Adding data to a pitch or a campaign instantly adds that newsworthy element: Laura from Tessian

While studing English language and Media, Laura wanted to be a journalist. She loved writing, and to get work experience she tried communications and began her journey into communications. She now heads communications and content at a cybersecurity startup called Tessian.

Check out Laura’s Story:

Transcript(Auto-Generated):

0:01Yeah, I mean I would, I’m sure I share the sentiment with quite a few pr and comms people who are in the house to find a way to show how pr and comms impact revenue, I think this is something we struggled with for a long, a long time and it was something that was addressed with a AVE which I’m really pleased has now gone away, but it’s really difficult to show how PR moves the needle in terms of lead generation and revenue and have that direct impact my journey.

0:40Into comms sort of started when I went to university.

0:43So I studied English language and media at the university with the end goal of becoming a journalist.

0:50But I’ve always loved writing getting work experience or an internship at newspaper or within journalism was pretty tough, so a family friend has suggested maybe try communications.

1:05and I was fortunate enough to get a position as a communications coordinator at a global technology company called Talis.

1:14So that was sort of the start of my comms journey, essentially working on both internal and Communications in the HQ team.

1:24and I just in that role got to see how different parts of communications works in 10 years on, I’m still really enjoying working in this field and today I head up communications and content at a cybersecurity startup called Tessian.

1:38So yeah, it’s been an interesting journey.

1:46So my first experience with data, I think from what I can remember is when I was working at a global pr agency Hotwire.

1:56So that was I went in-house after a few years.

1:58So I went agency side after a few years in the house.

2:02So I was working in the B2B technology team there and we often have clients asking us for advice on how we get media placement in tech and business titles.

2:13and I quickly learned or was quickly talk that compelling statistics to support say opinions of spokespeople or talking points of spokespeople were ways that you could secure headlines in that media.

2:27So during my first couple of years at hotwire I pitched a number of sort of statistic led research, lead stories to the media that would contain either say survey data or data that we’ve extracted from our clients sort of technology platforms.

2:44and so almost essentially sort of quantify the problem or the pain point they were solving.

2:49So for example we could say x amount is lost to cyber attack every year and it just creates a slightly more compelling headlines so that I think was sort of my first introduction of using data in a way that brought pr and external communications campaigns to life.

3:11I mean data is super powerful and bringing stories and anecdotes and opinions etcetera to data, adding data to a pitch or a campaign that instantly adds that newsworthy element addresses the so what I think is so so important to do throughout every pr and communications campaign.

3:32it’s also even stronger if you’re the only vendor that or the only person sharing that data for the very first time or it’s data that no other vendor could provide.

3:43So I guess for the latter that sort of data that no one else can provide.

3:48leveraging data from the technology platform of the vendor or the client is really powerful.

3:53It’s sort of seeing what trends can you see in your data that can tell a story and provide information to reporters and their readers that they couldn’t get anywhere else.

4:03So I think a really good example here is during Covid I think During the first lockdown in and the COVID pandemic in 2020.

4:13my company works with email security data.

4:18and we were able to see working with our data science and engineering teams how much email traffic had increased when employees were forced to work from home because we could see that they were communicating more with colleagues and coworkers.

4:31so that was a really interesting human staff that we could share with reporters to tap into what was currently going on at the time.

4:38We could also select glean statistics and percentage increases in say phishing attacks and insider attacks as employees work more remotely.

4:47So it was a way to demonstrate our expertise in the field but also provide data that related to a news trend.

4:54Another way of sort of typically use data in my campaigns is third party surveys.

5:01Usually because I’m in the B.

5:04Two B.

5:04Sec through employees or I.

5:07T.

5:07Decision makers around a certain topic.

5:10So most recently our Pr team did a campaign around how ineffective security awareness training is and we would get the attitudes and opinions of employees to communicate how ineffective traditional methods are.

5:26and then with the narrative of our spokespeople providing that alternative solution in a different way of doing things.

5:33It was it was really powerful within the first week we had over 25 pieces of media coverage.

5:39So it just shows like how opening a data point in your headline is going to help you sort of make that newsworthy story.

5:47I mean you just have to look at the reports like the cost of a data breach by IBM that comes out every year.

5:53Everyone gets so excited about it and it just shows the power that data can have in building in building those those stories.

6:05So I measure share of voice from an external communications standpoint.

6:11I also look at our aided and unaided awareness in a brand awareness survey.

6:19So looking at how many of our target audience are aware of our brand versus our competitors and we measure that to see if it’s going up or down alongside our share of voice.

6:29So very much top of funnel metrics.

6:32I also look after internal communications in my role at session.

6:35So employee engagement surveys and data points around that.

6:41I might go to metrics on the internal side as well as share a voice and brand awareness on the external Yeah, so I to measure the success of my pr campaigns and suicide sort of competitive landscape, I use a media monitoring tool which helps me understand share a voice brand mentions tier one coverage and and and reach as well.

7:08I rely heavily on google analytics as I’m sure many other people do just to understand where blog traffic is coming from.

7:15and also just to see levels of engagement on certain blog content.

7:19And then on the social media side I tend to use hootsuite or sprout social and also the sort of analytics tools within platforms like linkedin and twitter just to see which posts are getting the most engagement which then will inform our campaigns and board.

7:38Just be curious and have that a desire to learn about what’s going on in the world.

7:46and then to try new things out, there are so many data tools out there that allow you to experiment and give you then the data to back up how you move forward.

7:55So you can come up with so many creative ideas, test them out and then use that to inform how you move forward and create even more successful campaigns.

8:03I think a thirst for Yeah, that sort of curiosity to look into new ways of working and looking at how other companies are crafting their communications campaigns as well.

8:16Just drink up as much information and knowledge as you can.

8:20I think the best ideas come from inspiration from others.

8:23So yeah, definitely have curiosity and, and a desire to experiment and test things.