As marketers, we’re constantly adapting to the evolving technologies and PR trends in the digital marketing space to ensure that our clients remain ahead of their competition.
Given the speed with which we’re moving, what can we do to ensure we are delivering the best possible results? On May 8th, 2025, we attended the Digital PR Summit, which brought together some of the most insightful voices in digital PR and journalism to answer that very question.
It’s always a pleasure to join other professionals to discuss the opportunities and challenges we’re all facing and how to approach them. We were pleased to discover that our strategies are aligned with theirs and our pitches are exactly what journalists are looking for (big tick!)
Here are some key takeaways that we’d like to share with you:
AI will shape the future of marketing
AI has established itself as a permanent fixture in the marketing world.
One quick Google search will show the AI overviews sitting proudly at the top of the SERPs, telling people precisely what they need to know without having to scroll to explore the organic listings.
In fact, Ahrefs recently analysed over 300,000 keywords, and the results confirm our suspicions:
When AI overviews appear in search, the top organic listings show a 34.5% drop in clicks.
Search terms with transactional intent still require users to scroll to find what they are looking for. However, those queries with informational intent will be answered right away.
Our SEO and content teams work collaboratively to optimise for AI overviews, ensuring that our clients can appear in these listings and generate relevant traffic to their sites.
The following example shows our client, Thomson EC, who appears in the AI overviews for over 100 search terms. This is a great way to enhance brand awareness and encourage clicks through to their website. It also presents them as an authority on countless topics in their space, such as fines for disturbing bats, the advantages of biodiversity and protecting endangered species.
Get in touch if you’re looking for ways to enhance your visibility in the search results and drive meaningful traffic to your site.
And it’s not just marketers who are coming up against challenges.
Journalists revealed they receive more fake AI-generated “expert comments” than ever before. These comments are attached to requests for backlinks to their websites. Understandably, this has not gone unnoticed.
In 2025, Journalists will more frequently check the authenticity of these requests so they don’t lose credibility or get caught sharing inaccurate information in their content.
They also revealed that while Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trust (EEAT) are essential for marketers and their clients, they’re equally important for them.
Linking through to a dodgy source will damage their reputation in the eyes of Google and devalue their content. Author profiles were considered the best way for marketers to showcase the credibility of their source.
What’s more, it was unanimous among the panel of journalists that author profiles are the preferred location to direct links to when expert comments are shared.
This is a breakthrough for those looking to boost their credibility, as a backlink pointing to an author page from a relevant or authoritative domain signals to Google that the source is well-respected in their space.
Furthermore, adding EEAT signals to Product Display Pages (PDP) and blogs is still essential and hugely valuable. We’re talking case studies, reviews, and team members listed on service-specific pages.
As we transition into an AI-dominated world, brand and thought leadership take centre stage. If clicks dry up, trust becomes the conversion. People will remember the name that taught them something, not the website that ranked in position one.
So no, SEO is not dead, but equally, we’re not playing the same game as we were back in 2018.
AI and digital marketing working together
We’ve talked about how AI is challenging marketers, but it can also help improve operational efficiencies in the workplace.
With financial pressures mounting and marketing budgets often coming under fire, it’s more important than ever for marketers to improve efficiencies in order to meet deadlines and maintain high standards.
AI can be used to improve efficiencies, and we’re not talking about replacing your workforce with a bot (unless their job is manual data entry – then, maybe). This is about cutting out repetitive, low-value tasks and speeding up workflows.
Here are some ways to use AI in the workplace:
- AI as a prompt to suggest creative PR ideas and headlines. This is used as a suggestion only to find potential angles that may not have otherwise been considered.
- AI to streamline the process of finding valuable keywords. Using AI-powered tools like SE Ranking allows us to tap into advanced techniques like natural language processing and machine learning.
- AI to analyse website data and compare to industry-leading tools like Screaming Frog.
- AI for report analysis, allowing us to identify any strategic considerations and compare them against our team’s in-house recommendations.
- AI for recording meetings with transcripts. We use this as a note-taking method during virtual meeting,s allowing us to focus on the conversation at hand. However, while this is an excellent idea in theory, we have found the transcript to miss small details, so a fact-check is required.
It’s worth noting that just because we’re trialling some of these methods, it doesn’t mean they will work for everyone. For example, a business with a 100+ workforce requires different operational processes from a smaller, close-knit team.
AI is evolving all the time, and the opportunities are endless. As soon as this blog is published, there will no doubt be another technological advancement introduced. Follow us on social media @wearewildpr where we’ll share any updates.
What journalists actually want in their inbox
The chances are that what we consider a success is also a success for a journalist. We all want to rank highly, be a trusted resource, and drive relevant traffic to our website.
It’s so easy to become fixated on what will bring us success that we forget what a journalist actually wants to receive.
This is what makes us stand out in an inbox that reads 4,355 messages.
Here are some quick-fire tips and tricks that help us build lasting relationships with our media contacts:
- Demonstrate how our content will help them rank – “We can see you rank highly for X, so we’d propose an article on X with internal linking to strengthen your position further.”
- Don’t forget personalisation; “Hi, name” goes straight in the bin.
- Include subject lines in the style of their stories to show we read their content.
- Flattery gets you everywhere – “I loved your piece on X have you considered a follow-up?”
- Don’t be afraid to ask what they want and show genuine interest.
- Avoid sending fluffy feature requests first thing in the morning. Their focus will be on hard-hitting headlines, so it’s best to send those in the afternoon when they revisit their inbox.
- Respect boundaries. If they are OOO or don’t respond after a few emails, don’t bombard their inbox. They are not interested and will likely ignore your future requests.
We use the above approach to build lasting relationships with key media contacts in niche publications, as well as regional and national news outlets, such as Ideal Home, Reach PLC, and the Yorkshire Post, to name a few.
Focus on the metrics that matter
When it comes to campaign tracking and reporting back to a client, one of the biggest mistakes you can make is to focus on vanity metrics instead of what really matters.
Vanity metrics are things like banklink count, traffic to site, page views and followers. None of these things matter without context. What does this mean to the client? Does it reflect a return on their investment? If the answer is no, keep digging.
For example, an increase in traffic to a website is all well and good. Still, it means nothing without an understanding of how relevant that traffic is and if it delivers key events like conversions, form submissions, or downloads.
So, why do marketers rely so heavily on vanity metrics?
These metrics are used often because they make marketers feel accomplished and look good on a report. Honestly though, they mean nothing.
The PR Summit discussions centred around digital PR metrics that matter.
Backlink count is a metric that should never be used to define the success of a campaign. Google is looking for businesses to display a natural backlink profile that combines follow and no-follow links. Delivering a large quantity of follow links looks spammy and unnatural. This has been the case for a decade, so why are marketers still promising to deliver a set number of monthly backlinks? It is easy to measure and looks impressive at first glance. Agencies that promise to deliver a certain number of monthly backlinks are not worth your time or investment.
It’s also important to note that links should not be the only measure of success. Brand mentions are equally important, and contrary to what some may believe, they indirectly impact the performance of non-brand searches. If Google recognises that your business is mentioned across various reputable publications and brand searches, and traffic increases as a result, this will have a notable impact on your non-brand organic rankings.
Using internal data sources in PR
Businesses are sitting on a goldmine of data. Most companies have an endless stream of data, such as email lists, bookings, social media, location, markets, and customer lists stored in their CMS.
The value lies in what journalists want to publish. They love data, especially data that tells a story no one is talking about. Company data is 100% unique, and only you (and your digital agency) can access it, making it exclusive in the eyes of a reporter.
It’s no secret that external surveys can be expensive, depending on the scale of the request. Internal data is a great way to cut costs and go straight to the source, using what is available at your fingertips to craft a winning PR idea.
There are many ways internal data can be used to build a PR strategy. You can even use your data list to run a survey to shape your story’s narrative.
So, before you splash the cash on a costly PR campaign or survey, consider what value you can add by simply analysing your data. Struggling to get the creative juices flowing? We’d be happy to help!
Ready to discover your online potential?
If you are looking to work with a forward-thinking agency that builds genuine relationships with journalists and keeps up to speed with the latest digital changes, we’re here to help.
You can reach us on 0300 043 4464 or send us an email at roar@wild-pr.co.uk