

·         Don’t contact several members of the same outlet ‘just in case’ as they may think you are spamming them, and bin your email.

·         You’ll find it’s easier to find contacts for regional rather than national press. There are less staff, everyone knows everyone and they’re more likely to pick up the phone and are quicker to respond.

If you’re looking for global newspapers you may find this article helpful - https://www.websiteplanet.com/blog/complete-index-of-newspapers-across-the-globe/

If you would like to find out more about how to find your consumer and create your media lists as well as how to do your own PR you can book onto our PR and Publicity Course on the 29th November at our Bournemouth offices - Sunny Bird PR, The Garden Studio, Pine Grange, Bath Road, Bournemouth, BH1 2PF

Follow this link to book your place!

Clientversary: Bournemouth Collegiate School

The Sunny Bird PR team is celebrating its one year ‘clientversary’ with Bournemouth Collegiate School. The independent school first approached the team with two objectives; to increase the school’s enrolment figures through regional press and raise the profile of the school on a national level by highlighting its USPs and sought-after sports facilities.

To do this, Sunny Bird PR developed a strong media relations campaign to ensure BCS was featured in its target publications year round. To assess how and where to focus our media presence we conducted an initial survey of parents to discover where they heard about the school and what they thought about it to provide us with knowledge and focus for our approach. We discovered that 64% of parents discovered BCS through word of mouth and local news, which became a core focus of our PR strategy. We knew that regionally, local pupil success stories are always well read with friends and families sharing the news to their wider network on and offline. Each month, we produced several stories championing the pupils’ success from Wimbledon tournaments, to literary awards and everything in between. With the pupils at BCS being such a talented and high achieving bunch, we were never short of material and managed to secure 28 pupil-led stories in key regional publications throughout the year.

Our second approach was to establish the school and its teachers as education experts and leaders in their disciplines. To do this we worked closely with the school’s headmaster Mr Russell Slatford to identify newsworthy topics and trends in education which he could comment on. We targeted key journalists in the national and education press and offered them exclusive opinion pieces or interviews with the headmaster himself. Over the year we secured 14 comment opportunities for Mr Slatford on a wide range of topics including Brexit, charity work, school uniforms, the importance of sport and iGCSEs. The long form interviews were featured in a plethora of trade titles and pitched to national press ensuring BCS was firmly in the contact books of national education journalists and broadcasters including the likes of The Daily Telegraph and Channel 5 news.

Alongside championing the school’s pupils and staff we created features to highlight BCS’ unique offerings such as the prep’s Forest School and the senior sports academies, interviewing Heads of Departments as well as pupils about their experiences. Through this tactic we were able to highlight the school’s core philosophy of providing ‘education with character’ and place it in magazines and newspapers read by prospective and existing parents.

In total, over the past 12 months SBPR achieved 64 pieces of coverage for the school in target titles including in The Daily Telegraph, Schools Week, Country & Town House, Education Investor Global, Independent Education Today, Dorset Life, Wiltshire Life, The Lymington Times and the Daily Echo. That is an average of five pieces per month which reached more than 1.5 million people!

Journalist of the Month

February's Journalist of the Month is Ginny Sanderson, a reporter on the Eastbourne Herald & Sussex Express. Ginny has taken time out of her busy schedule covering crime, politics and everything in-between as the unofficial cute animal correspondent to answer our ten questions!

1. What are the 5 words that best describe you? Opinionated, thoughtful, chilled, animal lover.

2. What magazine do you love reading and why? My guilty pleasure is having a good look through Glamour magazine; usually I get it when I'm going on a long train journey. It has the right balance of celebrity with fashion and life advice. I hope they still do the 'Hey, it's okay...' bit. It always has really relatable things that I only thought I did. 

3. What is your favourite book? This is so difficult, it's always changing. Stephen King's Wizard and Glass or Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier. 

4. Which song makes you dance? Most of the Hamilton soundtrack at the moment. #work

5. What has been your best career moment? My favourite so far was writing a feature about a Harry Potter-style role play set up in a castle in Herstmonceux called Bothwell School of Witchcraft. Everyone was running around dressed in wizard robes, hunting dragon eggs or heading to potions class. It was one of the most surreal experiences but totally brilliant. And, as a HP fan, I was living the dream. 

6. What advice would you give your 20 year old self? My 20-year-old self was still at university, in the second year of my degree. So perhaps I would say get more involved in societies and go to more talks on campus. And the obvious: don't stress, enjoy yourself. 

7. Where are you happiest? This is a tad embarrassing but genuinely just when having really good food in good company. I love doing food reviews, which I'm lucky enough to do every now and again. 

8. Who would be your number one dinner guest be and why? I feel like I could talk to Jessica Chastain for hours about movies, politics, feminism...

9. If you could have any superpower, what power would it be and why? To transform into an animal. How cool would it be to be a tiger for the day?

10. If you had to ask us one question what would it be? Most bizarre press release? 

We love a weird and wonderful press release which we know will generate headlines. For us, it’s a toss-up between ‘Is Snoring Ruining the Nation’s Sex Life?’ for our client Good Night Anti-Snoring Ring or,  ‘How Well Do You Know Your Poo?’ – a Bowel Cancer Awareness Campaign for Ramsay Health Care UK.