RISE PR IN ACTION – USING RESEARCH TO POWER A PRODUCT LAUNCH

Posted by on 30th May 2016 / 0 comments

In PR – and tech PR especially - the difference between how excited a client gets about a new product, is usually inversely proportional to how interested journalists are in said new product.

Unless it is truly ground-breaking, innovative or completely original, or your client is one of the tech giants, a product launch can be a tough sell. That’s why it is important to try and approach it in a different way.

We’ve written before about using consumer research to highlight a business issue or need, but this campaign looks at using research to support a product launch.

What’s the product all about?

Rise PR client eShare was known mainly for its online board portal, BoardPacks. But earlier this year it shared plans to launch a new product, MeetingSquared, a new app for anyone who organises or attends meetings. Developed with Microsoft, MeetingSquared looked to bring an end to the inefficient preparation, scheduling and management of meetings.

Given that most of us have sat in meetings wondering what the point of it was, we figured that inefficient meetings could be an interesting angle. We commissioned research that focused on just that – how many meetings the average office worker attended, how long these meetings took and what did the attendees feel about them.

The right findings

Good results from research rely on being able to spot the best and most newsworthy findings. We’ve worked on countless research-based campaigns for clients over the years, so are experienced in identifying the findings that best suit what we want to achieve.

In this case, we were able to reveal that across a 40 year career, the average office worker spends a total of 17,470 hours in meetings - two entire years of someone’s life! Other newsworthy stats included 40% of respondents believing at least half of the meetings they attend are unnecessary, and 30% believing that most meetings they attend are inefficient and could be much shorter.

Knowing the press

Although eShare is a technology company, it does not usually sell to IT teams. It makes software for business users, and MeetingSquared especially was not a techie product. It was mainstream and business press that we were targeting, and we managed some notable successes.

A piece in both the print and online editions of City AM was a highlight, alongside an article in the Evening Standard. The client wanted high impact press coverage and was delighted with these, which were accompanied by 20+ articles in business press such as Real Business and IFA Magazine.

We also held back the Scottish results from the survey for a few weeks later, giving the client another shot at further high impact press coverage. This time we achieved results in The Daily Mail and The Herald, as well as a number of Scottish regional and business titles.

90% of the coverage secured mentioned the launch of MeetingSquared, positioning the product firmly as a solution to inefficient meetings. eShare experienced a major spike in web traffic as a result and overall we helped the launch of MeetingSquared go with a real bang.

Tagged: research PR product launch media

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