Charlotte McManus

Digital PR Manager · Digitaloft

3.5 years in PR · Manchester

“Put yourself in your target audience's shoes. What will stop them in their tracks?”

Digitaloft on LinkedIn digitaloft.co.uk

Key takeaways

Start here

Understand your audience first

Inspiration source

Reddit subreddits & upvotes

Publication fit

Research topics they cover

Pitch rule

Match the journalist's style

Introduction

Digital PR can feel overwhelming, especially when you're staring at a blank doc trying to figure out what angle will actually resonate. Charlotte McManus, Digital PR Manager at award-winning agency Digitaloft, argues that most of the answer lies in one place: your audience.

Here, she shares how she approaches campaigns, from using Reddit to uncover genuine audience frustrations, to writing pitches that feel like they were made for one journalist and one journalist only.

Know Your Audience

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“Put yourself in your target audience's shoes. What will stop them in their tracks and make them think?”
— Charlotte McManus

My top tip for digital PR is to ensure that you understand your brand's target audience. Try to put yourselves in your target audience's shoes. What are they interested in? What are their pain points? What problems could the brand solve for them? What will stop them in their tracks and make them think?

To really understand your target audience — and therefore what topics you should explore with your digital PR strategy — Reddit is a great place to start when looking for inspiration. Unlike newspapers or social media sites such as Instagram, Reddit is more organic. People aren't trying to build a following; they're sharing their opinions and frustrations.

Look for what is commonly being discussed in subreddits, and what posts are receiving the most upvotes, as these are likely the most agreed-upon opinions.

Research Your Publications

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“Know what publications your brand wants to feature in — and where your target audience is actually getting their information.”
— Charlotte McManus

It is also important to know what publications your brand wants to feature in, as well as where your target audience is hanging out and which publications they are getting their information from.

Taking time to research these publications and the types of topics they cover will help you tailor outreach and campaigns to ensure they are interesting and relevant.

Tailored Pitching

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“The pitch should clearly have been written with a single journalist in mind.”
— Charlotte McManus

It is also helpful to reach out to journalists in a way that reflects the way that they write. When reaching out to a journalist who writes for your brand's dream publication, the pitch should be tailored to suit that journalist and publication.

Headlines should be written in the same format as the journalist uses, and the introduction should clearly have been written with a single journalist in mind.

Ensuring that you take the time to understand what you are writing about and who you are outreaching to helps you to write a more detailed and tailored campaign piece. This helps you to not only create meaningful content, but also helps you to build important relationships within the industry you are working in.

About the contributor