End-to-end outreach workflow
Table of Contents
- Familiar campaign formats are starting to blur together. Survey-led indexes and “most Googled X” pieces still work, but running the same format over and over makes a brand forgettable to journalists and audiences alike.
- Start every idea from a “golden nugget” — a genuinely striking stat or insight — and let that dictate the format, not the other way around.
- New creative formats need buy-in, not blind trust: build and pre-approve a methodology internally, then walk the client through exactly how you’ll execute it.
- Instinct matters as much as a checklist — if an idea ticks every box but still feels off, that’s reason enough to hold it back.
- AI search adds a new success metric to track alongside links and coverage: whether your content earns AI citations and mentions, not just backlinks.
Olivia Wiltshire is Head of Digital PR at Brave Bison, and before that spent over a decade at Builtvisible, right as digital PR was still forming. After I met Olivia in person and started talking digital PR, we realized we both kind of felt the same way about the state of the industry: campaigns are getting kind of stale.
Regional map studies, “most Googled X” pieces, survey-led indexes — they still work, but journalists have access to the same data everyone else does now, and running the same playbook over and over stops standing out.
So, I wanted to invite Olivia onto the pod to discuss how to find a genuinely new idea, how to get client buy-in for a format you’ve never tried before, and what changes once AI search adds citations and mentions to the scoreboard alongside links.
Below is a slightly edited transcript:
What’s changed in digital PR over the years?
Olivia Wiltshire: That’s a big question. When I started my career at Builtvisible, digital PR wasn’t even a term yet. I joined as an SEO executive, doing all things SEO, but I had a real niche for what we’d now call offsite SEO — and over time that turned into the team that became our digital PR team.
Looking back over those 12-plus years, I’d say the early goal was just volume — build backlinks, almost at any cost for some people. That’s when guest posting exploded. Then we moved into what I like to call the infographic era — I pushed out infographic after infographic for some great brands, and don’t get me wrong, they played their part and did well. After that came the big creative era — huge interactive pieces, which also had their moment.
From there, the emphasis shifted toward quality and relevance, which makes total sense. But I’d say maybe three years ago or so, digital PR lost a bit of its moment. The industry has struggled to show its value in a really tangible way, and that came under scrutiny when budgets started getting squeezed in a tougher macro environment — digital PR became a “nice to have” for some brands.
Now, I think digital PR has been handed its platform back, largely thanks to AI search. So across everything I just described, we’ve genuinely been through it all.
What kinds of digital PR campaigns are overdone right now?
Olivia Wiltshire: When I think about those really familiar campaign types — most Googled X, a regional map, something underpinned by a survey, an index — those are what immediately come to mind. That’s absolutely not to say they’re not effective. They still work.
But we’re seeing them over and over, and they’re taking up a huge amount of real estate on the web. I think this is a moment for digital PR to check itself — should we keep going down this line, or consider newer routes, given everything happening in search right now? Journalists have access to the same data we do, and their resources are just as tight. We need something that actually perks their attention, and I think we’re all a bit too familiar with the standard index or survey-based campaign at this point.
Do clients come to you with preconceived ideas about what a campaign should look like?
Olivia Wiltshire: Definitely, and often. I think that’s part of being a consultant — a client might have a strong opinion, and that doesn’t mean they’re wrong. It’s not an us-versus-them thing, it’s a conversation about what the actual objective is. They’ve hired a digital PR specialist to deliver on something, so it’s about regrouping around that and figuring out the most relevant route — which might genuinely be the familiar territory, especially if the goal is local links, like your example.
There’s always a conversation to be had. I think it’s important not to just be a yes-person because it’s the easier route. It’s a journey, and you need to bring the client along with you. Sometimes, especially with a newer partnership, it makes sense to start with those tried-and-trusted campaign types to prove your worth first, and then bring in the idea of going more left-field for the next one. Context is key — you always come back to “why,” and it shouldn’t just be different for the sake of being different. Target audience matters too — sometimes a familiar format is genuinely what’s going to resonate, and that should be the route you take.
If a campaign type is already working, why push the boundaries at all?
Olivia Wiltshire: That’s a fair question, and a lot of people will genuinely have that “if it’s not broke, don’t fix it” mentality. What you risk, though, is not stretching your creative muscles — this is a creative industry, and we should constantly be coming up with new ways to deliver ideas. If we keep doubling down on the same familiar formats, we lose that as a skill.
There’s also the risk of ending up on what I’d call a campaign merry-go-round — the same type of content going out again and again, and it just blends into the background. When I think about what we’re actually here to do as digital PRs — reach a target audience, share something meaningful and memorable to them — and when I say target audience, that includes journalists. If it’s the same campaign type over and over, it’s going to be less memorable, and that audience won’t hold onto it or pass it forward, which is really the goal.
So yes, “if it’s not broke, don’t fix it” has an argument, but there are real downsides too. And I think creative exploration is becoming more important given what’s happening with AI search. Google had their event back in May, adding features to Gemini like multimodal responses — that points toward more dynamic formats mattering more and more.
What does successfully pushing the boundaries actually look like?
Olivia Wiltshire: Everything has to start from the idea — you don’t lead with the campaign type or format. If you do, that’s the wrong way round, in my opinion. The most successful ideas start with what I like to call a “golden nugget” — a light bulb moment. Maybe you’ve come across a genuinely interesting stat. I was doing some research just this week and read a really depressing stat about pet abandonment in the UK — what’s happened over the past couple of years is shocking. That’s a piece of gold you can build something around. From there, you figure out the story you want to tell, and that’s your foundation. The scaffolding — should it be an index, should it be something more off-piste — comes after, and that’s where the fun is.
As an example: we ran a campaign for a specialist caravan insurance provider. It could easily have been a large-scale survey with some slick data visualization, and that probably would have worked fine too. Instead, we went a different route — there was a small survey element, but it was used to figure out popular caravan foods, and we turned that into a downloadable caravan cookbook, complete with a bespoke landing page. It was still within budget — it didn’t cost any more than the traditional route — but it was a more exciting concept to pitch to the press, and it led to great, relevant pickup and real business impact.
How do you connect a creative idea back to the client’s actual goal?
Olivia Wiltshire: At Brave Bison, we have a proprietary organic strategy that lays out the categories and areas we should be prioritizing for digital PR activity in the first place — so we start with the “why” already corroborated, and that has to be agreed with the client. In this case, we were aligned, so that category was signed off.
From there, we get the team in a room and start workshopping ideas. I can’t give you a cookie-cutter process, because it’s genuinely different every time — it depends on the client and the objective. Sometimes the client is physically in the room with us, and honestly, those are the best ideations, because you’re a true partnership at that point — the digital PR experts and the brand expert who knows the category inside and out, in the same room. That’s a powerful setting, and it adds to a campaign’s success.
We use different ideation techniques — sometimes in the office, sometimes in a more unusual space just to inspire different thinking. The output is a set of top-level ideas or thought-starters, which then get fleshed out and rationalized. We do our due diligence to make sure an idea isn’t relying on just one hook — that’s a risk — and we run it through a checklist: is the brand positioning on point, will it resonate with the audience, will a journalist find it interesting, and can it last the test of time? That last one really matters — I often see a campaign that’s clearly only going to last a month, and the media moves quickly, so you want something with real longevity and broad appeal.
How do you know if an idea is actually worth pursuing?
Olivia Wiltshire: The checklist is one validation piece — asking some simple questions of the idea — but there’s also a lot to be said for instinct, and that can’t really be taught. You either have a sense for what’s going to land with the media you’re pitching or you don’t. Sometimes an idea ticks every box and something still just feels off — if that’s how you feel, don’t go with it.
The other thing we do is high-level stress testing with journalists we have genuinely established relationships with — some people call it preliminary outreach. You drop a line to someone you trust and say, essentially, “working with a brand in this sector, can’t reveal who yet, but here’s the basis of an idea — is that something that would resonate with you?” You’d be surprised how many journalists come back with real feedback, or tell you what else they’d want to see.
What separates a good idea from a bad one?
Olivia Wiltshire: As part of the ideation process, you should already have mapped out example headlines for the idea. So a simple test is: if you saw that headline, would you actually stop and read it? I’d also encourage soliciting feedback beyond just the digital PR team — pull in people from other parts of the agency, because everyone reads the news, and you’ll get a more objective read on whether it’s actually a good idea. Another version of that is the classic “would your parents be interested” test, depending on your audience.
And I think another good signal is: is the idea easy to explain? If it isn’t, that’s a red flag.
How do you pitch a campaign format you’ve never done before?
Olivia Wiltshire: The easiest way is to qualify exactly how you’d go about it — do the due diligence up front. You might not have done that exact format before, but you can build out a methodology and get it approved internally before you ever bring it to the client. Then when you walk them through it, you’re not saying “just trust us and we’ll figure it out” — you’re saying “I know exactly how we’re going to execute this.” That’s a strong proof point on its own.
How do you make the case for pushing boundaries when a client’s already happy?
Olivia Wiltshire: It goes back to some of what we’ve already covered. If a brand wants to be known for a particular category, the question becomes: how do we make sure you actually stand out in it? You contextualize it honestly — yes, these familiar formats are effective and doing well, but are they really going to peak attention, or be award-worthy? Probably not. And going back to the journalist angle — they’re seeing the same campaign types over and over, so you can position the brand as the one willing to offer them something genuinely new. That’s a great position for a brand to be in, and it’s a solid starting point for that conversation.
Have you ever had a campaign fail, and what causes that?
Olivia Wiltshire: Absolutely — it’d honestly be unusual to have a 100% success record. It’s a hard industry, and you’re trying to appeal to a lot of different stakeholders. Not every campaign is a runaway success, and I think that’s just part of the ecosystem. We’re in control of maybe 80-90% of what we do — the rest, we’re not. News events pop off that you can’t predict and can completely reshuffle the media landscape overnight, and suddenly it’s the wrong moment to push your story — that’s always a bit gut-wrenching. Or a similar campaign launches right before yours, which is also frustrating and impossible to predict.
What I’d say is: it’s rare for something to genuinely fail if it’s had proper due diligence and gone through that validation rigor we’ve talked about. Not every campaign takes off immediately, either — sometimes, especially with clients newer to digital PR, there’s an expectation of an instant flood of coverage and links, and that doesn’t always happen. Sometimes that first piece of coverage takes a while to land, and then it scales slowly from there. That’s okay — it just needs to be managed well with the client so they don’t panic and start asking where their coverage is.
So yes, campaigns haven’t always been the success we wanted, but I do believe that if they’re anchored correctly, almost every campaign can get there — it just might take longer. That comes back to building in breadth of appeal, not relying on a single hook, keeping the story a bit malleable. And if a campaign’s been in outreach for a while and it’s clearly not landing, that’s the moment to regroup as a team, and to be upfront with the client: “this isn’t going the way we hoped, here’s what we’re going to do about it — we can pivot, we can add something to it.” Being transparent, and honest with yourself when something needs to change, matters a lot.
Vince Nero: I’d say for anyone more junior listening, that’s one of the harder things to get comfortable with early on — admitting something isn’t working is often what causes the most stress. But clients genuinely respond well when you’re transparent enough to pull the plug on something, as long as you’re bringing a plan with you, not just the problem.
Olivia Wiltshire: Exactly — we have to be the ones leading that conversation. You want to be the one saying, “this isn’t working right now, here’s our plan,” rather than the client noticing first and bringing it to you. You want to stay in control of that conversation.
How does AI search change all of this?
Olivia Wiltshire: It’s a massive shift, and honestly, I think it’s really exciting — there’s a bit of it you want to push to the side, but broadly, it’s exciting. We’ve been an industry built around pure backlinks and coverage, and to be clear, that still matters — you still need backlinks, it’s critical from an organic perspective. But now we’re also thinking about AI citations and AI mentions, and to earn those you need content and campaigns that are trustworthy enough for LLMs to pull from. That’s a genuinely new layer we haven’t had to deal with before — we’re not just serving people anymore, we’re also serving AI systems that are, in turn, serving people.
How people search has fundamentally changed too — queries are much more hyper-personal now. Two people might ask about “the best insurance companies” in completely different ways. So we need campaigns that can satisfy a much wider range of framings, which means being more tailored and more creatively open — it’s not one-size-fits-all anymore. And different LLMs favor different content types — what gets pulled through by ChatGPT isn’t necessarily the same as what Claude surfaces, which is also worth keeping in mind.
So there’s a lot to get our heads around, both in how we think about digital PR and what we’re actually producing. And on the measurement side — links and coverage still matter, but now we’ve also got citations and AI mentions to track and talk to clients about. It’s genuinely reshaping how we should be showing up for our clients.
Vince Nero: That was really well put. It’s an exciting, slightly scary time, but ultimately it’s just pushing us toward different ways of communicating this work. It’s changing daily, but I think the more we talk about it openly — on platforms like this — the more we help each other through it. That’s honestly why I love doing this podcast.
Olivia Wiltshire: Completely agree — talking to different people matters for inspiring ideas too. You need different opinions, different walks of life.
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