The Challenge
Impact PR faced the formidable task of helping clients stand out during some of the year’s most cluttered media periods—Prime Day and Black Friday. With virtually every consumer brand competing for attention and media space severely limited, the team needed to ensure their clients’ deals wouldn’t get lost in the overwhelming noise of these massive shopping events.
The challenge was multifaceted: commerce writers are inundated with thousands of pitches during these periods, publications have limited space for deal coverage, and the window for capturing attention is exceedingly brief. Additionally, the team needed to operate across both UK and USA media landscapes simultaneously, each with their own timelines, preferences, and coverage patterns.
Complicating matters further was the need to secure comprehensive deal information from clients well in advance—including exact discount percentages, promotional dates, high-quality images, precise pricing, and direct purchase links—all while clients themselves were often finalising these details at the last minute.
The Solution
We developed a methodical approach specifically designed for these high-intensity shopping events. First, we built carefully curated media lists focused exclusively on commerce writers and deal editors at key publications across the UK and USA, ensuring we were targeting the right journalists who actually cover these shopping events.
Rather than waiting until the events were imminent, we initiated outreach weeks in advance, giving editors the opportunity to pencil in promising deals early and request additional information. This proactive strategy proved crucial, as many publications plan their deal coverage well before the events actually begin.
We worked closely with clients to extract all necessary deal information as early as possible, creating a comprehensive database of discount percentages, promotional periods, product images, pricing details, and purchase links that could be rapidly deployed when needed.
We implemented a tiered communication strategy, sending media alerts multiple times in the run-up to each event, with each communication offering increasingly specific information as details were confirmed. This drip-feed approach kept our clients’ products in journalists’ minds without overwhelming them with premature or incomplete information.
For each client, we tailored our outreach to appropriate media sectors based on their specific products, ensuring fashion deals reached style editors while tech offers landed with technology writers, rather than taking a one-size-fits-all approach.
The Results
The carefully orchestrated approach consistently delivered exceptional results across major shopping events. During periods like Prime Day and Black Friday, Impact PR regularly secured over 100 pieces of coverage for its combined client roster—an impressive achievement given the fierce competition for media attention during these periods.
Our strategy of pitching early deals before the full events began proved particularly effective, allowing clients to capture attention before the peak of the news cycle when journalists are most overwhelmed.
The coverage secured was not merely quantitatively impressive but qualitatively valuable as well, appearing in top-tier publications including Yahoo, People, Tech Radar, T3, CNET and more. Clients’ products featured both within comprehensive roundup articles and as standalone deal posts, providing maximum visibility.
Perhaps most notably, the relationships built with commerce writers through these consistently well-organised pitches have created ongoing value, with many journalists now proactively reaching out to Impact PR ahead of shopping events to enquire about clients’ upcoming promotions—establishing a virtuous cycle that continues to benefit clients during each subsequent promotional period.
