The challenge
Having historically performed PR in-house, staff changes enabled ifm to consider outsourcing to an engineering PR agency. After research and discovery sessions with providers, Fresh B2B was shortlisted but, unfortunately, ifm progressed with another agency based on recommendations and price differences. After a year of disappointing results, client conflicts and a break down in working relationships, ifm approached Fresh B2B again due to our unrivalled in-house engineering expertise. Naturally we were delighted to help!
The Solution
Utilising various media channels within the PESO framework, we strategized that focusing on earned, shared and owned media would deliver the best results.
To generate earned media, we focused on media relations and link building. With a quarterly editorial calendar that uses a mix of product press releases, technical articles, case studies and editor meetings around large exhibitions to ensure that ifm appear in their target trade publications on a regular basis. The efforts of the media relations strategy would also provide links from relevant and authoritative technical websites to increase SERPs.
Creating useful technical content supports the shared media element. It resonates with ifm’s audience which encourages sharing over social channels, mainly LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.
A dedicated news page, owned by ifm, would repurpose the content created for other media channels. This extends the value of the content and ifm’s digital footprint to utilise evergreen material, such as case studies and technical articles.
The Results
- 844 print, online and social coverage
- One clipping per £51 spent on PR
- Generated 354 inbound links
- Combined audience of 10.8 M
- 368 social engagements (likes, shares and comments)
- Domain authority score increased from 54 to 62
- Organic web traffic increased by 75% – from 182k page views per month to 319k
- A 2X growth of organic keywords
- Regular requests from the trade media for comments, articles and case studies
- 20 editor meetings held to build relationships
- 7.3% increase in sales/revenue yoy (since 2019)
The Impact
ifm and Fresh have been working together for 2.5 years and have built a great working relationship. ifm trust Fresh to deliver technical written content right first time and ensure that it is distributed at the right time, to the right platform.
