Spark Coverage Cup
Media relations is at the heart of a successful campaign and our team take great pride in beating their colleagues to win the weekly Spark Coverage Cup vote.
The winning piece of coverage isn’t just about circulation or credibility. A great business national or broadcast piece doesn’t always beat trade coverage – outcomes are key. How effectively was the client’s message communicated? What was the engagement like? Did it result in leads?
While earned coverage is now only part of what we do, the impact of what we deliver is often why clients choose to work with us in the first place. It’s why 80% of our clients come through referral and why some of our clients have stayed with us for over ten years.
Below are some of our previous highlights:
Happy New Coverage Cup, 2018
The January blues might be trying to break their way in, but here at Spark we’ve been aiming for something bigger and brighter – the next coverage cup victory.
Even before Christmas, there was no slowing down – whether it was sharing predictions for the year ahead or putting out news that gave some light relief going into the holidays. For instance, the Couchbase, Servion and Mulesoft teams placed predictions with CBR, Cloud Tech, and Information Age.
At the same time, the Persado team secured coverage in key marketing press – with both Campaign and Netimperative fascinated by the news that, when it comes to reacting to email, US, UK and European consumers act very much like the stereotypes of their various leaders.
Some might see the first week back from the holidays as a chance to ease back into the swing of things. However, at Spark it seemed there’d been a host of resolutions to Get More National Coverage. Russell and Cathy kicked things off, with a new Compuware integration covered in Forbes. Not to be outdone, Michelle swiftly secured Servion’s predictions on Artificial Intelligence a BBC piece, with the same story also making the Express.
Gus followed this with a one-two punch of his own, giving Bromium “epic” coverage from Sky News and the Daily Mail thanks to its response to the Spectre and Meltdown security and performance issues facing Intel chips. In the meantime, Tom placed Dynatrace’s Chief Marketing Officer at the heart of a CNBC article on the disruption CMOs face – the article may have been sponsored by Accenture, but Dynatrace very much lead the way.
Of course, a single week of national coverage might not prove anything – which is why Spark carried its momentum across the weekend. Pia struck with an in-depth dissection of the Dark Web from Venafi in International Business Times, while Gus continued his streak with an IOActive warning on Bitcoin in the Independent.
Yet while national coverage is always more than welcome, it’s important for us to remember that many clients’ audiences are best reached through the specialist press. Aimee made this perfectly clear for Quadient, with a response to the news of the new Open Banking revolution making waves in FSTech – one of the key finance titles.
Of course, all the above only scratches the surface of the coverage – but some of the best pieces are right opposite.