$791K in PR Value with $0 Paid Placement — Here's the Playbook

They confuse PR with advertising. Journalists don't want to know your product is great. They want a story their readers care about.

A product launch is not a story. "Local brand achieves X" is not a story. The human angle, the data point, the trend - those are stories.

The frame that works: Why is this happening now? If you can answer that question with your brand at the centre, you have a pitch.

Journalists are busy and get hundreds of pitches. The subject line is everything.

• Bad pitch: "Introducing [Brand] — Singapore's Newest [Category]"
• Good pitch: "Singapore parents spending 40% more on [category] — here's why" (with brand angle in line 2)

Keep the pitch to 5 sentences. Lead with the news hook, not the brand. Attach a fact sheet, not a press release. Journalists rarely run press releases.

Follow up once, exactly 3 days later. Not twice. Once. And here's the thing most agencies miss: Chinese-language media (Lianhe Zaobao, 8World) require separate pitches in Chinese or via a bilingual agency. Don't assume an English pitch will be forwarded.

The biggest risk: both agencies pitching the same journalist with the same story. You lose credibility, the journalist gets annoyed, and placements disappear.

Set up a shared pitch calendar. Every pitch, every outlet, every date tracked centrally. Not "we'll send it sometime this month" - exact date, exact journalist, exact story.

Divide by media segment, not topic. Agency A owns print and digital outlets. Agency B owns broadcast and radio. Brief them together, not separately. The story must be identical across both teams, otherwise you look disorganized.

Review placements weekly, not monthly. Stale placements get buried in archives and drive no traffic.

Advertising Value Equivalent (AVE) is a flawed metric but still standard. Use it as a benchmark, not a truth. If a placement in Business Times has a CPM-equivalent value of $15,000, that's your AVE. But it's not what the placement actually generated.

What actually matters: did the placement drive inbound enquiries? Track via UTM links in any digital coverage. For broadcast (radio, TV), track website traffic spikes on the day of the placement. Real signal: ask your sales team. Did they notice more inbound from a specific segment after a specific placement?

Report to leadership on 3 metrics: number of placements, estimated reach, and any attributable inbound leads. Keep it simple. One vanity metric, two real metrics.

You don't need a PR agency to get media coverage. You need a story and a journalist's email.

Start with industry reporters at Business Times, Vulcan Post, and The Pride. They cover SME stories regularly. Use HARO (Help a Reporter Out) to get quoted in articles without pitching. Journalists come to you asking for expert commentary.

LinkedIn works. Follow Singapore journalists, engage with their content consistently, pitch via DM. Keep it to 3 sentences. Don't pitch cold. Pitch because you've been helpful first.

One good placement in the right outlet is worth more than 10 in outlets nobody reads. Focus on outlets where your customer actually spends time.