7 Reasons Why Your Ideas Aren’t Working

There is nothing more frustrating than to have put all your time and efforts into a campaign only to see it fail. You’ve brainstormed ideas, crafted pitches, reached out to journalists, but you’re not seeing the results come in.
Understanding why your Digital PR efforts aren’t hitting the mark is crucial to refining your approach and achieving better results.
In this article I am going to list 7 hard truths that I learned as a PR executive that could explain why your ideas aren’t working. I will also share examples based on my very own experience and provide solutions that hopefully will help you become more successful.
Hard truth 1: You haven’t defined clear goals
One of the biggest mistakes in Digital PR is launching a campaign without a clear objective. Are you looking to build backlinks? Drive traffic? Increase brand mentions? Without a defined goal, your campaign will lack direction, and it will be difficult to measure success and apply your learnings to future campaigns.
Solution:
- Define specific, measurable goals before launching your campaign.
- Ensure every aspect of your Digital PR strategy aligns with these objectives.
Hard truth 2: You’re targeting the wrong audience
You might have the most innovative and newsworthy campaign, if it’s not reaching the right audience, getting coverage in your dream publications will remain just that– a dream. But the good news is: this is a pretty easy fix.
Personal example:
I once created a campaign in reaction to Margot Robbie launching her own gin brand. The idea was to make a prediction on how much the brand would be worth a few years after its launch. I pitched the campaign to journalists who cover news about celebrities in general and also targeted those who had previously covered Margot Robbie stories. When I realized this approach wasn’t working, I tried to rethink the audience I was targeting and found journalists who wrote about alcohol and celebrities. Now that I say it, it seems quite obvious, but sometimes these things are easy to miss. In the end, the campaign got picked up by Forbes.
Solution:
- Instead of focusing on broad categories, start by asking yourself: Who would genuinely be interested in this story? And think about niche angles that align with your campaign’s core message.
- Look at past articles covering similar topics, identify the journalists who wrote them and pitch your story to them.
Hard truth 3: You’ve got the right story, but the wrong timing
If you have a strong campaign, yet you’re not getting the expected results, the problem might be the timing. But the good news is that this can also be quite an easy fix. Sometimes.
Timeliness (along with relevancy) is arguably the most important success factor for PR campaigns. The story you’re pitching needs to align with the newscycle and seasonality, or it will fail.
Personal example:
In October 2024, Tom Holland launched his own (and very first celebrity-backed!) non-alcoholic beer brand and I decided to do a quick campaign to react to this news. I pitched it to a few journalists that covered alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages, pretty confident it was going to get picked up. And…it didn’t. Or at least, not right away.
After the first failed attempt, I decided to pitch it again the following January, when journalists are particularly thirsty for Dry January stories. It was the exact same campaign, but just a different time. The results? This campaign also got picked up by Forbes.
Solution:
- If you have a strong campaign that isn’t performing, don’t be afraid to park it for the time being and repurpose it at a time that makes more sense. Some campaigns may not work now but can be successful at a different time.
- Create a key date calendar for your niche, including all the relevant opportunities for your brand. Anticipating and being proactive means you’ll be aware of the best time to create your campaigns.
Hard truth 4: Your story… just isn’t newsworthy
Another common mistake in PR is creating campaigns that just don’t have the potential of making the news. No matter how well-designed or visually appealing a campaign is, if it lacks a compelling narrative or unique insight, it will struggle to gain media attention.
Personal example:
In my first ever month working as a PR executive, I decided to create a guide about the best rated coworking spaces in London. At the time, I couldn’t see anything wrong with this idea. Looking back, it’s clear that it should not have left the ideation phase, because not only was it not newsworthy, but a journalist could also have done a simple Google search to get the same content.
Solution:
- Before executing an idea, ask yourself: Could a journalist get the same information by Googling it?. While in some rare cases that could be the case and still be a good campaign, most of the time it should tell you that your story is not worth making it to a journalist’s inbox.
- While this might be a bit hard, ensure your campaigns provide unique angles, valuable research and data. Expert commentary or data-driven campaigns usually are a hit among journalists and readers.
Hard truth 5: You’re being too promotional
I understand– choosing a PR campaign idea that is based on promoting your brand can be very tempting. And you might also feel that if you don’t try to at least add a paragraph about your product or service in the pitch of your campaign, then you’re missing out on an opportunity.
But I cannot stress this enough: media relations is not direct marketing and journalists do not want to hear about your products nor write about them. They want a unique story that will get as many clicks as possible. And let’s face it, your product or service is probably not going to do that for them.
Personal example:
One of my clients was a group accommodation rental company in the UK.
Since some of the venues they offered were suited for wedding receptions, our client had expressed a desire to go down the wedding route for their campaigns. So I created one called ‘Destination Weddings’, which was meant to look at some of the most popular wedding destinations in Europe (such as Italy, France, Greece) and present one of my client’s venues as an alternative for each.
The idea was basically to say ‘Hey, if you’re dreaming of a destination wedding in Italy without the hefty price tag, here is a wedding venue in the UK that gives Italian wedding vibes”. Needless to say that this campaign did not work because it was promotional.
Solution:
- Do not promote what you’re selling to journalists. A great campaign that is relevant for your niche and audience will indirectly promote your brand all on its own.
- And if you do want to push promotional content, consider paid collaborations.
Hard truth 6: You’ve got a strong hook, but are lacking data and credibility
This might be the most frustrating one for me– you’ve created a very promising campaign with the potential to hit all your dream publications, but for some reason, it doesn’t.
If your campaign is based on a claim, (e.g. ‘Digital nomads earn up to 75% more than their counterparts back home’) you need to have a case study and solid data to prove it or the chances are that just like me, you’ll have wasted a few weeks, blood and tears and got no coverage.
Personal example:
The most recent example has to do with a client in the law enforcement industry. The campaign was based on a rather serious claim made by my client, and I had gathered enough data to back it up to be confident it would work.
I had high hopes when I started to pitch the story to journalists and saw it was getting a lot of attention (the open and click rates were the best I had ever seen for a campaign), yet the piece was not getting picked up. After a few weeks of trying, my suspicions were confirmed by a couple of journalists (one from the BBC and one from The Guardian!) who responded, saying that if I was able to provide a case study, they would cover the story. Sadly, I was not able to find one.
Solution:
- Before you go ahead with creating a campaign, ask yourself if the idea could easily be covered without a case study. Keep in mind that journalists have a responsibility to inform people and for that, they need to ensure that the content they publish is as accurate as possible.
- If a campaign needs a case study to be believable, make sure that you find one before putting the rest of the campaign together.
Hard truth 7: Your pitch sucks
I have learned this the hard way- you might have a million dollar story, but if you don’t know how to properly craft a pitch, it will most likely end in the Cursed Land: a journalist’s trash bin. But don’t panic, this hard truth has a simple solution.
Personal example:
One of the first pitches I wrote as a PR executive was for a campaign about the worst locations for phone signal in the UK. Great idea, right? What wasn’t so great? The pitch I wrote, in which I used some storytelling and nice, big words. A bit of humour too. I was pretty confident with it when I sent it to journalists. But despite a good open rate, it wasn’t getting picked up. So I consulted someone on my team (I know, I should have done it before sending), who suggested a few changes: make it short and concise, simply list the locations, and “remove the fluff” were his exact words. I sent the newly revised pitch to the journalists and sure enough, the campaign went viral and even got covered on the BBC.
Solution:
- Do not overcomplicate your pitch. In fact, the simpler the better. A journalist should be able to understand the campaign and main takeaways just by taking a glimpse at it.
- Use a simple format: bullet points, short paragraphs.
- Assume that the journalist won’t read your entire email and add the most important information at the top.
That’s it, you’re now familiar with the hardest truths in digital PR, along with the fixes to turn things around. Let’s face it– digital PR is always a bit of a gamble, but by implementing these solutions into your strategy, you have a pretty good chance of landing your dream publications and who knows, maybe even going viral.