The Newbies

We have been very fortunate to find two excellent new additions to the team and as their second week with us draws to a close, we wondered what their impressions had been so far entering our crazy, busy colourful world… so we asked them…

Georgie

My first week at Sunny Bird can be summed up in three words: exciting, fast and boozy! I was expecting an easy few weeks of settling in but that was definitely not the case as the hard-work began first thing on Monday. With targets for achieving coverage for each of our clients, we hit the phones and emails hard to make sure we had a brilliant update for them at the end of the week.

Tuesday saw a seriously exciting team brainstorm for our client, Sarah Ali Choudhury, which involved a LOT of hand waving and squealing. Now the hard work begins as we turn our ideas into a reality, but I’m seriously excited for that sell-in. Watch this space…

I’ve been well and truly wined and dined this week, with team welcome cocktails taking place at the Green House Hotel (which may have resulted in a bus ride home) and a lovely lunch with Alex to catch up on all the Sunny Bird PR goss.

It’s also been great meeting my clients, Tara from the Venus Awards and Sarah Ali Choudhury, both of whom are fantastic, inspirational women that I’m really looking forward to working with. I’m also super excited to be working on Mr Lee’s Noodles and the Good Night Anti-Snoring Ring. I have plenty of experience in food PR but not any with anti-snoring gadgets, so this will definitely be something new for me! So far I’ve found that sell-in particularly fun (Father’s Day gift guides, anyone?) and I’ve loved exercising my food journo knowledge to confirm three great pieces of coverage for Mr Lee’s.

Plus, I took over the SBPR Twitter account! Obviously, I put my stamp on it with a Love Island poll and by getting our office buddy, Robin to do backflips in our PR Opportunity of the Day posts. We even got a retweet from one of my favourite publications, Notebook! Make sure you follow us on @sunnybirdpr as I’ll be posting all of the behind-the-scenes gossip from the office.

So far it seems that the SBPR team work hard AND play hard, so I’m looking forward to relaxing with some post-work Friday drinks with the team tonight after a brilliant week!

Laura

Before I even started, I was already ecstatic about how short my new 5-minute commute was and how close the offices were to the beach! I bumped in to fellow newbie Georgie on my way in, we introduced ourselves and headed on in.

The team welcomed us with open arms and we settled in to our new desk spaces. The SBPR team were all so friendly and welcoming, I instantly felt at home. We wasted no time and went straight in to the weekly Monday morning meeting. The SBPR Monday meetings are a great way to reflect on what we achieved last week, set goals for the upcoming week, go through our selected newspapers and highlight any key articles that caught our eye or that are relevant to our clients, and talk about our chosen PR campaign of the week.

I also found out that I’d be working with the lovely Alex and which clients we would be working on together, and to my delight that included some of my favourite local brands Jimmy’s Iced Coffee and Conker Gin! Woohoo!

Over the week I got stuck in calling national journalists and pitching our client’s latest news, such as the newly launched Jimmy’s products and Conker Gin for World Gin Day and Father’s Day features. I took part in creative meetings to come up with new ideas for clients, and new angles for existing campaigns to target media with. I spoke to and sent product samples to TV producers, came up with PR opportunities of the day for our own social media, and went on a site visit to an upcoming client launch event.

One thing that I was particularly looking forward to was the famous JACKET POTATO WEDNESDAYS – which did not disappoint. Beans, cheese, salad, you name it we had it. This was a perfect way for me and Georgie to get to know the others over a relaxed lunch, whilst eating a delicious home-cooked spud from Sunny. We also took a trip to the Green House Hotel later in the week to see their new Eco-garden terrace and sample a cocktail (or five!) in the sun.

In social news, I have been handed the very important reins to the SBPR Instagram channel (no pressure!). I’ve been working hard on creating the colourful looking grid, with exciting and relevant content to grab attention from followers and so far, so good – have a look and see how you think I’m doing (@sunnybirdpr).

I’m so excited about growing my career at SBPR, elevating my PR knowledge and working with exciting brands. The team are amazing at exceeding their targets and achieving results for their clients, but definitely know how to kick back and have a good time!

Reaching Millions! PR & Publicity Course

How to get PR and publicity for you, your business or product launch! 

Are you looking to raise the profile of your business or yourself, build credibility, drive sales and secure new customers? Whether you are just starting out or have been on the entrepreneurship block for a while, one truth always stands: media attention is an invaluable asset— especially if you want to scale, speak on stage, land book deals, and be seen by millions.

Sunny Bird has created the Reaching Millions PR & Publicity Course to show you exactly how to attract positive attention from the press. This one-day event will show you exactly what it takes to land TV, radio, podcast, print, and online media that can change everything for your business.

Where: Sunny Bird PR, The Garden Studio, Pine Grange, Bath Road, Bournemouth, Dorset. BH1 2PF

When: Friday 27th July, 10am - 4pm

Who: If you’re an entrepreneur, or SME business owner, PR Student, Marketer or someone that needs to brush up on their PR Skills this course is for you.

How much: £99+VAT

Tickets: Contact the SBPR team to pay direct on 01202 293095 or email hello@sunnybirdpr.com. Tickets are also available from Eventbrite.

Drawing on her 20 years of PR experience, Sunny Bird will reveal real-life client case studies and the secrets of how PR has sky rocketed their businesses, including:

· How a creative PR campaign increased a client’s sales by 2,656% over a one-month period

· How a PR campaign resulted in a listing for a client’s product in Fortnum and Mason

· How PR was used to secure a celebrity Instagram review of a client’s product that increased website traffic by 3,535%

· How commissioning a clinical study and releasing the results to the press boosted a client’s sales by 850%

· How the coverage secured for a product launch led to the BBC commissioning a documentary starring the client

· How a PR campaign led to an 800% increase in traffic to a client’s website and record-breaking Christmas sales

· How PR led to selling out a client’s service for the whole year in the space of just one month, increasing overall sales by 567%

In addition to speaking as founder and director of Sunny Bird PR, Sunny will also draw on her own personal experience of launching a fitness retreat brand.  By using PR as the only form of publicity, the business became an overnight success and was recognised worldwide by clients, celebrities and the media. Due to the success of the retreat company, Sunny landed her first publishing deal with leading publisher Collins & Brown. Sunny then went on to launch retreats across the UK as well as in Spain, Portugal and Austria. The media attention she received was a crucial factor in the growth of the business.

Sunny herself has featured in The Daily Mail, The Observer, The Independent, The Sun, You Magazine, Daily Mirror, The Express, Look Magazine, Cosmopolitan, Woman & Home magazine, Marie Claire, Bella magazine, Prima magazine, Start Up 100, Bournemouth Daily Echo, and BBC Radio to name a few.

So, are you ready to take your business to the next level? If so step right up! Here is a peek of what you’ll learn on the Reaching Millions PR & Publicity Course:

• The importance of developing three key messages for your brand
• How to position yourself as the expert and own your credibility
• Getting your brand reviewed, tried, tested and experienced by the press
• How using a case study can help you to secure media coverage
• What to do when you have no ‘new news’ - utilising awareness days, seasonal activity and company campaigns
• Best social media practices for connecting to mainstream media and journalists
• What to include in a press release
• Tips for how to craft the perfect pitch
• How to build a result-delivering media list
• Different ways to approach journalists, bloggers and influencers
• How many times should you chase up a journalist? Tips on how to get through
• How to secure five one-to-one journalist meetings in a day
• What to do when a journalist says they want to interview you
• How to make the most of your media coverage once you receive it

All this for only £99 +VAT

What else you will receive on the day

* Sunny Bird PR goody bag with all course information to take back to your business

* Breakfast and lunch provided

* Press release template, guidelines and examples

* List of UK National & Celebration Days

* Examples of PR ideas to help launch your brand

* Distribution of your press release to up to 100 targeted media contacts in your sector

* Your top ten media contacts - so if you are looking for the Beauty Editor of Vogue or the Business Editor of The Times, we will search and find the exact contact for you.

* 10 pitches that got the “Yes” – real pitches that led to features on This Morning, ITV’s Lorraine, Cosmopolitan, Tatler magazine, The Telegraph, The Observer magazine, The Times & Entrepreneur Today.

Who is the course for? If you’re an entrepreneur, or SME business owner, PR Student, Marketer or someone that needs to brush up on their PR Skills this course is for you.

Please book through our Eventbrite page by following this link.

Or to find out more information email the team on hello@sunnybirdpr.com.

Address for the event: Sunny Bird PR, The Garden Studio, Pine Grange, Bath Road, Bournemouth, BH1 2PF

Date: Friday 27th July - 10am - 4pm

Why Engagement Rates Really Do Matter

Long gone are the days where your follower count legitimised your social media presence, now it is all about interacting with your audience and boosting engagement rates.

As accepted wisdom once suggested, the more likes or followers an account has, the greater its influence.  However, in the world of social media, where a shiny profile can hide a multitude of sins, followers and likes are an easy game to fake thanks to the rise of bots and buying.

With measurements of social media success ever evolving and leaving last year’s benchmarks as obsolete relics, we thought it worthwhile to un-flesh the latest buzzwords- ‘engagement rate’.

What exactly is engagement rate, how is it measured and, most importantly, why does it matter?

What is Engagement Rate?

Obviously, the metrics vary from platform to platform, but generally speaking engagement rate is used to measure the level of interaction an account receives on its shared content. Simply put, it is the percentage of your audience which react or respond to the content you broadcast. The greater number of likes, shares or comments indicates a greater level of engagement.

How is it Measured?

Your engagement is measured by your likes and comments combined per post divided by your total following and times by 100.

Average engagement rates are notoriously unreliable as it is hugely industry specific. As a general rule anything over 1% is considered good engagement on Facebook whereas Instagram generally averages at around a 3% engagement rate, perhaps explaining the monumental rise of brands on the platform.

Twitter on the other hand only has an average rate of 0.7% given the volume of tweets and the speed of the timeline.

It’s a good idea to keep a spreadsheet of your different post types and the corresponding rates to accurately gauge what your audience is responding to, and what they’re not.

Why is it Important?

Followers and Likes are often referred to as ‘vanity metrics’ as although important, they don’t complete a full picture of how your audience is responding to your content.

For example, most people like a page because they see their friends do so or because they like a certain post at a certain time, but it is quickly forgotten. Therefore, even with high number of followers, it is still possible to see little interaction.

For example, the infamous Twitter fail from Rita Ora back in 2014. The pop princess tweeted she would release her new single on Monday if she got 100,000 retweets. Despite having 4 million Twitter followers, only 1,000 people retweeted her and the tweet was swiftly deleted.

Even with millions of fans supposedly at her finger tips, without an engaged audience, Rita Ora was effectively only speaking to 1000 people which is an engagement rate of 0.025%!

Evidently, a high engagement rate is a good indication that your followers are listening to what you have to say, developing trust in you as well as your brand and ultimately increasing brand awareness.

How to Improve Your Engagement Rate

Think of social media as a committed, long-term relationship with your followers. Ideally businesses and brands want to ensure they deliver the best customer experience through these platforms. In that sense, improving engagement is by no means rocket science but it does take dedication.

1.       Start a conversation

The cardinal rule is to give your audience something to ‘engage’ with. Talk about your industry, share some behind the scenes content or share something of value with your followers which isn’t just a product or service. When people realise there is a human, or humans, behind a brand they will be much more likely to follow it.

2.       Promote Brand Enthusiasts

A simple yet effective way to boost conversation is to promote your fans. Posting user generated content helps boost engagement by rewarding those who follow and engage with you and consequently encouraging others to do the same. The guys at Jimmy’s Iced Coffee are great at doing this and making customers feel part of something bigger.

3.   Jump on Trending Topics

If something is viral, you want to be part of it! If it’s trending or in the news in any way think how to harness a topic and divert traffic to your channel. Clothing giant Gap did a good job of this when the retailer promoted its sustainable wares for #EarthDay.

4.      Be Responsive

Make sure you respond to questions and queries as quickly as possible to keep your followers on side. It’s important to appear alert an attentive, otherwise people will think you don’t value them as a follower. Like this painful feed from telecommunications company Airtel.

5.      Join the Conversation

If starting a conversation seems like a big step right now, or if you’re stretched for time and resources, an effective way to boost engagement and simultaneously creativity is to join a Twitter chat or Q&A. You’ll be surprised how quickly you will see results, whether directly or indirectly from picking up tips and ideas along the way!

We More Than Doubled Our Yearly Coverage Results And Boosted Website Traffic And Brand Exposure!

Ramsay Health Care UK is a private health care company whose primary objective is to be seen as a trusted and responsible, expert-led health care company. PR campaigns in the world of private healthcare can be quite challenging for a number of reasons but through careful liaison with our client and the media the Sunny Bird PR team managed to achieve consistent results. One of the key PR objectives was to secure backlinks to lead the readers back to Ramsay’s website and boost their SEO. By working with Ramsay’s key focuses and marrying these up with awareness days and topical times of year, the team has achieved 74 pieces of coverage in target titles for Ramsay’s demographic.

Below are just a few of the ways in which we have created a constant drip-feed effect of positive coverage…

Back Care Awareness Week

One of Ramsay’s yearly focuses was to boost awareness of its spinal surgeries on offer. To meet this objective we created a back care feature which could be positioned during Back Care Awareness Week, and also rolled it out to health titles throughout the year. The feature included shocking statistics on how much time off work is caused by back pain, exercises to do at home to help minimise back pain accompanied by photography giving the reader step-by-step instructions for the exercises.

As back care is so relatable to readers, this campaign was featured in 23 titles including the Mail Online, Bt.com and Woman & Home with a total reach of over 3 million people.

Misdiagnosis – Why Private Health Care Might Be The Answer

When faced with no ‘new news’ or procedures to take to the press, we decided to create a campaign that highlights one of the key benefits of private health care – access to specialists for specific problems. To do this, we created a PR campaign that highlighted the eight most commonly misdiagnosed illnesses and had the information turned into an educational infographic. We then sourced an emotive female case study and consultant advice on ‘what to do if you feel you’ve been misdiagnosed?’.

We secured a national exclusive on the Mail Online and a further four pieces of national coverage, reaching over 5 million people.

New Year, New You

Weight loss surgery is one of Ramsay Health Care UK’s key focuses so we decided to create a human interest piece on the emotional effects of weight gain and commissioned a survey that highlighted the ways in which weight gain can affect your life, your career and your relationships. Female case studies, whose stories backed up the survey findings were sourced and expert tips were sourced from a Ramsay Health Care UK nutritionist. This feature was covered four times in January by the Mail Online, Express.co.uk, Netdoctor and BT.com with a total reach of over 6 million people.

Age Guide to Cosmetic Surgery

Cosmetic surgery is very often in the press for the wrong reasons but as another of Ramsay’s key focuses our challenge was to achieve positive coverage. Referring to Ramsay’s key messaging we focussed on the responsible and educational angle with this campaign and produced an informative age guide to cosmetic surgery.

We worked with Ramsay’s cosmetic surgeons to compile a list of the most common procedures along with a guide to the procedure including what exactly was involved, the recovery time and what age the surgeon recommended having the procedure.

We researched angles and pegs for the feature and found a celebrity hook; Kylie Jenner admitted that she’d had lip fillers too young. The Telegraph then featured our age guide along with our Ramsay consultant quotes. The article presented Ramsay exactly as we had intended as the provider of responsible and reputable cosmetic surgery. The feature was also covered on the Mail Online and the NZ Online resulting in an incredible reach of 18.5 million people.

Bowel Cancer Awareness Month

We started with the headline we wanted to see in the newspaper itself and then built a strong bank of assets to support it. Knowing that the Mail Online is quite a visual platform, we created an exclusive infographic that detailed the signs of bowel cancer that are often overlooked. This asset was educational, yet enabled us to provide a direct link back to the company website with a picture credit.

This, combined with an expert comment and gripping survey statistics, resulted in the Mail Online running the piece in advance of Bowel Cancer Awareness Month. Once this was secured we then rolled it out to further online titles, which resulted in 13 pieces of national coverage. Not only did this boost the awareness of Ramsay Health Care UK within the national newspapers, but it boosted the website traffic by 208% resulting in over 447 million people being exposed to Ramsay Health Care UK and meeting the client’s objective of boosting their SEO and gaining coverage in their target title.

Comment & Quote Opportunities

Ramsay Health Care UK has a number of amazing consultants and specialists. In the last two years we have been able to put them forward for key comment opportunities in titles such as; The Guardian and The Telegraph, as well as women’s monthly magazines such as Yours and men’s fitness titles. Every time a quote has been secured it boosts Ramsay’s reputation of being an expert within the private health care sector.

Want to find out more? Drop us a line on 01202 293095 or email hello@sunnybirdpr.com to find out how creative PR campaigns could work for you too.

Why is PR important when it comes to your business, brand or product?

Public relations can be very powerful for a business as it places you in front of your target audience and gets your voice heard amongst the rabble of a crowded market.

The job of a PR agency involves educating the media, key journalists, influencers and potential consumers on the USPs (the unique selling points) behind your brand or product so that they will then ultimately recommend it to their readers, followers or friends and tempt your chosen demographic to use your brand, product or service.

PR is important for numerous reasons; here are just a few to consider…

Tailor your brand message.

Consumers love brands that have a compelling or relatable story and your brand message is the reason that people will remember you, like you, and then choose you over the competition. Every good brand needs to harness a message that is retold at every opportunity. From press releases to media meetings – your PR team will ensure that your brand message is always present.

How we did it…
The market was incredibly saturated when we launched Conker Spirit’s Dorset Dry Gin to national press and we needed it to stand out amongst the competition. This was achieved through a consistent brand message that highlighted the brand’s Dorset heritage and hand-foraged botanicals. This gave it a stand-out point of difference and enabled us to secure key coverage within the Telegraph Food & Drink section, heralding Conker Spirit as ‘Dorset’s first ever gin distillery’.

Raise awareness.

People trust established brands and one way to make your brand or business known is to send out your message via a trusted third party such as a popular magazine, a high-traffic website or on the blog of a respected blogger or influencer to ensure that your brand comes into contact with your chosen demographic in a positive way.

How we did it…
Bliss is a woman’s only sanctuary in Bali and our aim was to encourage UK consumers to choose Bliss when it came to booking their next holiday. To ensure that Bliss came into contact with the correct demographic, we invited journalists from key titles to come to Bliss first-hand and review the sanctuary. This activity resulted in 12 reviews that were read by the target demographic and built awareness for a company that was relatively unknown in the UK.
 

Build credibility.

Unlike advertising, a magazine mention of your product or a product review is not a direct sell so it works as a recommendation from a person that could be an authority in your chosen industry. Many consumers ‘see through’ advertising and it’s important to be seen in a more authentic way to build credibility and consumer trust.

How we did it…
Consumer trust can often be a purchasing hurdle for a new unknown brand. Natural hair regrowth product Regrowz needed to build consumer trust in advance of their UK launch so we sourced appropriate bloggers and got them to trial the product and then leave authentic Trustpilot reviews on the website. We were then able to collate the feedback and use the bloggers as successful case studies to secure additional PR coverage. This activity created over 60 case studies who successfully trialled the product as well as 48 Trustpilot reviews on the Regrowz website.

Support your online presence.

Chances are the last time you made a purchase you used a search engine to do some online research.  Public relations can help you capitalise on this process. An article within an online news outlet, a broadcast clip posted online, or a news release distributed to web outlets – all of these provide valuable inbound links to your website that increase your Google ranking. A press release can also be further optimized for search engine visibility by utilizing keywords.

How we did it…
Ramsay Health Care wants to increase its website traffic and ranking. In each PR campaign we always ensure that there is a reason for the journalist to include a backlink to their website so that Ramsay Health Care can capitalise on the website’s traffic. A great example of this is the project we ran for Bowel Cancer Awareness Month where the secured backlinks increased their website traffic by 208%.

Boost your visibility in the media.

Appearing in an advert once or your product appearing in a sponsored social media post often isn’t enough to entice someone to purchase or invest in your services. ‘Early adopters’ and impulse buyers exist but with information at people’s fingertips potential customers will often visit multiple websites, read reviews and price check options before purchasing. It can often take people a minimum of three times to see a brand before they lower their defences and consider taking your brand message on board. It may take a positive review on a blog, a great google review on your website and a recommendation in their favourite magazine before they succumb to your brand message.

How we did it…
Card company thortful needed to stand out amongst the other online card retailers. We achieved this by securing coverage in multiple print and online publications (supplements, national newspapers and glossy magazines) and by securing online blogger reviews that were read and trusted by their target demographic. This then ran alongside their social media campaign and TV advertisement, boosting the chances of their target consumer coming into contact with the brand multiple times and increasing the chances of them using thortful.
 

Managing your reputation.
Your brand may encounter some difficulty at some point during your business journey that may affect the reputation of the company. Great PR relationships are key when it comes to minimising the damage to a company’s reputation and your PR team will be experienced in addressing difficult issues – whether that may be an advertising campaign gone wrong or angry customers on social media. A poor response or no response whatsoever is not an option and can ruin any brand trust that has been built up.

How we did it…
One of the projects that we worked on for thortful tackled the difficult and sensitive subject of Breast Cancer. To counteract any negativity, we ensured that all key speakers were fully prepped and media trained before conducting any radio or TV interviews and made sure all quotes used within the media were from an ex-cancer sufferer who had first-hand experience of the condition. This ensured that the topic was handled sensitively.

PR is time intensive and takes a lot of leg work, but once relationships have been built it does get easier as your brand recognition grows. PR truly is an essential way to get your brand message to the correct audience. For further information or an informal chat, give us a call on 01202 293095 or drop us an email at hello@sunnybirdpr.com to see how PR can benefit your company.

How We Increased Traffic by 3,535% for a New Website

There are so many routes to the consumer through media when it comes to launching a new product. Our job at Sunny Bird PR is to assess these routes and choose the most effective for each client and their product.

Before Regrowz launched its hair thickening product for women we carried out extensive research through a bank of 30 case studies who trialled the product for six months. From these case studies we found a high percentage of women suffered from thinning hair or hair loss after giving birth. This led us to carry out further research in this field and from this we found a number of celebrities who had also been through the same experience.

We then sent out Regrowz for Women to the agents of these celebrities inviting the celebrities to trial the product. As a result of all our research and targeted approach to celebrities we secured a celebrity endorsement from Jennifer Metcalfe who posted on her Instagram and Twitter channels about the amazing results she’d had from using Regrowz for Women.

Jennifer’s Instagram post received over 6,000 likes in just 24 hours and over 10,000 likes in under a week. As Jennifer had tagged Regrowz into the post, we saw the Regrowz for Women Instagram channel go from 886 followers to 2,200 overnight – a huge 248% increase in followers.

The Sunny Bird PR team reacted to this immediately and shared Jennifer’s endorsement on the Regrowz for Women social media channels with a link to the Regrowz website offering a 15% discount. This reactive social media activity increased traffic to the Regrowz website by an amazing 3,535% - a phenomenal result for a new product and website.

To find out more about celebrity endorsement and if it could work for you and your brand call the team on 01202 293095 or email hello@sunnybirdpr.com

We Achieved 103 Pieces Of Coverage In One Year (8.5 Pieces Per Month) Reaching Over 249 Million People

It's always a great feeling when you summarise the results from a yearly PR campaign and let's just say that there were high fives all around when we summarised the recent PR campaign for card company thortful.

Start-up company thortful is an online card company that focuses on supporting creative talent and having a card for every occasion. They came to us to help launch their brand to the media, opinion formers and target demographic. Their objective was to build brand recognition to boost card sales and boost repeat online purchases. The online card marketplace is crowded so we knew that we needed some seriously creative PR campaigns to truly make them stand out amongst the competition.

As well as promoting the general card range, Sunny Bird PR also developed a number of creative PR campaigns that would garner as much coverage for thortful as possible. This included the following:

-          Product placement and card round up pages
Throughout the year the team held multiple one to one media meetings in London and we ensured that thortful was always front-of-mind in advance of all key seasonal times of year (Christmas, Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day etc.). Press became so used to seeing our faces (which is only ever a good thing) and thortful became synonymous with original, fun and thoughtful cards. Many journalists requested card samples for themselves and family members as a result and it was a brilliant way to introduce the media to the brand.

-          Father’s Day ‘the best advice your Dad ever gave you’
The team travelled 1,000’s of miles across national train networks to collect the best advice people had received from their fathers. This campaign resulted in some great quality coverage within the Mail Online as well as social media and consumer engagement.

-          Breast Cancer Awareness Month
Sunny Bird PR enlisted a thortful creative to curate a range of empathy cards. The idea behind the campaign was to create a range of cards that is different to the traditional ‘get well’ cards on the market. The creative herself previously suffered from cancer and was positioned as an authentic case study. This campaign resulted in 20 pieces of coverage in titles such as Mashable, Metro, Elle Online, Independent.co.uk and Good To Know.

-          Gary James McQueen ‘Are you OK?’ card range
The team collaborated with the nephew of the late Alexander McQueen to create a collection of ‘Are you OK?’ cards to tackle mental health stigma and to give thortful the opportunity to be positioned within the fashion and health titles. A mental health charity partnership was secured to add authenticity to the collaboration and the collection was featured in 17 titles, including; Hello Fashion Monthly, Emerald Street and Country & Town House Online.

-          Launching the Father’s Day Sock Card
Father’s Day 2017 saw the launch of the Father’s Day Sock Card – a gift and card in one. The team issued personalised samples to leading TV producers and male presenters who were also fathers. Not only did the team source the names of the influential fathers, but the card designs were chosen for them based on their public persona and taste. This activity resulted in stand-out coverage on ITV’s This Morning with Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield in a Father’s Day gift guide. The programme was watched by over 3 million viewers and thortful saw a direct increase in sales as a result.

-          Launching the Keepsake Cards
Sunny Bird PR pitched the Keepsake Cards as an alternative Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day ‘gift and card in one’. The press feedback for the Keepsake Cards was very strong, especially among the supplements. All key journalists received personalised Keepsake Cards and we offered them the opportunity to order a free Keepsake Card as a gift from thortful for a loved one of their choice. The activity was in line with thortful’s key messaging of always being thoughtful and it resulted in some great coverage, including pieces in S Magazine, Notebook and Fabulous.

-          Trade and Business outreach
Sunny Bird PR targeted key trade and business titles to ensure that thortful was positioned as a voice of authority and a start-up that was shaking up the card industry. The founder, Andy Pearce, was pitched as a successful entrepreneur and the face of the brand which resulted in standout coverage being achieved within the following titles; Marketing Week, Growth Business, Fresh Business Thinking, Progressive Greetings, Entrepreneur & Investor, Campaign Week and Enterprise Nation.

-          App reviews
One of thortful’s secondary objectives was to encourage sales through the thortful app to boost repeat purchase. Sunny Bird PR targeted journalists who often write app reviews specifically and also seeded the app and a free code to key mummy bloggers. This activity resulted in positive app reviews both in key national newspapers and on high circulation blogs. These reviews often included direct hyperlinks to the app store so that the app could be purchased. The blogger coverage also provided an opportunity for a ‘step-by-step guide on how to use the thortful  app’ to be published which educated the reader on the pros of using thortful over the competition. Coverage secured included; Metro, Mummy Constant and The Mirror.

The results are in!!!
One year, lots of media meetings and multiple creative PR campaigns later and we have secured 103 pieces of coverage with a reach of 249,370,993. The coverage spanned from high circulation online titles such as Mail Online, Mashable, ElleUK.com, Express.co.uk and a prime daytime TV slot on This Morning’s Father’s Day gift guide that resulted in a direct spike in thortful website traffic and Father’s Day sales.  

Want to find out more? Drop us a line on 01202 293095 to find out how a creative PR campaign could work for you too.

​​​​​​​19 Regional Client Wins in 12 Months

As Sunny Bird PR celebrates its fourth year as a public relations agency it also celebrates what has been a phenomenal year with a rebrand, office move and an influx of new clients and staff. 

Originally based in Basepoint, Hurn, the agency soon outgrew the office space and moved to Bournemouth town centre in September 2016. Sunny Bird, the owner of the agency explains: “We always assumed that we’d attract a lot of regional clients but in our first three years it was mainly national and international clients.”

Originally called Little Bird PR, after the colloquialism ‘a little bird told me’, Sunny made the decision to change the name as so many of the international clients didn’t understand the saying: “Some clients said they’d assumed from the name that we were a small agency and at three years in we really weren’t so I thought I’d change the name along with investing in a rebrand and an office move to reflect the agency more accurately.”

Since the rebrand to Sunny Bird PR and the move to large, central Bournemouth offices the agency has experienced a huge growth in regional client wins. “We’ve had a fantastic year with 19 regional clients signing up in the last 12 months. I had planned on expansion which is why I’d chosen such large offices but I had no idea it would happen this quickly or that we’d win so much regional business.”

The team at Sunny Bird PR specialises in having a fresh approach to modern media and creating strategies for brands to connect with their consumers on a regional, national and international scale. For more information call the team on 01202 293095 or email hello@sunnybirdpr.com.