THE DIGITAL PR OBSERVER NEWSLETTER ISSUE 81

Hey everyone. Welcome to Issue 81 of The Digital PR Observer Newsletter.

If you missed last week’s issue, or any others, you can always catch previous issues of The Digital PR Observer Newsletter here.

Here’s what you’ll get in this newsletter:

• The latest Digital PR news and resources

• 5 quick fire tips to enhance your Digital PR activity

• 5 data sources you can use for Digital PR campaigns

• 5 successful campaigns from the archives

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The latest post on Digital PR Tips comes from Andrea Piackova, Senior Digital PR & Content Manager at Legacy Communications - How To Do Digital PR Outreach in Ireland

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Here is the latest Digital PR news and resources that you might have missed since the last newsletter.

Rise at Seven: Five Lessons From Five Months in US Digital PR

Ann Smarty: Why Most Businesses Fail at Data-Driven Digital PR Campaigns

Koozai: How to Make Sure Your Digital PR Pitch Gets Read

Dark Horse: Content Syndications in DPR – Do They Matter?

BuzzStream: How Many Journalists Are There in the US? (2026 Edition)

Muck Rack: Digital PR strategy for AI search: A guide for PR teams

Cision: 20 Starter AI Prompts for PR Professionals

Backlinko: 6 Digital PR Strategies to Boost AI Visibility

Ahrefs: What Is Information Gain in SEO? (and How To Add It to Your Content)

Sam Donndelinger on LinkedIn: A PR plea: when pitching a source, tell me what they can actually speak to

Press Gazette: Traffic to 10 biggest US news websites down a third in two years

Search Engine Roundtable: Google August 2026 Spam Update Has Finished Rolling Out

Planable: AI vs human SMMs: we ran 7 Instagram accounts. Humans won engagement 2.45x

Search Engine Journal: Microsoft Clarity Now Separates Branded And Non-Branded AI Citations

Five quick fire Digital PR tips to help make you better and more efficient at getting SEO results via Digital PR:

1️⃣ If you struggle to find ways to make percentage stats sound interesting or just varied, Six Chillies has launched a new percentage calculator which helps you to turn your numbers into headlines - https://sixchillies-percentagecalculator.netlify.app/

2️⃣ When reporting on your Digital PR activity, remember who the audience of your report is. Chances are they won't be people with advanced Digital PR knowledge like yourself. Try to steer away from using complex terminology they might not understand, and relate your results back to the key objectives they are measuring Digital PR performance against.

3️⃣ Affiliate links will provide minimal SEO value but they will direct traffic from those links which you can track. And that's a good thing that is very valuable to be reporting on!

4️⃣ On your campaign pages, focus on optimising your headings and title for Google, but focus on writing the rest of your copy for the reader.

5️⃣ An underrated benefit of Digital PR is manipulating what appears on the SERP for brand searches. Creating the right headlines that show up on the SERP can not only help to create favourable impressions of your brand but also help to push negative stories off page one.

Each week I’ll be sharing five data sources that you can use, either for content inspo, or as data sources for your campaigns.

1️⃣ Association of Leading Visitor Attractions

This is a really cool annual dataset published by the Association of Leading Visitor Attractions which ranks the number of visitors to ALVA member attractions each year dating back to 2004. ALVA member attractions include over 2,000 of the UK's most popular museums, galleries, palaces, castles, cathedrals, zoos, historic houses, heritage sites, gardens and leisure attractions, including The National History Museum, The British Museum, and The Crown Estate. The data is also categorised by region which allows for some additional regional analysis for local stories.

2️⃣ Birth Registrations in England and Wales

This dataset includes the number of annual live births, stillbirths, maternities, and fertility rates in England and Wales for the past three years. The data includes loads of unique categories which are perfect for creating stories out of, including regional breakdowns, the age of mothers, if the parents are married, and the number of twins, triplets and quadruplets born.

3️⃣ City of Chicago Data Portal

For U.S. campaigns, many states and major cities have their own official data boards which are fantastic resources for localised datasets to create stories from. This is one example from the City of Chicago which includes a fantastic selection of datasets on topics ranging from finance to education to public safety and a lot more in between.

4️⃣ Chicago Traffic Crashes

This is one example of those datasets to give you a taste of how expansive they can be. This dataset details every registered vehicle crash in Chicago dating back to 2017 and is regularly updated in real time. There’s over one million crash reports which have super detailed additional data such as weather and road conditions at the time of the crash, the type of crash, the cost of the damage, and more.

5️⃣ Canada School Rankings

This curation of school rankings in Canada produced by the Fraser Institute is a great resource for any campaigns with a parenting/education focus to them. Each of the 470 schools are given a total ranking as well as a score out of 10 which makes for easy analysis. The tool also offers several useful filtering options for more precise data focus including public vs private schools, and if their main language is English or French.

In this next section, I take a look at five campaigns from my archive of campaign inspo, with some quick fire analysis of what I liked about them and what made them work. Referring Domains (RDs) figures are taken from ahrefs.

1️⃣ Does the thrill of buying a new item of clothing last longer when you buy second hand? by Oxfam

📊 11 RDs, 4 DR 50+

As PRs we’ve likely all had the pleasure of working with brands that only want to produce stories talking about how great their brand and their products are. It’s infuriating and can become a difficult task explaining to clients why the general public won’t care about a story they’re clearly very passionate about.

PR is all about creativity and there’s often ways to tweak the story they want to tell into something that’s more newsworthy. This first campaign by Oxfam in 2022 is a good example of finding creative ways to shout about the appeal of your products without it being too much of a corporate promotion.

To help encourage shoppers to buy clothes second hand from charity shops they conducted a survey that revealed insights into how the UK feels about buying brand new clothing vs second hand, discovering key facts such as “almost half (47%) enjoy shopping for brand new clothing - but they reported that the thrill doesn't last long” and “a further 17% start to doubt if they actually liked what they'd bought once their shopping high subsides”.

I don’t think it’s the best survey campaign you’ll ever see by any means, but it does a good job of promoting buying second hand clothing, earning them a lovely link on Forbes as well as several shopping blogs. Blogs aren’t usually seen as valuable sites to target coverage from for your campaign but I think it makes a lot of sense with a campaign like this by getting Oxfam and their story in front of people with a really high interest in shopping and saving money. They may not be as fancy in SEO terms as a Forbes backlink, but the right blogs can give your brand great visibility in front of your target audience.

2️⃣ Facebook partners with Netflix for ‘Bridgerton’ store on Marketplace

This next campaign is another creative example of promoting a product in a way that is newsworthy enough to earn headlines. To help promote the new season of Bridgerton at the start of this year, Netflix partnered with Facebook Marketplace to create an official “Bridgerton Store” where fans of the show could win Bridgerton-themed products including furniture, fashion and tea-time essentials.

If you have the luxury of working with a big household name brand then brand partnerships can be such a valuable tactic to utilise when there’s a genuine relevant connection between the two brands. This one is a really organic connection to create a buzz around the release of the new season that works really well. It also taps into superfan culture which is something that I think has a lot of value for brands as these superfans can become a brand’s strongest PR channel via user generated content promoting the brand and its products.

3️⃣ Bacon Milkshakes by Domino’s Japan

Sometimes the most effective way to promote a product is to just do something unusual. In 2023, Domino’s in Japan released a limited edition bacon milkshake. Combining two things that don’t usually go together is a classic format for PR stories, especially on the traditional side of things. And it often works because Journalists and their readers get sucked into the intrigue, and it allows publications to create headlines that are great bait to get readers to click and read.

I also think stunt campaigns like this can be a great way of creating a buzz around a product and making it sound like a cool thing, while also tapping into a bit of FOMO culture with customers. “Oh wait what’s so special about Domino’s’ Bacon that people are going so mad about it at that they’ve made a milkshake with bacon bits in it”. There’s also the very strong element of big brands doing weird shit that usually earns them a good headline or two.

4️⃣ Domino's creates 'heat boots' built from pizza delivery bag insulation

Domino’s are no strangers to a well executed stunt campaign that bags them some great PR coverage. This is a more recent example of a creative story they produced In January of this year where they created “heat boots” - oversized boots designed to keep Brits warm during the winter. The boots are created using the same insulation technology found in the brand’s pizza delivery bags.

It’s another example of how the unusual works really well in creating headlines that Journalists will eat up. The stunt also utilises the theme of combining two unrelated topics in a way that captures people’s attention, in this case, food delivery and fashion.

This is also very similar to another stunt that Domino’s did in 2024 where they went the full hog and created a full body heat suit using their insulation technology. I often talk about repeating campaigns that work well but in a different context in the form of an annual report or data-led campaign. Well this is proof that it can be done with stunt campaigns too.

These Domino’s campaigns are silly and goofy but they are also very clever in the subtle way that they actually promote their food delivery while working towards removing a potential barrier for customers that are worried about takeaways being delivered cold.

5️⃣ Pizza Hut and Backstreet Boys Partner to Launch The Shape of My Heart-Shaped Pizza

A big reason why brands like Domino’s are producing campaigns like these on such a regular basis is that their competitors are red hot when it comes to creative PR campaigns that also make headlines. Brand rivalry can be such an underrated aspect of pitching campaigns. If you know that a brand you’re working with is really competitive against another brand, play into that by showing them what the competitor is doing to help get them on board with your strategy and ideas!

This campaign by Pizza Hut in America was released for Valentine’s Day this year where they partnered with the Backstreet Boys to launch a heart shaped pizza, playfully syncing up with their “shape of my heart” song.

Emotion is such a huge part of what turns a campaign idea into a story that gets covered, and this story is fuelled by pop culture nostalgia along with the clever pun that puts a smile on people’s faces and does wonders for brand perceptions. Brand metrics are such an important metric for PR campaigns by big name brands. Brand awareness isn’t an issue so stories that make people laugh and feel good are vital for convincing customers to favour their brand over competitors.

And that’s a wrap for Issue 81. Same time again next week ✌️

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Each week in the newsletter, you’ll get:

• The latest Digital PR news and resources

• 5 tips to enhance your Digital PR activity

• 5 data sources you can use for Digital PR campaigns

• 5 successful campaigns that we liked

If you’ve missed any previous editions of the newsletter, you can go through the archive of issues on the Digital PR Tips website.

Have any feedback for the newsletter? Anything you liked, disliked, or want to see more of? Send an email to matt@digitalprtips.com and let me know 🙂