🎤 Speaker line-ups live for WTSFest London, Portland, & Berlin
⌛ Limited super early birds live for Philadelphia, & Melbourne
🎤 Speaker line-ups live for WTSFest London, Portland, & Berlin
⌛ Limited super early birds live for Philadelphia, & Melbourne
Author: WTS Team
Last updated: 27/01/2025
Nikki is the founder of Press Loft, a PR platform that helps 1,200 brands streamline their press coverage generation around the world. We're so grateful to have Nikki as a WTS community member and the Press Loft team as a WTSPartner!
With a background in PR and a passion for innovation, Nikki launched Press Loft to revolutionise how brands and media connect, facilitating over 3.2 million product image downloads by journalists to date.
For our "ask me anything" (AMA) format, members dropped questions in our #digital-pr Slack channel for Nikki. Nikki then came in to get them all answered and have a bit of back and forth.
Below, we'll recap some of the highlights of the chats.
Want to join our next AMA or check out what else the WTS Community Slack has to offer? Head over here for more info.
Now let's dive into the AMA...
In this section, Nikki answered everything surrounding starting with PR.
I think the decision on choosing where to spend precious time and money on one business activity vs another typically comes down to goals, existing knowledge and skills. PR is about contacts, images and stories - all of which can be quick for some and long for others.
The benefits are backlinks, brand awareness and sales driving - so its about measuring that vs other channels. The problem with marketing is often measurement, and this is especially the case with PR!
To answer your question on achieving coverage with limited resources - I think the PR tools mentioned in some of these chats can be really time and cost effective for smaller brands.
If your agency has a niche / specialism, this can be a really great space to move into and doable with a small team.
A good starting point is a strong media list of 100-200 media per niche. If you are spread quite thin and work in other sectors it makes it harder as your team then have to source and pitch to that many media per niche.
Some niche PR services I recommend:
Qwoted gets my vote!
Response Source as well - although to be honest I haven't used that since early in my agency days. I still hear good things about it.
Cision is something some clients use - but it's pricey.
Pr newswire - the same pricey, but excellent reach.
Prowly is worth a look for media lists.
My experience lies firmly in the product PR arena, I'm afraid. But drawing on comparisons, using the news topics as hooks in press releases, and providing commentary around key trends and news themes is really important to drive good quality coverage.
Peter Shankman's free daily email (HARO replacement) is a good start for leads for journalists and Qwoted is great too.
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In this part, Nikki answered everything you need for the perfect product image.
A mixture of both lifestyle and cutouts in the pitch or release is vital.
You'll find that some journalists have to have one or the other for a specific article. Offering both to the media vastly increases your chances of making the final cut.
Video is not something that is typically used directly - but can be useful to showcase the product to the media in more detail without actually getting their hands on it. And this can be important in more technical products. But overall, I don't think video is essential at the moment.
For product PR, cut out images on a pure white background generate around 70% of the coverage. So that is the most important set of images to ask for initially.
If you are lucky enough that the client has professional lifestyle photography, that is going to make your job a lot easier too. Those good quality images tend to get the larger pieces of coverage e.g. blog / article headers, section headers and sit at the top of the page (they make the page look nicer and more professional so they get great visibility).
Images need to be 300dpi and high res - even for online typically.
If the lifestyle images have any seasonal elements to them e.g. Christmas props for Christmas PR, Easter props for Easter PR. That can also really help your pitches lead to coverage, too.
Yes - we have Remove.bg on Press Loft - so I use that one, But I am also loving Photoroom.
Low resolution images are vital as part of a pitch for products.
The main decision on whether a product will make the final cut is aesthetic - if the product image doesn't fit into the look and feel of the publication/ article - it wont make the cut.
I think it's really important to link out to high res images that they can download instantly
I don’t believe it’s something our clients or agencies typically do.
It’s more common to fully launch to top-tier outlets first, then target second-tier outlets afterward. I haven’t heard of embargoing specific imagery, but if you try it, let me know how it goes!
Interestingly, "boring" cut out shots can be the most impactful for PR scale - these are used in mood boards and shopping guides more than even lifestyle!
In these two examples from The Times and The Sun cut out shots are used in those mood board headers.
Some tips on good cut outs - lighting must be excellent, minimal reflections, consistent and professional.
Make sure you can understand visually what the product is. Cut outs need to be on a pure white background, not grey. If any of you work for paint / fabric or tile brands - don't forget swatch shots - the press loves them.
And don't use a drop shadow!
"Behind the scene" images can work well for any business.
"Before and after" images for more service based businesses e.g. cleaning / building / beauty services.
Use headshots for quotes - not particularly unconventional (!) but important for broader press coverage.
In this section, Nikki covers all questions about PR Content.
My expertise is in product PR - but I think the main element is to hook the business into a relevant news topic.
A simple "we have raised money" - unless they are a huge brand, is going to struggle to get pick up. But commentary about the impact of e.g. a new president's inauguration and the impact on the x industry is likely to get more pick up as you are thinking like the journalist.
Unless you are a big brand it's about the brand hooking into a story,/ trend not the brand being the story unfortunately! Products are much more straightforward though!
It's not something I have done in my PR days (and we don't do that on Press Loft).
But it was something someone did for me when promoting Press Loft and it didn't generate any business impact and I felt it to be an expensive box ticking exercise with little substance in the final result.
It would be great to hear from others who have had experience!
PR content in its traditional form is typically stronger from a third party endorsement perspective e.g. The Times saying you are great is perceived by the reader to be more meaningful and credible than a guest post of your own content. It also tends to have better SEO value when there is a follow link too.
Blog syndication is typically higher volume and can be good for quick SEO boosts and traffic gen. I wouldn't say they are mutually exclusive
I tend to be quite honest, in a nice way, that we could do the angle that they suggest, but, from experience, an angle like x would get greater interest.
Then I would offer to run with their idea, but explain that I just want to manage their expectations in terms of results as they will likely be considerably lower.
Each time the client has chosen to run with my idea thankfully!
Here, Nikki shares all the essentials for a career in PR including her very own start.
Contacts! I think that is the strongest thing to hire for in a PR - get them to name drop journalists they know and what they have pitched successfully recently.
Strong contacts with successful placements also demonstrates someone who is great at coming up with hooks and angles for pitches. You can also ask them to come up with some hooks for a specific product during an interview
Read, read and read!!! I think the trick to good PR is being knowledgeable and connected in your industry.
A good PR is hired for their creativity in pitching alongside their relationships with media. So networking is vital, especially at the start. Media will more likely open and digest a pitch from someone they know and trust.
PR is a competitive game - so any edge you can have is important e.g. the editor of You magazine gets around 800 pitches per day!
ChatGPT is amazing as ideation for pitches - so if I was starting again, I would do a huge amount of hands-on learning on the optimum way to use this.
Build my own prompts... maybe even an agent!
I graduated in 2001 with a degree in anthropology and I had no clue what I wanted to do. I was travelling in Australia, buring my head in the sand, when I phoned home and my Dad told me about his invention HangFree, a cool picture hanging system that hooked into wallpaper.
He asked if i wanted to help him get it off the ground in return for him paying for me to do a marketing qualification with the CIM. I jumped at the chance, flew home and got stuck in setting up the website, handling orders and even doing a stint on QVC (!)
But PR is what really sparked my interest. I loved writing, chatting with media and seeing the results drive sales
As HangFree gained traction and sales grew, my dad decided to move production to China. Unfortunately, a £20k investment resulted in units that we couldn’t sell, so he recommended, very nicely (!), that I find another job. He suggested that I pursue what I loved most: PR consulting.
Launching zero2one in 2002 was petrifying, I sent out some mail merges offering PR for £50 a month (!) before long I had LOTS of clients... and yes I increased my prices! In a year Id grown enough to move to a little office in Portobello Road!
Despite the challenges, PR didn't feel like work because I formed friendships with journalists and clients. The biggest challenge was managing a growing image bank and client list. Keeping track of images, drafting press releases and updating press lists was overwhelming.
Prompted by conversations with my dad, who had insights into marketing systems, I was inspired to develop something that could handle these tasks more efficiently. After a lot of research and wireframing I was ready to go and I found a developer, Graham House, who is our CTO today!
To cut a very long journey short.... Roll forwards 20 years we have looked after PR teams for 25k brands like Kingfisher, Wayfair, La Redoute and Laura Ashley and have had 3.2 million images downloaded by the media in 105 countries!
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Want to join our next AMA or check out what else the WTS Community Slack has to offer? Head over here for more info.