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A Day in The Life of a PR: Media House Visits

Posted In: PR by Connor,
January 31, 2024

Title

Aka Living out my PR girl fantasy – Daisy Tucker, Senior Account Executive, PR

Media house visits have always been a traditional PR’s bread and butter. A chance to physically get in front of key journalists at the publications you’re targeting for your clients  (yes, that’s correct, in actual human form and not over a dodgy Wi-Fi riddled call), it’s truly the best way to sell in ANY brand.

Yet whilst this continues to be a staple tactic, the recent, dare I say the word, pandemic, saw the opportunity for in-person meetings dwindle and emails or teams’ calls (if you were lucky) were the only ways to connect with editors.

I’ve always been a people’s person at heart and although I fell in love with the job from day dot, kickstarting my PR career in the closed off post-COVID world left me yearning for some real-life relationships with the journalists I was reaching out to week in, week out.

Over the past six months we’ve noticed a clear shift back to pre-pandemic ways of working, particularly across the homes & interiors sector and in London especially. With tonnes of events and exhibitions, as well as journalists travelling back into the city for office days, PRs and their brands now need to be seizing every opportunity to immerse themselves in this and get back to building genuine relationships. So, that’s exactly what we’re doing at Boutique!

After growing some truly special relationships with the homes & interiors press over the past couple of years, we kicked off 2024 with a trip to the capital to see both Hearst Magazines and Future PLC – key media houses in the home interest sector – with our client Prestigious Textiles to share their latest fabric collections.

A 5.30am start (not so glam)  saw us getting ready for a jam packed day in London. Travelling from Leeds on an early morning train gave us time to remind ourselves of who we would be meeting, the key trends within the fabric collections and the PR opportunities we’d like to discuss. Most importantly, it gave us the perfect photo op where we could show off our Starbucks coffee cup and perfectly put together outfits we’d picked out a couple days prior…

Upon arrival we were reunited with the hustle and bustle of the tube; darting our eyes quickly across the “map” to work out which route to take. We must have looked like casual local tube riders as three people asked for directions and I’m pretty sure we sent them the wrong way.

Making it to Paddington with time to spare, we met the designers from Prestigious Textiles who were joining us to present the collections and provide all the juicy details about inspiration and styling tips. 

Future was our first stop. Setting up in a meeting room, we laid out fabric books, original artwork and trend packs for the attendees to get up close and personal with each design. We had four editors from target publications join us and received some amazing feedback. The meeting lasted just over an hour and left us with loads of notes to digest.

After a spot of lunch we made our way to Hearst to do it all again. This time we got to present to SEVEN editors and writers. Another engaging meeting and lots of talk about how Prestigious could support with some upcoming features left us feeling on top of the world!

With a little time to kill before catching a late train home, we grabbed some dinner before heading back to Kings Cross. The train home consisted of sharing our highlights from the day and preparing our follow ups for the next morning to make sure we continued our relationship building and thanked all the attendees for hosting us. Running on adrenaline and caffeine, we rounded off the day with some of that laughing at nothing that only comes when you’re feeling totally delirious.


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