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Limitless Public Relations

Ignore them at your peril: why local newspapers are HOT news for national GEO

Posted on by Claire Stephenson

Think targeting local newspapers for PR and marketing is “old school”? Sorry for the playground flipperoo, but you’re old school.

The rise of LLM (large language model) powered search, entity-based ranking, and location-aware AI, has flipped the script, making local media one of the most strategically valuable assets in modern PR and discoverability.

While many brands have responded by doubling down on national coverage and high authority digital outlets, there’s an interesting part of the jigsaw many are missing – including national brands.

Not only do LLMs and AI search engines treat local media as a high trust, high signal source of geographic and contextual truth, they also take into account the location of the searcher in the results they give.

That means local media is no longer just the traditional option – it actually can be the technically superior one. And national companies that ignore it are actively handicapping their performance in AI driven search.

Geographical priority

Modern search is increasingly location aware, even when users don’t explicitly ask for local results. LLMs infer location context automatically, and they prioritise entities that have verified local relevance.

Local media becomes disproportionately powerful because it reinforces your brand’s entity graph: who you are, what you do, and where you operate. Local media mentions act as high trust confirmations of your location, service area, relevance to a region, and connection to local audiences.

LLMs use these signals to decide which businesses to show in answers. Local citations remain a top ranking factor. Studies consistently show that local citations and local authority signals are among the strongest drivers of local visibility, and these signals now feed directly into AI-driven search behaviour. Local media is one of the highest authority citation sources available.

Ofcom’s Review of Local Media in the UK (2024) highlights that local outlets remain a primary source of trusted information for communities. Search engines treat this trust as a ranking signal because local journalism provides verified, geographically anchored facts, exactly the kind of data LLMs use to avoid hallucinations.

Relevant content

National brands benefit too. LLMs don’t just look for “the biggest brand”, they look for the most locally relevant brand. A national company with local media coverage in multiple regions builds a wider, stronger entity graph than a competitor with only national coverage.

Local media scales your relevance across the map. Traditional SEO relies on backlinks, keywords, and structured data. Whereas LLMs rely on entity relationships, geographic context, trust signals, narrative consistency, and corroboration across sources. Local media strengthens all five.

LLMs prioritise high trust, low noise sources. Local journalism has lower content volume but higher editorial scrutiny, making it disproportionately valuable for LLM training and retrieval that means LLMs need to anchor information to real world facts.

Local reporting provides verified names, locations, activities, and community impact, exactly the type of data LLMs use to determine whether your business is relevant to a query.

Local coverage increases your surface area in AI search. Every local article creates a new entity connection, a new geographic association, and a new contextual anchor. This increases the number of queries for which an LLM can confidently include your brand.

National coverage builds broad authority: local coverage builds contextual authority. Together, they create a two-layer visibility effect: national media establishes brand level authority and helps LLMs understand who you are, while local media establishes geographic and contextual authority and helps LLMs decide when to surface you.

Amplifying impact through local media

This combination is extremely powerful for multi-location businesses, national brands with regional operations, B2B companies serving specific geographies, public-facing organisations, and any company wanting to dominate AI search results. Local media doesn’t replace national PR, it amplifies it.

And on top of the LLMs, human trust still matters too. Research from Reach plc and PA Consulting shows that 63% of people trust local journalists more than national outlets, and 87% actively seek trustworthy sources. Ofcom’s review highlights that local outlets remain central to people’s daily information habits.

Local citations and regional authority all benefit from local coverage. These are meaningful advantages, but they are bonuses compared to the LLM impact.

If your PR strategy focuses only on national media, you are missing one of the most powerful levers for AI-driven visibility. Local media is now a technical asset, not just a storytelling channel. Brands that invest in local coverage will appear more often in LLM answers, rank higher in local and national AI search, build stronger entity authority, outperform competitors in region specific queries, and scale their visibility across multiple geographies. Local media is the new multiplier for AI-era PR. Ignore it at your peril!

From visibility to credibility: how PR wins where ads can’t

Posted on by Claire Stephenson

Anyone can purchase ads to get views and clicks. And a clever ad campaign, with a decent budget, can make sure your brand is launched into the digital sphere and win you clicks. But what comes after the click? How confident does the customer feel they have arrived in the right place? Is yours a brand they already know and trust?  You’ve won the click, but are have they got the confidence to actually buy, if this is the first they have heard of you. Or would they be wise to shop around a little more first?

This is where PR enters the picture. Public relations doesn’t just share your message: it builds credibility, strengthens reputation, and ensures your brand’s voice lands with the right people at the right time – usually before they even arrive at your website with a mind to buy.

Businesses that underestimate the power in PR risk spending cash on clicks but still losing customers to competitors who have invested in brand as well as click bids.

Limits of paid media?

Paid ads are great for grabbing attention, and fast. But attention on its own isn’t enough. You need more. As the generation of social media consumers, we endlessly – and mindlessly – scroll past ads and content, and then it’s gone. Research shows that audiences are increasingly sceptical of paid messages, with a quarter of the public actively distrusting ads. Spending big budgets on ads doesn’t guarantee lasting influence. Ads can deliver reach, but reach without trust is just noise.

What PR does differently

PR is earned, not bought. Coverage in newspapers, magazines, podcasts, and credible online outlets carries weight because it comes from a third party. People choose to engage with it. They read the story, digest the context, and most importantly, they trust the source.

Beyond trust, PR creates depth of engagement. A feature article, an expert quote, or a well-timed press release gives your audience a reason to think and connect with your brand. This is the opposite of the doomscroll – it’s attention that lasts.

In today’s rapidly travelling digital sphere, earned media doesn’t just reach humans. AI-powered search engines rely on reputable journalism to generate credible content. Your brand’s credibility goes beyond surface visuals, with AI shaping how content is discovered by algorithms in ways that ads can’t.

PR in action

In the UK, national news brands reach around 24 million adults daily. That’s comparable with major broadcast channels. While fewer people may pick up a newspaper than say a decade ago, those who do are giving more time and attention than a quick social scroll ever demands.

Small businesses and big brands alike have leveraged PR to punch above their weight, earning coverage that increases awareness, positions them as experts, and drives real engagement, all without the huge cost of paid ad campaigns.

Why do businesses still underinvest?

Despite the many advantages, many smaller companies underinvest in PR and wonder what’s hindering their growth. Reasons for this range from cost, measuring concerns, and the reliance on ads. But strategic PR is measurable.

Final thoughts

Visibility is cheap, but credibility is priceless. PR converts exposure into trust, influence, and authority that turbocharge ad performance along with all marketing channels.

For businesses serious about growth, investing in PR isn’t optional. It’s a strategic move that boosts sales and supports long term growth.

Want to find out more? Drop Michael Gregory a message and see how we can work together to help your business grow

Think nobody reads the paper anymore? Think again

Posted on by Claire Stephenson

Does anybody else feel the sight of Prince Harry and Liz Hurley raging against newspaper intrusion comes across as fighting a battle from a war long ended?

Surely in a world of deepfake memes being pumped out by the White House itself, bothering what the papers say seems rather out of step? And who reads the papers nowadays anyway?

It’s true that fewer people in the UK rely on newspapers for news than they once did. Ofcom’s latest data shows that around half of adults used newspaper newsbrands in 2018, compared with roughly a third today. While that sounds like a big drop – and it is – it’s also easy to misunderstand what that figure actually describes, in context.

As Harry and Liz will tell you, the newspaper brands once ruled the world – almost literally. So, though they have dropped in circulation overall, at 33% of adults, their audience is still undeniably very significant.

Industry measurement via PAMCo shows national newsbrands reaching around 24 million people every day. That’s a mass audience, comparable with major broadcast channels and far larger than many of the audiences truthfully claimed in digital campaigns.

What matters even more than scale, though, is attention. Reading a newspaper, whether online or in actual print, is a deliberate act. It involves choosing a destination, allocating time, and engaging with longer-form material. That is a very different behaviour from encountering content while scrolling.

Social platforms have redefined what “reach” means, and not always in ways that are actually meaningful. A “view” can simply mean that something appeared on screen for a moment.

Newspaper environments operate on a different logic. UK adults still spend around an hour a day consuming news. And quality newspaper journalism remains central to providing explanation, context, and original reporting. While fewer people use newspaper brands than before, those who do are typically giving them more time and more cognitive effort than a social feed ever demands.

There is also a newer audience that is yet to be properly factored into debates about readership. AI-powered search and answer engines increasingly rely on trusted journalism to generate responses, summaries, and citations. Partnerships such as OpenAI’s work with the Financial Times, and early evidence from AI-powered search results, show that established newsbrands are heavily favoured sources.

Newspapers are now read not just by people, but by the systems shaping how information is discovered. Maybe you don’t read a newspaper yourself. But your AI search bot certainly does – alongside millions of other people – every day.

And the attention they together give is intentional, contextual, and trusted, in a way that most social metrics simply do not capture.

In the PR world, that matters. Newspapers may no longer dominate quite like they did in the past. But compared to other sources, they are about quality of audience, depth of engagement, and credibility that travels further, lasting longer than a fleeting view. And, in an attention economy, that’s where the value remains.

A beginner’s guide to earned media

Posted on by Claire Stephenson

Earned media (or PR and media relations, as it’s more traditionally known) is back in fashion. Big-time.

As AI-powered search and discovery systems increasingly prioritise authority, credibility and third-party validation, organisations are rediscovering something the media industry has always known: independent coverage carries weight. Not just with people, but with the new machines that feed them their intel.

This renewed interest in earned media credibility has brought a wave of newcomers into PR – founders, marketers and brand teams who suddenly need credible off-site coverage, but have never worked with journalists before. Many arrive with assumptions shaped by social media and self-publishing. And those assumptions, left unchallenged, are where things can go wrong. Sometimes, very wrong.

The new era for an old mental model

If you’ve built your reputation through social platforms, content marketing or founder-led channels, the world of journalistic PR can come with some surprises.

Social media trains people to think in terms of speed, volume and control. You publish when you like. You adjust if something lands badly. You delete if it doesn’t. The feedback loop is instant, and the consequences are usually contained.

Earned media operates on a different set of values entirely.

You don’t own the platform. You don’t control the final output. You have no direct control over whether your story gets published at all. And once something is published, it exists – often permanently – outside your control.

For many first-timers, that inversion of power comes as a shock.

Earned media is not “content”

It helps to be precise about terms.

  • Owned media is what you publish yourself: your website, blog, newsletter.
  • Shared (i.e. social) media is rented space: governed by platform norms, algorithms and fleeting attention.
  • Earned media is coverage you do not control, created by people whose job is not to serve your brand.
  • Paid media is when you realise there can be a chequebook requirement to staying in absolute control of what others publish about you.

Many marketers have grown up in an environment where owned and shared media were all that mattered.

While paid media is almost a separate animal entirely, earned media is where the value is in the world of LLMs. And it derives its value from independence. If journalists simply echoed brand messaging, their work would be worthless to readers, and increasingly to AI systems trained to discount self-interested sources.

This is why earned media can feel uncomfortable to newcomers. Credibility comes precisely from the fact that scrutiny – sometimes aggressive – is built in.

Journalists are not marketers – and never will be

One of the most common mistakes newcomers make is assuming journalists care about marketing goals. They don’t.

Journalists care about:

  • What’s new
  • What’s true
  • What’s relevant
  • What matters to their audience

They are not interested in your funnel, your positioning statement or your quarterly targets. They are trained to interrogate claims, not amplify them.

This isn’t hostility. It’s professionalism.

Journalism is a vocation. It comes with norms, ethics and responsibilities that sit apart from brand building. Respecting that is not optional.

When PR works well, it’s because it understands this distinction and works with it, not against it.

The risks of “playing journalist”

In recent years, the lines between journalism, content and personal branding have blurred, sometimes unhelpfully.

High-profile “content platforms” that mimic journalistic formats without adopting journalistic discipline have shown what happens when editorial challenge is replaced by brand alignment. Interviews become vehicles for self-promotion. Claims go unchecked. Extremes attract attention precisely because nothing pushes back.

When self-promotional content creators (the types that like using the term CEO a lot for instance) come under scrutiny, it’s rarely about intent. It’s about structure. Journalism without independence, verification or accountability isn’t journalism. No matter how polished a podcast studio looks, shine without responsibility can come at a cost.

This matters for anyone entering earned media from a content background. The goal is not to perform journalism. It’s to engage with professionals who practice it properly.

PR is a grown-up discipline, and that shows in the process

Beyond philosophy, there are practical realities of earned media that often catch social-media natives off guard.

The first is permanence.

You can’t quietly edit a press release once it’s sent. You can’t retroactively clarify a quote once it’s published. Corrections, if they happen at all, are visible, and often draw more attention than the original error.

Which brings us to the second shock for many: APPROVALS. Written in caps for a reason so you don’t miss it.

In earned media, nothing should be issued without:

  • Fact-checking
  • Verification
  • Internal sign-off from EVERYONE with reputational exposure

This can feel painfully slow to people used to publishing on instinct. But it exists for a reason. When the consequences are external and long-lasting, diligence matters more than speed.

And then there’s the highest bar of all: EDITORIAL INTEREST.

Also written in caps for good reason.

Journalists are not short of material. If what you’re offering isn’t genuinely interesting, original or insightful, it simply doesn’t get published. There is no courtesy reach. No participation trophy. No algorithm to game.

This is a hard adjustment for those accustomed to self-publishing. In the real media, your content is judged before its published. If it doesn’t pass the interest test, it just doesn’t run.

Newcomer basics

If you’re new to earned media, a few fundamentals will save you time and trouble:

  • Earned media isn’t content. It’s actual news.
  • Journalists aren’t interested in marketing. They’re professionals with a genuine obligation to inform.
  • Credibility comes from the very fact you are not in control.
  • The approval process exists because mistakes have an impact.
  • If something isn’t genuinely interesting (to someone else), it won’t be published.

Earned media hasn’t come back into fashion because it’s easy. It has come back because, in a crowded and automated information environment, trust still has to be earned.

What is earned media?
Coverage secured through editorial merit rather than paid placement.

Why is earned media important?
It increases trust, improves search rankings via backlinks, and enhances brand authority.

What counts as earned media?
Press coverage, expert commentary, reviews, interviews, features, and organic online mentions.

Public relations, your business and what’s in store for 2026

Posted on by Claire Stephenson

As we reach the end of 2025, we’re looking ahead to how public relations can support and strengthen your business. With AI rapidly transforming the landscape of communication, customer expectations, and reputation management, it’s fair to say that 2026 will bring a wave of new opportunities – as well as fresh challenges – that make strategic public relations more valuable than ever.

Here are five things worth keeping on your radar for the year ahead.

1. AI is a driver

AI is changing fast, and it’s not just about being able to use the technology; more about how to clearly explain it. Businesses will need PR teams who understand AI and can turn complex tech into simple, confident messages that their audiences can be reached with and understand.

With the rapid development of artificial intelligence – Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO) – is emerging. Instead of delivering lists of clickable links as search engines have previously done, AI-powered search tools now provide summaries based on information from various sources and may include generated perspectives. This will be a key feature in the coming year, as we’ve previously talked about.

2. Reputation will be harder to protect and easier to lose

With deepfakes, misinformation, and rising public scepticism, trust is absolutely fragile. Mike Robb, Co-CEO of Boldspace, said:

“Trust will (still) be the hardest currency to earn. With audiences increasingly sceptical of everything they see and hear, brands can’t rely on polished messaging alone.”

PR should focus on building credibility through actions, evidence, and consistency. Through strategic communications, you can show your values and impact, while keep your brand’s messaging authentic.

3. Earned PR goes beyond traditional media, into creator and community space

The PESO Model (Paid, Earned, Shared, Owned) remains at the centre of modern communications strategies. Earned media now includes so much more than only traditional press – individual creators, community forums, industry voices, podcasts, Substack writers, and specialist online communities – not just newspapers and broadcast media. Credible publication sources will feed into GEO, enhancing public relations results.

4. Purpose-driven communications take priority 

Audiences are increasingly looking beyond products and services to what a business stands for. Social responsibility, sustainability, diversity, ethical practices… all are part of how your brand is judged. Taking a stand and showcasing your purpose – authentically – is a powerful position. Public relations can help you to craft your values-led messaging, helping a positive reputation and stakeholder trust to grow.

5. Crisis readiness will be a core part of business

Today’s fast-moving information landscape means problems can spiral quickly and cause serious damage. Strategic communications helps you to stay prepared; from planning for potential scenarios and spotting misinformation early, to having systems in place for rapid response to a real crisis. In 2026, being ready won’t just protect your reputation – it will save time, resources, and stress when things go wrong.

Considering an overhaul in your strategic communications in 2026? We can help. Drop us a message here to find out how we create strategic, powerful communications that land – and last.

Link strategies in PR: what really matters in the age of AI search

Posted on by Claire Stephenson

How backlinks, brand mentions and smart PR can work together for SEO and GEO

For as long as search engines have existed, links have been the part of the currency of visibility. When Google’s PageRank algorithm launched in the late 1990s, it treated links as “votes of confidence” – the more quality sites that linked to you, the more important you looked.

That logic turned link-building into an industry. In the early 2000s, SEO was dominated by tactics focused almost entirely on volume: link farms, article directories, reciprocal linking schemes and worse. Over time, Google cracked down with major updates (like Penguin) and shifted the emphasis from more links to better links: relevant, authoritative, earned.

Today, we’re going through another shift. AI-powered and generative search tools are changing how people discover brands. Instead of a list of blue links, users increasingly see summarised answers with a handful of citations – often drawn from trusted media and high-authority sites. Research into Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO) finds that generative search has a strong bias towards earned media and third-party sources – more so than traditional Google search.

So where does that leave link strategies in PR? Are backlinks still worth chasing? And how should SMEs think about links in press releases and media coverage in 2026?

A quick history: from any link will do – to authority signals everywhere

To understand where we are now, it’s worth briefly revisiting how we got here:

  • Early 2000s – the link gold rush
    Once PageRank became widely understood, SEOs realised that external links could push sites up the rankings. The result was a flood of low-quality tactics: link exchanges, spam directories, keyword-stuffed articles. Quantity often trumped quality.
  • 2010s – Google fights back
    Google rolled out a series of algorithm updates that targeted manipulative links, rewarding sites that earned links from relevant, trustworthy sources and penalising those relying on spam or paid schemes. The message was clear: natural, editorially-given links equals good; manufactured links equals bad.
  • 2020s – authority, context and brand matter more
    Modern SEO guidance consistently stresses that backlinks still matter – in fact, they remain one of the strongest signals of authority and trust. But the weight has shifted towards fewer, higher-quality links from relevant domains, supported by strong content and clear brand signals.

In parallel, AI-driven search has arrived. Large language models and generative engines don’t crawl the web in quite the same way as Google’s link graph. They infer authority from patterns in text, entity relationships and, crucially, the sources they choose to cite. Studies suggest that generative engines lean heavily on earned media and high-authority sites when deciding what to surface.

That means our concept of “link strategy” needs to widen. Traditional backlinks are still important – but they now sit alongside brand citations, mentions and context as part of a wider authority picture.

Links vs brand citations: what really matters now?

So, are links less important than they used to be? Recent analysis from SEO and GEO specialists paints a consistent picture:

  • Backlinks are still extremely powerful for SEO
    Quality backlinks are still among the top ranking signals for Google, especially as part of E-E-A-T.
  • AI search values mentions and citations as much as the link itself
    Large language models pay close attention to where and how your brand is mentioned, and which sources are talking about you.
  • Earned media plays an outsized role
    GEO research suggests that a high proportion of citations in AI answers come from earned media – the kind of coverage PR delivers.

The emerging consensus is that it’s not a choice between backlinks and AI citations. Both matter, but in different ways.

In practical terms for SMEs:

  • Links from credible media and relevant websites still help your organic rankings.
  • Brand mentions and citations in trusted outlets help you show up in AI summaries.
  • PR is one of the few disciplines that can drive both at once.

So yes – links are still valuable. But PR strategies now need to think in terms of authority signals, not just getting links.

Links in press releases: what to expect (and what not to)

This is where expectations can get misaligned. Many businesses assume that if they stuff a press release with keyword-rich links and push it out via a distribution service, they’ll get an SEO bump.

That’s not how it works. The key reason is it doesn’t matter what you put in your press release so much as what the journalist who publishes it keeps in.

Sensible expectations for clients

1. Include links – but for readers, not robots
Include homepage links, product pages, or campaign pages. They help journalists find what they need. If they think it’s valuable for the reader to keep them in, they might do. But this should not be an expectation. It should be seen as a bonus to the citation and brand-building value of the story.

2. Editors may strip or modify them
Newsrooms may remove links, change anchor text, or automatically add no-follow in their CMS. This is something you just have to accept. Journalists are not there to market your business. Never ever ask a hard news journalist to add a link to your coverage. It’s the equivalent of asking a policeman to pop to McDonald’s for you. It shows a deeply disrespectful, and potentially dangerous misunderstanding of their role in the world. 

3. Don’t over-optimise text
Overly keyword-stuffed text might work against you. If you describe your business as a “tax efficiency strategist and financial services and solutions provider” a journalist will just change that to “accountancy firm” if they know that’s what you actually are, or just bin the release because they cannot be bothered working out what you actually do. Use natural phrasing and brand names.

4. The real SEO value is in actual coverage – not hosting on newswires
The press release might be optimised to the hilt, but will have zero affect on rankings if it is not published. The value comes when journalists write a story off the back of your release and choose to link voluntarily.

PR tactics that make journalists want to link

If you want journalists to keep your links in – and even better, add their own – the question becomes: Have we given them a good reason to link? There are ways to do this, but they require dedicated extra effort and possibly investment. Options include: 

Create data or insight hubs

  • Commission a survey, publish full results and methodology, and use the press release to highlight key findings while linking to the full data. Editors will often link when it adds genuine value.

Build evergreen resources and explainers

  • Create: industry benchmarks, plain-English explainers, toolkits or glossaries. If these resources are helpful, journalists have a clear incentive to link.

Offer visual or interactive assets

  • Examples: calculators, interactive maps, downloadable tools. If the full interactive experience is only available on your website, journalists are much more likely to link.

Make your content machine-readable as well as human-friendly

  • Clear structure, headings, descriptions, and schema markup make it easier for both search engines and generative AI to understand and cite your content.

This is where PR, SEO and GEO intersect. 

  • PR earns the coverage
  • SEO ensures the linked-to content is technically strong
  • GEO benefits when your brand is consistently cited in trusted sources

What this means for PR strategy for SMEs

For SMEs, the takeaway isn’t links don’t matter anymore: it’s far from it, but links alone are not the goal – authority is.

In practical terms:

  • Treat links as a by-product of doing PR well.
  • Build campaigns that generate editorial coverage and host link-worthy assets.
  • Include links in press releases, but set realistic expectations about how editors will handle them.
  • Invest in content that journalists and AI search tools both regard as useful and trustworthy.

Get this right, and you’ll build a visibility engine that works across traditional SEO, AI-powered search and human audiences. Links will still matter – but alongside brand citations, earned media and genuine authority.

How to maximise media coverage for your business 

Posted on by Claire Stephenson

Interest in PR – or even more specifically Earned Media – is at an all-time high thanks in part to the advent of AI-powered search and the fundamental role real media coverage plays in getting Large Language Models’ (LLM) respect. 

According to PRWeek, brands featured in authoritative editorial sources are now much more likely to appear in AI-driven search summaries. So, being talked about credibly in the media doesn’t just impress human readers, it impresses the very algorithms that determine what those humans even see based on what they search. 

Earned Media has therefore gone, almost overnight, from something previously seen as the reserve of brand-building companies – to an essential for anyone who wants to be found online.  

What is “Earned Media” anyway? 

A quick explanation for the term Earned Media is “newspapers and magazines, TV and radio”. Not the ads, but the articles and programmes themselves. Essentially, the bits people actually want to read or watch, not the stuff at the edges or in between. 

The term itself comes from the well-established PESO (Paid Earned Shared Owned) model, created by Gini Dietrich at Spin Sucks, for effective brand communication. 

While it’s possible to get coverage in media through Paid ads, Earned refers to getting covered in the articles themselves, not by paying cash, but through a “value exchange” of making a journalist’s day just a tiny bit easier by providing them with content that is useful and interesting to their audience. 

So how is it done? 

1. Think like a journalist, not a marketer 

The first rule of good Earned media relations is simple but often ignored: journalists are not there to market your business. Their loyalty is to their audience, not your brand – or any kind of marketing. They don’t care about marketing… at all. They care about stories and valuable insights. 

Editors are deluged with stories daily. They’re looking for relevance, impact, and human interest, not corporate messages. As the BBC’s own editorial guidance makes clear, the test for inclusion is whether a story “adds something meaningful for the public” not whether it’s good for a company’s profile. 

Less formally, the BBC local news test has been quoted as “the pub test”. If you told this story to a person in a pub, would they be interested? If not, drop it. 

So, when planning your media outreach, ask yourself: 

  • What’s genuinely new, surprising, or useful in what we’re saying? 
  • How does this story connect to a bigger theme – a local issue, a sector challenge, or a human story? 
  • Why would this outlet’s audience be interested? 

If your pitch answers those questions, you’ve already increased your odds of coverage. Instead of thinking “how do we promote our product?”, think “how do we help a journalist tell a better story?” 

2. Know the difference between news and features 

Understanding what kind of story you’re offering is critical. There’s a world of difference between a news release and a feature idea. And the way you frame them should reflect that. 

News is about what’s happening now: a product launch, a major contract, a new appointment, a milestone, an award. It needs immediacy and clarity. A good press release should: 

  • Lead with the essential facts (who, what, when, where, why). 
  • Include a quote that adds context or insight, not just enthusiasm. 
  • Avoid corporate jargon. 
  • Attach strong visuals (more on that later). 

Features, by contrast, are longer-term and more thematic. They explore why something is happening or what it says about a wider trend. For example: 

  • News: “Lancashire engineering firm wins £2m export contract.” 
  • Feature: “How northern manufacturers are carving out new export markets post-Brexit.” 

If news gets you mentioned, features build your authority. They allow space for commentary, data, and narrative – the stuff that turns a company name into a trusted voice. 

A balanced PR strategy should combine both. Use News to show activity and momentum, and Features to show expertise and substance. 

3. Engage with the news agenda 

Great PR isn’t just about pushing out information, it’s about joining conversations that are already happening. 

When something relevant breaks in your sector, having an informed spokesperson ready to offer perspective can elevate your visibility overnight. Journalists value businesses that are fast, articulate, and quotable. 

To make that work in practice: 

  • Track your sector’s news daily. Look for opportunities to provide expert comment. 
  • Develop a clear media profile for your spokesperson: what topics can they credibly speak about? 
  • Respond quickly. Newsrooms move fast; being first and relevant matters more than being perfect. 
  • Keep commentary tight and topical. Aim to inform, not advertise. 

Over time, this kind of visibility establishes your business as a go-to voice for journalists. That consistency is what turns one-off mentions into recurring media relationships and recurring relationships into lasting authority. 

4. Start local to go national 

For UK SMEs, local media is often the smartest entry point into the national conversation. 

Regional outlets across print, online, and broadcast are deeply connected to their communities. They’re also trusted by national journalists as a rich source of human-interest stories and business leads. 

Getting covered locally not only strengthens your visibility in your area but also makes you discoverable when national media are researching sources. 

Again, put yourself in the position of a journalist researching a national story. Would you call someone who hasn’t even featured in their local press? 

The same works from a proactive angle. If you pitch a story or contributor to a national media outlet, what you are saying will sound a lot more credible if that journalist can see what you are saying has already been echoed in local press. It’s almost like PR-ing your PR. 

The rule of thumb: treat local media not as second-tier, but as your basic “starter for 10”. Regional journalists are accessible, receptive, and looking for stories that show enterprise, creativity, or community impact. Get that right, and the national visibility often follows naturally. 

5. Strong visuals make the difference 

Okay, this is going to sound controversial, but it’s true.  

A strong story with a great picture will almost definitely be published, if targeted to the right media.  

A very strong story, with no picture, will still very likely be published. But will lose page impact, and, may end up being accompanied by a stock picture you don’t like.  

However, a medium story with a great picture still has a good chance of being published. 

A medium story, with a weak picture, has a very low likelihood of getting published. 

A weak story with a poor picture will almost certainly not be published. 

But, a weak story with a great picture… has a decent chance of being published.   

In short, pictures matter (as best-selling author and acclaimed photographer, Brian Lloyd Duckett, says in this blog on how photography plays an important part in forming opinions). And a great picture can very often be the main reason a story gets published at all. It will certainly improve its likely position on the page. 

Photo by Brian Lloyd Ducket

Good media photography isn’t about glamour – it’s about clarity, quality and context. 

  • Never use stock imagery. Editors and readers can spot it instantly and it’s extremely likely you are breaching the copyright small print of the website where you bought it by providing it with a press release, whereby there is an unspoken understanding you are granting others the right to reproduce it (which is illegal if you don’t own the right to). 
  • Provide original, high-resolution, well-lit images, showing real people and authentic settings.  
  • Supply captions and names: this helps both human editors and AI systems index the image correctly. 
  • Include options if you can, a landscape, a portrait, a team shot, so editors can choose what fits their layout. But remember each option must work as the shot, not be provided as a combination. 
  • Most importantly, the shot should “tell the story”. The very best shots tell the story without you even having to read the accompanying article. 

Publications are increasingly under-resourced. If you make your story visually ready to publish, you’re not just being helpful, you’re making it easier for a journalist to say “yes”. Photos should look exactly like the kind of photo the publication would take if they sent along their own photographer. 

Bringing it all together 

Traditionally, PR has been seen as an optional extra for small businesses who want to sell a bit more than they would otherwise. 

But PR has never been an optional extra for businesses that want to grow. For these kinds of businesses, it has always been essential. It’s the foundation of visibility, credibility and long-term brand value. 

What’s new is that AI-powered search has made that visibility more measurable and more valuable than ever. When trusted media outlets mention your company, they’re not just boosting your reputation, they’re signalling to algorithms that your brand is authoritative. 

For SMEs, that means now is the moment to invest in earned media: 

  • Build relationships with journalists before you need them. 
  • Think in stories, not sales messages. 
  • Use local coverage as your credibility engine. 
  • Ensure every piece of content – words and images – is publication-ready. 

Do it consistently and strategically, and your business won’t just be more visible to editors and audiences. It will be visible to the very systems that shape how people discover and trust brands in the digital era. 

BAKO named ‘Supplier of the Year’ at awards

Posted on by Claire Stephenson

Preston-based BAKO, has been named Supplier of the Year at the prestigious 2025 Baking Industry Awards, at the Royal Lancaster in London.

Now in their 38th year, the Baking Industry Awards are the UK’s foremost celebration of excellence across the baking sector, from artisan bakers and large-scale manufacturers to suppliers, retailers, and innovators.

This year’s event welcomed more than 600 guests from across the industry for an evening honouring the best and brightest in British baking.

BAKO took home the inaugural Supplier of the Year title, with judges praising the company’s unwavering commitment to serving the baking community, significant business growth, and strategic innovation.

BAKO’s recent acquisition of Finlay’s Foods, expanding its reach across the UK and Ireland, was highlighted as a major step forward, alongside its sustained investment in operational efficiency, sustainability initiatives, and industry development.

Mike Tully, chief executive of BAKO said:

“This award is a tremendous honour and a reflection of the dedication of our teams across the UK and Ireland.

“At BAKO, everything we do is guided by our ‘by bakers for bakers’ ethos. We’re proud to support the industry we love, from local independents to national brands, with quality, service, and innovation.

“Winning Supplier of the Year at such a respected event reinforces our belief that partnership and passion truly make a difference.”

Amy North, British Baker editor, said:

“BAKO is a worthy winner of British Baker’s first-ever Supplier of the Year trophy at the Baking Industry Awards.

“Its longstanding commitment to and influential role within the baking industry deserves recognition, and our panel of judges praised the level of energy put into every aspect of the business from investments in efficiency to supporting the future of the industry, and steps on its sustainability journey.

“BAKO truly is living up to its motto of ‘by bakers for bakers.”

Founded over 60 years ago, BAKO operates from its head office in Preston, with regional headquarters in Durham, Wimbledon, and Ireland, allowing it to provide nationwide coverage and local expertise to bakeries of all sizes.

The business has grown to become one of the UK and Ireland’s leading bakery ingredient and supply specialists, offering an extensive range of products and services designed to help the baking industry thrive.

The Baking Industry Awards are organised by British Baker magazine and celebrate excellence across 14 categories, recognising individuals, teams, and businesses driving the sector forward.

For more information about Bako, visit www.bako.co.uk

Lancashire Growth Plan maps £20bn+ investment opportunity

Posted on by Claire Stephenson

Lancashire Combined County Authority (LCCA) has today published a Growth Plan that sets out how the county will build on its position as one of the UK’s leading economic powerhouses and deliver growth between 2025 and 2035, with a strategic focus on exploiting the potential of five high-growth business sectors around existing and proposed ‘transformational’ projects. 

Developed by the LCCA and championed by the Lancashire Business Board (LBB), the plan identifies a pipeline of major projects with the potential to attract more than £20bn of additional public and private investment. Together, these projects could create thousands of high-value jobs and strengthen Lancashire’s role at the heart of the national economy.

Following consultation with sector groups, business organisations, enterprises, local authorities, universities, colleges and MPs, the plan champions Lancashire’s interests nationally and internationally to deliver its priorities by attracting investment in innovation, infrastructure and workforce development, making the county a prime destination for global capital, venture funding, and research and development. 

Mo Isap, chair of Lancashire Business Board, comprising senior members of the county’s foremost regional, national and international firms to champion Lancashire and bring a private sector perspective to policy decisions, said:

“We brought our DNA to the development of the Lancashire Growth Plan, ensuring it builds on existing excellence in sectors while showing that we can deliver a step change in economic performance benefits not just the county, but the UK. 

“Our private sector expertise and perspective continue to inform the plan, but also strategies on transport, infrastructure, strategic development, and collaboration, detailing that Lancashire continues to be well-positioned to attract new private investment in key growth sectors.

“This prospectus showcases how Lancashire, aligned with government economic objectives, is contributing to the nation’s economic growth and that we are well positioned to play a significant role in UK plc.”

Cllr Stephen Atkinson, Chair of Lancashire Combined County Authority, said:

“This is a plan built in Lancashire, for Lancashire, but with national impact. It reflects the scale of our ambition, the strength of our business leadership, and our determination to deliver transformational projects that create opportunities across our communities and boost the UK economy.”

The vision focuses on exploiting the potential of five high-growth business sectors: National Security and Resilience, Clean Growth and a Nuclear Renaissance, Digital and Artificial Intelligence, Advanced Engineering and Manufacturing Excellence, and Culture and Tourism

Highlights of the Growth Plan

High-growth sectors and economic corridors

  • Growth focused on five sectors central to Lancashire’s economy and the UK’s future.
  • Development of the Central Belt (M55–M65 corridor), connecting Blackpool, Preston, Blackburn and Burnley.
  • Expansion of the North–South Cyber Corridor, linking Lancaster, Samlesbury and Manchester.
  • Investment in east–west transport to connect and strengthen clusters.

Flagship projects with investment potential:

Samlesbury Enterprise Zone and Innovation Hub – can enable transformational economic growth for all of Lancashire. Designed to support advanced engineering and manufacturing, hi-tech and research-led sectors, including cyber and robotics, the 120-acre site is primed to become a hub of world-class innovation, Industry 4.0 processes, and disruptive R&D. 

Warton Enterprise Zone (EZ), featuring the University of Lancashire’s Altitude facility – uniting industry, entrepreneurs, academic and government institutions to advance next-generation technology and skills capability in the exploitation of future aviation and space markets. The site includes the defence and technology leader BAE Systems, alongside Altitude, which pioneers a cluster of future air and space technology. 

Heysham Nuclear Power Stations – a cornerstone of Lancashire’s energy infrastructure, providing secure, low-carbon power and sustaining hundreds of skilled jobs. 

Springfields (Westinghouse UK) – manufacturing world-class nuclear fuel and related products for almost 75 years. The 80-hectare site is one of the most advanced nuclear fuel-generating facilities in the world. 

Blackburn Cyber Skills and Education Campus and Innovation Quarter – key to the delivery of a £250m investment framework for Blackburn Town Centre, the most significant development of its kind in the North West. Public investment has been secured for the first phase of the Campus, valued at £60m, including a high-quality office and teaching facility, offering up to 100,000 sq ft of new space, and a 15,000 sq ft cyber business centre. The site is the closest strategic development to the Samlesbury Enterprise Zone – making Blackburn an integral part of the Government’s North West Cyber Corridor between Lancaster and Manchester. 

Blackpool Airport Enterprise Zone (EZ) and Silicon Sands – with more than 2,600 jobs achieved, and an estimated £300m of additional private sector development potential, 25 acres of newly unlocked commercial land is primed for development for commercial use at the EZ’s Eastern Gateway. The EZ includes the groundbreaking Silicon Sands project with the potential to become a Strategic AI and Sustainable Digital Infrastructure Hub for Lancashire and an AI growth zone. The EZ is on the North Atlantic Loop, a transatlantic fibre artery connecting America and Europe with the fastest speeds. 

Blackpool Central Leisure Development – the seven-hectare former Central Station site is one of Blackpool’s most strategically essential development sites, and central to the ambition of developing a unique world-class tourist destination with a vision to provide a unique leisure quarter which underpins Blackpool’s appeal as a national tourist destination. 

Morecambe Seafront and the Eden Effect – Morecambe, and the wider North Lancs area, will directly benefit from the Eden Project Morecambe. Conceived by the team behind the Eden Project in Cornwall, the 36-acre development was given the green light by the Government in March 2023, along with £50m of Levelling Up funding, to allow work to commence on the £100m project. 

Preston Station Quarter – Investment in Preston is driven by the 10-year City Investment Plan, a long-term vision to transform the city with close to £1bn already invested or committed. Preston is undergoing a dramatic transformation, capitalising on the nearby National Cyber Force HQ, to create major opportunities for commercial development and city living. The Preston Station Quarter Strategic Regeneration Framework encompasses 43 hectares of Grade A offices, high-density housing, and high-quality public realm. 

Burnley Town Centre and Canalside Masterplan – Burnley’s £200m masterplan is unlocking significant investment in education, canalside living, and digi-tech innovation, helping to transform the town into a vibrant hub for health, engineering, and AI-driven growth. 

Strategic Rail Programme – transforming east-west rail connectivity across Lancashire’s Central Belt will unlock growth in urban centres, expand labour markets, and improve access to education, employment and investment.  

Talbot Gateway Skills and Education Campus (Multiversity) – with phase 1 of the Blackpool and The Fylde College Multiversity set for completion in 2027, plans are underway for Phase 2, an ambitious expansion into the Talbot Gateway Central Business District to create a dynamic skills and education campus. 

The Plan recognises the importance of public services, civil society and health and social care, promoting inclusive employment, cultural development and community wellbeing as essential contributors to economic growth.

 The Growth Plan is now available to stakeholders, investors and government on the LCCA website. It provides a framework for Lancashire’s future development ahead of a formal launch opportunity later this year.

GEO: The impact of AI on the role of earned PR for SMEs

Posted on by Claire Stephenson

If you have used Google recently, you will have experienced firsthand how AI has transformed the search experience. In search marketing, the widespread use of AI Summaries is altering how consumers find brands and prompting a reassessment of established digital strategies.

From SEO to GEO: the new rules of visibility

Search engine optimisation (SEO) has traditionally been used to increase online visibility. With the development of artificial intelligence, a new approach called Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO) is emerging. Instead of delivering lists of clickable links as search engines have previously done, AI-powered search tools now provide summaries based on information from various sources and may include generated perspectives.

This shift to zero-click search means users may never reach your website at all. Instead, the AI assistant is making up its mind about your brand by reading everything else that’s been written about you online, from news articles and customer reviews to industry blogs and analyst insights.

That’s where PR comes into its own.

Why PR matters more than ever

Public relations has consistently benefited traditional SEO, especially through effective link strategies. Before AI, Google’s algorithms already valued online brand buzz in rankings. GEO now amplifies this effect.

The performance of GEO depends on the way Large Language Models (LLMs) process and understand information. These models are typically trained to give preference to reliable third-party sources instead of web content that promotes an organisation. As a result, brands mentioned in editorial coverage from reputable sources are more likely to be recommended or referenced by AI systems.

As PRWeek noted in a recent celebratory headline, the PR industry is now “sitting on a goldmine”. Many aspects that GEO incentivises – such as earned media, authoritative features, and press releases – are traditionally part of public relations activities. Marketing teams that understand and embrace this can gain a serious competitive advantage.

And as one strategist put it in Entrepreneur: “That’s why editorial media coverage remains the most powerful tool in modern PR – and it matters now more than ever. There are two core elements here: high-quality editorial features and press releases.”

The key shift: authority beats ownership

Think of it this way: Google used to reward what you said about yourself. AI now rewards what others say about you. This fundamental change means PR is no longer just about visibility: it’s about measurable impact.

It’s also worth noting that AI isn’t just repeating facts. It’s curating and interpreting content, so if your brand isn’t appearing in authoritative, context-rich environments, you risk being left out of the conversation entirely.

So, what should we do?

In today’s landscape, earned media isn’t just influential – it’s essential for algorithms. PR and SEO must work together.

But, a word to the wise: public relations is not a quick fix or an easy “bolt on”. For something now so impactful in the digital world, PR remains a surprisingly human activity.

It’s not about pushing out content on autopilot. It’s about creating authentic, valuable stories that deserve coverage in trusted media – content that earns AI’s recognition while strengthening the human-facing credibility that PR is built on.

A key mantra is: if it works for a human, it will work for AI. Quality and authenticity are everything.