Sarah Banks, Account Manager

Having a story and having a newsworthy story are two different things.

Businesses often assume an announcement will naturally generate media coverage. But what might feel significant internally, doesn’t always translate into something journalists want to cover. That’s because news is about more than information, it’s about relevance.

The news stories that gain traction are the ones that tap into something bigger. They contribute to a wider conversation, reflect a shift in the market or offer insight into a topic people already care about.

When our clients come to us with an announcement, we don’t simply take it at face value; we dig a little deeper. When exploring potential news stories, we ask questions such as:

  • Does your intended news reflect a wider trend within the industry?
  • Is there a human angle we can explore?
  • Does this say anything about audience behaviour or changing attitudes?

Context is usually where you’ll find the golden nuggets that turn a standard announcement into something genuinely compelling.

But what if there’s no obvious story?

Not every client comes with a news-ready story – and that’s fine. As highly experienced PR professionals, it’s our job to help mine the corporate information available to identify a strong angle. That’s where data can become one of the most powerful tools in the PR toolkit.

Data gives you something concrete to build a story around. It uncovers trends, highlights behavioural shifts and provides evidence that journalists can use to support a wider narrative.

Importantly, businesses often already have access to valuable data without even realising it. Sales figures, customer behaviours, web search trends, booking patterns – all of these can provide insight into what’s happening in the target market.

At Clark, we regularly use client data to create news stories. A recent example was when we analysed the sales data for a client that sells refurbished technology hardware. By looking at their figures over the previous months, we identified a significant spike in demand for GPUs. At the same time, conversations around AI and the growing strain on data centres were dominating the tech agenda.

Suddenly, there was a bigger story for our client to tell. Their sales data became evidence of a wider market shift, allowing us to connect the client to a trending conversation in a meaningful and credible way – and giving journalists a strong reason to cover the news.

We’ve seen the same approach work for corporate announcements too. Another tech client came to us to help them launch a spin-off company. On paper, it was a relatively strong business story. But the challenge was that the announcement had already effectively been soft launched on social media. While the initial push hadn’t gained media coverage, it meant there wasn’t anything ‘new’ for journalists to report on. Instead of focusing purely on the launch itself, our team of PR experts got to work researching another layer of detail to add to the story.

By speaking to others within the business, we gained a better understanding of the technology they were developing and uncovered compelling statistics around one of the company’s proprietary tools. The data pointed to a much wider shift happening within the pharmaceutical industry: the growing role of AI in accelerating drug development.

That insight became the real news hook. Rather than simply announcing the creation of a company, we positioned the launch in response to a broader industry movement that journalists were already interested in. It took a standard corporate announcement – that had already been released – and turned it into a timely story about innovation, AI and the future of pharmaceutical research.

Creativity creates stories

Good PR isn’t just about pushing out announcements; it’s about being strategic and getting creative with the storylines you’re developing.

Start by understanding the context for your intended announcement. Creating data-led stories or tapping into wider industry conversations in a way that feels informative rather than self-promotional, will position your company as an expert and ultimately lead to more valuable media coverage.

Knowing what makes people pay attention and asking the right questions is our bread and butter. We can help you take information and turn it into a conversation-sparking news story that journalists will want to cover.

Do you have a story you want to tell? Get in touch with one of our team today, we’d love to chat.