Business and trade press will write about a product launch because their readers buy products. Consumer press will not, unless the product is remarkable or there is a story attached that has nothing to do with the launch. That single difference explains most disappointing consumer PR engagements: the client supplied a product and expected coverage, and the agency, unwilling to say the product is not interesting, pitched it anyway.
The agency's real job is finding the story
A founder's unusual route into the business, original data about something readers care about, a genuine first, a tie to something in the news, a person whose experience illustrates a wider point. That is what a consumer desk can use. An agency that asks about your product features and never about your history, your customers or your data is going to send press releases and report distribution figures.
Original data is the most reliable route in
A survey, an analysis of your own anonymised transactions, a regional breakdown of something people argue about. Journalists need numbers they can attribute and are short of them. It costs less than most retainers, it produces coverage and links that persist, and it can be repeated annually so the second year is cheaper than the first. It is also checkable, which matters: made-up or badly gathered figures get noticed.
Expect a nofollow link or no link at all
Most consumer publications mark outbound links so they pass no ranking value, or do not link at all. The benefit is the mention, the audience and the fact that other people cite the coverage afterwards. An agency selling PR primarily as a way to build links is selling something the major publications have deliberately stopped providing.
Judge it on placements you would have wanted, named in advance
Agree a short list of publications and program types that would genuinely matter to your business, before the engagement starts. Then measure against that list. A report counting hundreds of syndicated pickups on sites nobody reads is measuring wire distribution, which you could have bought directly for a fraction of the fee.
Be ready to be available, quickly, in person
Consumer opportunities arrive with hours of notice: a journalist writing today, a program needing a guest tomorrow. A business whose spokesperson needs three days and legal sign-off will miss almost all of them, whatever the agency does. Decide who can speak, what they are authorized to say, and how fast they can be reached, before you buy anything.
Questions people ask about consumer pr
Why is consumer PR harder than trade PR?
Because consumer press cover what their readers find interesting, not what companies launch. Trade press will write about a product; a consumer desk needs a story attached to it.
What actually gets coverage?
Original data, a genuine first, a person whose experience illustrates a wider point, or a credible tie to something already in the news. Product features on their own rarely do.
Will PR help our search rankings?
Indirectly at best. Most large publications mark links so they pass no ranking value. The value is the mention, the audience and the citations that follow, which is worth having for its own reasons.
How should we measure it?
Against a short list of publications you named as mattering before the engagement began. A count of syndicated pickups measures wire distribution, which you could buy directly for much less.