Category: News

In this blog, Hannah Buckley, Head of Content and Service Development, explores:

  • The role of leadership visibility in building credibility for businesses
  • The growing influence and reach of personal LinkedIn profiles
  • How executive visibility programmes help extend the reach of B2B PR campaigns

“People buy from people” is something we hear a lot in B2B, and it definitely rings true. Today, people don’t just buy from companies, they buy from the people behind the brand. Whether it’s a prospect checking LinkedIn before a meeting, a journalist looking for an expert source or a potential hire deciding where to work, they want to see the people behind the brand.

All this makes it even more important that business leaders and executives are visible. For brands to cut through the noise and make an impression with decision-makers, they must ensure the human voices behind the business are seen, heard and trusted.

When senior figures are visible, they bring authority and authenticity that brand channels alone can’t replicate. They become trusted sources of industry insight, ambassadors for company culture and better able to forge stronger connections. This visibility is what turns awareness into trust and, ultimately, it’s that trust that will drive action.

Trust becomes a competitive advantage

In markets crowded with similar products, services and claims, trust is often the deciding factor. Decision-makers want reassurance that the people they’ll be working with are credible, informed and engaged. When leaders share their expertise and perspective publicly, whether on LinkedIn or in the media, they make that trust easier to build and it then becomes harder for competitors to undermine.

Opportunities start to find you

Media interviews, panel invitations, industry awards, even judging awards are all opportunities that don’t just happen by chance. They’re often the result of being visible and active in the right places. Journalists and event organisers look for experts who are already demonstrating thought leadership and authority in their field

Visibility strengthens your talent pipeline

Top talent wants to work for leaders they admire. When executives are known for their expertise and values, they naturally attract candidates who share those values. This not only helps to improve the quality of new hires, but also reinforces your company culture from the top down.

It amplifies the brand work you’re already doing

Brand PR, marketing campaigns and corporate messaging are vital in building visibility, but are even more effective when they’re supported by strong personal voices from within the business. Leadership visibility adds a human layer that helps brand messages resonate and inspire action.

Why Now?

The digital landscape is noisier than ever as AI-generated content continues to flood feeds, making it harder for generic corporate messages to stand out. Meanwhile, LinkedIn’s algorithms continue to give individual profiles more organic reach than company pages and as has long been the case, journalists look for credible individuals to quote rather than anonymous brand statements.

For B2B organisations, this has created a window of opportunity. Companies with visible, trusted leaders will set themselves apart in every possible way: awareness, influence and impact.

Taking the Next Step

Consistent, strategic leadership visibility doesn’t happen by accident. It requires a plan, the right positioning and content that’s authentic to the individual while aligned with the business.

That’s why we offer the Executive Visibility Programme – a structured, fully managed way to help leaders and executives strengthen their presence on LinkedIn, in the media and in the market, without adding to their already overloaded schedules.

If you’d like to understand how visible your leadership team is right now and where the opportunities lie for both them and your brand, get in touch.

In this blog, Richard Peters, Senior Content Creator at Whiteoaks, discusses:

  • How Performance PR powers inbound lead generation by building visibility and trust
  • Tactics for earning influence through media coverage, peer advocacy and search-optimised content
  • Practical steps to turn thought leadership, case studies and employee-generated social posts into qualified leads

 

Outbound methods of driving leads are under the spotlight. Smarter spam filters and the influx of AI-generated sales emails are pushing cold email strategies to become irrelevant, and even encouraging organisations to go back to cold calling in some cases.

The ongoing expansion of privacy regulations means that buying lists now carries genuine legal and reputational risk, while with today’s tougher email authentication rules, just a few spam complaints can cause every message from a domain to land in recipients’ junk folders.

As outbound strategies face an uncertain future, inbound strategies are coming to the fore. It is an approach that makes perfect sense when you consider that potential future customers often encounter a brand or visit its website before that business proactively contacts them.

In fact, according to 6sense, 69% of the purchase process happens before B2B buyers engage with sellers. So, it is imperative that businesses can draw these prospects in by ensuring that when they get in touch they get a good impression of the organisation and what it does.

The inbound methodology focuses partly on attracting potential customers with relevant content, but it is also, more broadly, about building reputation and influence. Performance PR plays a crucial role across all these areas by building trust with target audiences.

The inbound advantage

Part of this is via secured media engagements. Dedicated teams of B2B media relations specialists leverage their relationships with key journalists, analysts and influencers to secure content placements and opportunities.

Experienced and expert content creators profile executives within an organisation and elevate brands in industry leading publications, through in-depth thought leadership articles, client case studies and whitepapers.

However, inbound lead generation extends beyond media relations and the formal press environment. It’s about finding ways to shape a business’s reputation. At its root, reputation is a collective perception that is made up from a combination of image and reality.

Businesses that want to create a positive impression need to score highly on several key criteria: being seen and understood, establishing points of differentiation, and perhaps most important of all, being well trusted.

Over the past few years, trust has migrated away from institutions and towards a wide range of other audience groups: customers, colleagues, analysts, niche influencers and user communities.

These peer groups play an increasingly important role in inbound lead generation.

Trust-building tactics that work

There are a wide range of PR tactics that could be deployed to harness these groups to help businesses improve their reputation and begin to exert more influence over prospects.

They include everything from encouraging staff to generate their own content on product launches or industry trends on platforms like LinkedIn and Stack; to building video or written case studies for social right through to encouraging users to deliver positive feedback on review platforms.

Performance PR campaigns also focus on enhancing content for search engines with keyword optimised content and relevant backlinks to boost domain authority.

This makes it more likely for target audiences to see expert articles, bold commentary and informative case studies from the brand when searching for a topic or solution online.

Woven together, these elements create a cycle of visibility and trust that guides potential customers from first glance to genuine interest, often before the sales team is aware of them, or even before they first reach the company website.

Ready to let your expertise do the talking? Speak to the Whiteoaks team today.

Five ways to engage your team for high performance in PR

In this blog, Tara Williams, HR Director, explores:

  • The relationship between performance and engagement
  • How to keep the spark alive for high performance teams
  • What Whiteoaks does to keep employees engaged

When it comes to B2B PR, the pressure to deliver results is real. Tight deadlines, demanding clients and a rapidly evolving media landscape all come with the territory. But amidst the drive for performance, it’s easy to overlook the fuel that powers it all: an engaged team.

At Whiteoaks, we know that performance and engagement aren’t separate goals – they’re intrinsically linked. When your team feels valued, connected and clear on their purpose, they don’t just show up – they show up with intent, energy and commitment.

Here are a few ways we focus on keeping our team engaged and performing at their best:

Clarity first, always

Confusion kills motivation. We’re big on setting clear expectations, goals and priorities. Whether it’s a campaign objective or personal development goal, we ensure everyone knows the ‘why’ behind the ‘what’.

Our behaviours and values adorn the office walls, acting as a reminder of what’s important.

Career conversations that count

We hold regular, meaningful career conversations to help our people see a future with us – not just a role. When individuals can map their growth to business goals, performance becomes personal.

With team members having been with the company for up to 28 years, the proof is in the pudding!

Celebrating the wins – big and small

Recognition is a powerful motivator, so we ensure we celebrate success. Whether it’s a game-changing campaign result, a new business win or someone simply stepping up when it counts, a well-timed shout-out can go a long way.

We champion each other and shout about each other’s successes, with our reward and recognition schemes celebrating individuals who go above and beyond. And for team and company-wide successes?

Flexibility and belonging

We’ve recently made changes to our in-office days to bring people together more often. In a hybrid world, face time still matters, not for presenteeism, but for connection, collaboration and culture.

We balance this with flexible working hours, allowing our team to strike a work-life balance that suits them.

Listening, then acting

Engagement isn’t a one-way street. We actively listen to feedback through surveys, one-to-ones and informal check-ins. More importantly, we act on what we hear because listening without action breeds cynicism.

As an employee-owned business, we ensure the mechanisms are in place to allow everyone within the agency to have a voice, with our Employee Council taking the lead on driving changes our employees want to see. So far, that’s resulted in enhancements to our maternity and paternity leave packages, increased holiday allowance and social events ranging from the Crystal Maze to curry nights that bring us all together.

The bottom line?

Engaged teams deliver better results. They’re more resilient, creative and invested in outcomes. At Whiteoaks, we don’t just aim for performance – we aim for sustainable performance, powered by people who feel seen, supported and inspired.

Want to join the Whiteoaks team? Take a look at our latest vacancies or learn more about our team.

In this blog, Richard Peters, Senior Content Creator at Whiteoaks, discusses:

  • Why customer-centred storytelling helps B2B tech brands cut through feature-driven noise
  • How to shape narratives around real-world outcomes, proof points and human insight
  • Practical ways to extend one strong story across channels while supporting wider business goals

 

In a technology market crowded with ‘feeds and speeds’, and lengthy lists of features that look and sound much the same, a compelling story can act as the lever that enables your brand to stand out from the crowd and help you connect with your target audience.

For decades, the importance of storytelling in tech PR has been demonstrated by brands using the approach to foster stronger emotional connections with their customers, build trust and ultimately drive sales.

But it’s the nature of the story they are telling that really makes a difference. For B2B technology companies, successful storytelling is never about simply broadcasting product specs or boasting about speed to market. Instead, the focus should be on weaving narratives that resonate with decision-makers and spark conversations that convert interest into contract wins.

That strong engagement with the end audience is key to successful storytelling, of course. B2B businesses, after all, frequently convince themselves that they have a compelling story to tell but in reality, these stories often struggle to excite external targets.

The launch of a new company website, for example, may seem big news to the business concerned but customers, prospects and partners are likely to be left cold. That’s because, when told straight, the story lacks the “so what?” factor that can translate an internal narrative into a proposition that addresses industry pain points and can make stakeholders across a target market sit up and pay attention.

That doesn’t mean that the story itself has no value but rather that the business needs to find a new angle.


Framing the narrative in a different way

Successful storytelling depends not just on the story but the way that story is told. That’s true even in the case of the new website. It is a dry narrative, if told straight, but shift the angle to the customer benefit: faster self-service, a refreshed knowledge base and improved uptime for support and the same announcement starts to matter.

The most effective examples of storytelling also have a human element. Tech solutions often sound abstract: algorithms, machine learning models, API cycles. Without context, they remain just words on a spec sheet. Good storytelling brings those concepts to life.

By framing your innovation around a customer challenge – whether that’s reducing supply-chain bottlenecks, or powering next-generation healthcare analytics, you highlight tangible outcomes and engage your end audience.

When prospects hear about how a manufacturing firm has reduced downtime by 30% or how a hospital has cut waiting times by 20%, they don’t just see dry statistics, they see real world benefits they can potentially tap into.

This kind of third party endorsement proves that the story the business is telling, and the benefits they are talking about, are true. Audiences are much more likely to start caring about the solution as a result.

                                                                                                     

Building credibility and trust

Trust is earned, not assumed. Peer validation, case studies, testimonials, analyst endorsements play a central role in B2B tech buying decisions. A story rich with credible data points and authentic voices invites readers to believe in your brand.

Openly sharing the challenges that your product team faced and explaining how they subsequently overcame them to develop an innovative new solution, shows transparency. It reassures stakeholders that you understand the market’s demands and have the expertise to deliver.

 

Aligning with business objectives

Effective B2B PR doesn’t exist in a silo. Organisations must always ensure that they clearly align their storytelling efforts with the broader commercial and strategic goals of the business, whether that’s a new product launch, a funding round, or the opening of a new international office.

A well-timed narrative around your latest platform upgrade, for example, has the potential to support investor communications, social media campaigns, keynote presentations and sales collateral in unison. This consistency amplifies impact, ensuring every channel delivers a cohesive message.

 

Engaging through multiple channels

Quality narratives can, and should also have a long shelf life. A single, well-crafted story can fuel diverse content assets: press releases, by-lined articles, multimedia case studies, podcasts and social media posts. B2B tech businesses can, for example, transform a customer success story into a short video that highlights client testimonials, then distil key statistics into an infographic.

By repackaging the core narrative across formats and sharing across owned and earned media, businesses can meet their audience where they consume information, enhancing reach and engagement, and ensuring that the story keeps delivering benefits for them over the longer term.

 

Measuring impact

Storytelling effectiveness can also be measured. Organisations can track media pickup, share of voice, social engagement rates and website traffic to relevant content.

You can even supplement these metrics with qualitative feedback from analysts, messages from prospects or anecdotal evidence from their team. When you see a spike in inbound demo requests following a high-profile thought leadership piece, you know your story has had genuine traction.

For B2B tech companies, storytelling is a strategic imperative. Narratives that humanise technology, reinforce credibility and differentiate your brand can accelerate media coverage, fuel demand generation and strengthen customer relationships.

By consistently applying storytelling best practices across channels and aligning them with business objectives, tech PR teams can turn abstract innovation into compelling reasons for audiences to listen, engage and ultimately act.

Ready to get your tech story heard? Speak to the Whiteoaks team today.

In this blog by Sophie King, Associate Director, we look at:

  • Why owned research is valuable for B2B tech brands
  • Maximising research’s reach
  • Three ways to ensure research produces tangible results

In the competitive world of B2B technology, establishing thought leadership and standing out from the crowd is essential. One powerful tool for achieving this is owned research, designed to generate original thought leadership on topics that matter to your audience. It offers brands an opportunity to deliver unique content that resonates, helps build credibility and drives PR efforts.

However, to maximise the impact of owned research, it should be integrated into a wider marketing strategy, and not just seen as a one-off PR exercise. Here’s how B2B technology brands can use owned research effectively and amplify it across their marketing channels.

Why Owned Research is Valuable for B2B Tech Brands

At its core, owned research refers to custom data gathered through a survey, study or report commissioned by your company. Unlike secondary research, owned research allows brands to address specific challenges or trends relevant to their audience, producing data-driven insights that can be used to generate compelling narratives and content that can be used in all manner of different ways.

For B2B tech companies, owned research is a chance to move beyond general industry reports and provide something new that positions you as a thought leader. But while research is a powerful tool, its success depends on how well it’s integrated into your broader marketing strategy. To achieve maximum impact, the findings can underpin everything from press releases to social media campaigns, ensuring your brand is recognised as a credible, authoritative source in its sector.

Here’s our top tips on how to maximise its reach:

  • Repurpose Content Across Platforms: Don’t limit the research to one format. While the classic eBook format has its place as a hero asset within a lead-gen campaign, there’s value in repurposing key findings into blog posts, videos or even podcast episodes. Each channel reaches a different segment of your audience, ensuring your research has broader visibility.
  • Coordinate with PR Outreach: Use the research as a hook for your PR campaigns. Pitch findings to relevant media outlets and industry publications, offering them exclusive insights or commentary on the results. This creates the opportunity for earned media coverage and can establish your brand as an authority.
  • Align with your Event Calendar: Research insights can form the basis of event concepts and messaging, providing you with an powerful differentiator against a sea of other attendees. The data from surveys can be used to fuel panel discussions or speaker slots, letting you engage directly with your audience while reinforcing your thought leadership position.
  • Engage with Influencers: Industry influencers or thought leaders can help amplify your research. Collaborate with them to share the results on social platforms, extending your reach to their networks.

Starting a research project from scratch can feel daunting, so to ensure your research produces tangible results, keep these tips in mind:

1) Plan for Headlines from the Start
It’s important to start the research process with a clear vision of what you want to achieve. Think about the key insights or headlines you want the media to pick up. Without a clear focus, you might end up with a report full of generic data that doesn’t provide value. Consider what your audience cares about and what gaps exist in the industry. This will guide the creation of meaningful research that generates buzz.

2) Get Senior Stakeholder Buy-In Early
Research projects require a significant investment of time and resources. To ensure alignment with broader company objectives, it’s crucial to get buy-in from senior stakeholders early on. Their involvement helps shape the research and ensures that the findings are closely aligned with your strategic goals, increasing the likelihood of long-term impact.

3) Define Success Metrics
Before the research kicks off, define what success looks like. Will you measure media coverage, social media engagement or lead generation? Setting clear KPIs upfront will allow you to track the effectiveness of your research and optimise for better results. For example, metrics like press coverage, social shares or eBook downloads can indicate how well your content is resonating with the target audience.

Turning Research into Results

Owned research is a valuable tool for any B2B technology brand looking to differentiate itself in a crowded market. However, it’s not solely about the research itself – it’s about how you use it. By integrating it into your broader marketing strategy, from PR content and social media posts to hero eBooks and event collateral, you can maximise its impact and create a strong foundation for long-term thought leadership.

By following best practices and setting clear goals from the outset, B2B tech brands can leverage owned research to build credibility, generate PR narratives and drive engagement across multiple touchpoints.

Find out more about some of our work in this area for clients, including a cybersecurity industry report for Bridewell, which saw us generate 697 pieces of coverage, or our integrated research campaign activity for InterSystems, which saw us deliver a full suite of creative assets.

In this blog by Hayley Goff, CEO, and Sophie King, Associate Director, Whiteoaks, we talk about the key takeways from our recent webinar, including:

  • The importance of tying PR to business objectives
  • How integrated campaigns deliver stronger impact
  • Why measurement should focus on outcomes, not just outputs

 

PR often gets tarnished with the “fluffy” brush. 61% of PR professionals struggle to link PR to business goals, driving the perception that campaigns fail to demonstrate clear, measurable value.

And it’s unfortunately been a very real past experience for some of our clients. We hear of experiences with previous agencies where contracted hours have been used up halfway through a month with little to show for it, with activity then put on pause until the following month. This serves to not only create questions about an agency’s accountability, but about such models themselves.

With mounting pressure on B2B tech brands to prove the impact of every marketing investment, PR needs to connect the dots between activity and outcomes.

In our recent webinar, “If it’s not measurable, it’s meaningless: How to use PR for B2B tech”, Whiteoaks CEO Hayley Goff and Associate Director Sophie King explained how businesses can turn PR into a strategic, measurable asset. Here are some of the key takeaways:

PR with purpose

PR isn’t just how many times the name of a company or spokesperson appears in different media; it has a much greater purpose.

Coverage views on an article are great, but they don’t tell businesses if they’re making any measurable progress towards real outcomes. For example, if the objective of PR activity is to drive consideration for a product launch, supporting content needs to encourage engagement from potential buyers.

Effective measurement begins with clear objectives, whether that’s driving brand awareness, breaking into a new market or even supporting recruitment efforts. And different objectives may have different target audiences, such as customers, investors, analysts or future hires.

That’s why when we embark on a project with a new client, one of the first things we do is connect PR to these business priorities. We then show how our strategy links to those objectives and report back against them, proving our accountability to our clients.

Reaching audiences in different ways

So, what does a measurable campaign look like? Today’s best ones aren’t run in siloes. Whiteoaks’ Performance PR model brings together media relations, content, social and creative in one package.

A B2B tech brand might have a strong news story to share with the press, but it could actually be more impactful if it’s also repurposed on LinkedIn, for example. Shared on a social media platform, it can be backed by a visual campaign, supported by thought leadership content and amplified by colleagues on their personal profiles.

It’s about creating the opportunities for audiences to engage in different ways via a mix of touchpoints.

Audience-centric measurement

Audience-centric measurement is vital to gauge the effectiveness of campaigns, this can include metrics that align with visibility, engagement and impact.

Impact is often considered the holy grail of audience measurement, as it reflects how PR activity has influenced an audience’s perceptions or actions. Impact can be seen in a few different ways, such as changes in brand consideration, reputation, lead generation or new partnerships.

The old perceptions of PR as being based on vanity metrics or impossible to measure are outdated. Proving the business value of PR is entirely possible, with the right strategy behind it. By setting clear objectives from the outset, aligning activity to strategic priorities and measuring what really matters, PR can become a critical part of a brand’s growth story.

When campaigns are integrated, purposeful and designed with impact in mind, they deliver far more than coverage stats. They deliver tangible outcomes.

Want to find out more about how to turn PR into a strategic, measurable asset for your business? Download the full webinar to hear more from Hayley and Sophie.

In this blog by Hannah Buckley, Head of Content and Service Development, we talk about:

  • How to create lasting visibility by combining PR and SEO efforts
  • The importance of SEO strategy
  • The efficiency and measurement gains of integrated strategies

 

For many B2B tech brands, SEO and PR often operate in silos – each delivering their own set of outcomes, but rarely aligning for maximum impact. That separation can be a missed opportunity.

When these two disciplines work hand-in-hand, they amplify each other’s strengths in a way that delivers lasting visibility, stronger performance and measurable results.

PR isn’t just for headlines

Traditionally, PR has been associated with reputation-building, thought leadership and securing coverage in the media outlets that matter to your audience. These goals remain essential.

But when aligned with SEO best practice, PR also plays a role in shaping how your brand appears in search. Media coverage on respected websites can improve how search engines perceive your site, contributing to greater credibility and discoverability.

This shift isn’t about reinventing PR, it’s about extending its value. A well-placed article doesn’t just influence perception; it can also influence where and how a potential buyer finds you in the first place. That’s especially important in B2B, where long buying cycles often start with an online search.

Keywords and credibility

Effective SEO starts with understanding what your audience is searching for. Creating content that targets those terms is crucial, but visibility isn’t just about the right keywords – it’s also about who’s talking about you and where that content lives.

That’s why combining SEO with digital PR adds real value. Strategic content that’s both keyword-optimised and published in the right places supports stronger search rankings and puts your brand in front of the right audiences, at the right time.

Search intent also matters. When PR content aligns with high-intent keywords (those that indicate someone is actively looking for solutions) it becomes a powerful tool for lead generation. You’re not just being seen more; you’re being seen by people who are ready to act.

Integrated strategy, measurable results

Blending SEO and PR creates space for a more joined-up measurement approach. Instead of tracking siloed metrics, you can evaluate progress across keyword rankings, referral traffic, media coverage and search performance – seeing a clearer picture of impact.

It also makes delivery more efficient. One team, one strategy, aligned around a common goal: increasing your visibility in the media and in search results, where prospects are actively looking for solutions.

Measurement also becomes more meaningful when SEO and PR are viewed together.

A spike in referral traffic from a media hit doesn’t just signal PR success, it can also impact metrics like bounce rates, time on page, and even conversion rates if supported by well-structured landing pages. Similarly, improvements in keyword rankings can often be traced back to the credibility gained through external coverage.

Understanding these touchpoints helps demonstrate the cumulative impact of your communications strategy with tangible business outcomes.

Turning powerful stories into lasting digital visibility

Want to ensure your PR and SEO efforts are joined up?

Get in touch to set up a call and find out how Visibility+, our new digital PR service, helps B2B tech brands turn powerful stories into lasting digital visibility, backed by SEO strategy.

We’re one team, delivering two outcomes: visibility in the media and visibility in search.

In this blog, Natalia Kaczmarek, Digital Content Manager at Whiteoaks, discusses:

  • How AI is being used in B2B tech PR
  • Why AI is a tool and not a replacement for human judgement, creativity and relationships
  • The importance of responsible use and transparency


How many times have you heard about artificial intelligence (AI) this week?

A quick scroll on LinkedIn, a news headline, or even a passing reference in a Netflix drama, conversations about AI are becoming impossible to ignore.

AI may have started in the tech world, but it’s now influencing how B2B businesses across all industries communicate, compete and grow – and public relations (PR) is no exception.

AI in PR is making a measurable impact. However, as PR agencies and in-house PR teams rush to adopt new tools, there’s an important balance to strike.

In B2B tech PR, the value of AI lies in how it supports professionals, not replaces them.

Yes, it can improve efficiency. Yes, it can make data analysis easier.

But strategy, creativity and relationship-building still sit firmly in human hands.

The use cases for AI in public relations

Here are some examples of where AI tools can add value to PR professionals:

#1 In-depth, faster desk research
Research is one of the most common applications of AI in B2B tech PR. In fact, a recent study conducted by PR Week highlighted that three out of four agencies already use AI for this purpose.

By scanning news coverage, summarising long reports and spotting emerging themes across multiple sources, AI helps PR teams get up to speed on new topics quickly and in more depth. It can surface stats, pull quotes from thought leaders and highlight common narratives, saving hours of manual research.

For PR consultants working on complex subjects like cyber security, data analytics or cloud infrastructure, tools like ChatGPT and Perplexity can also breakdown technical concepts or compare industry viewpoints. This means teams can spend less time gathering information and more time applying it strategically.

#2 Overcoming writer’s block
We’ve all been there – staring at a blank page, and no matter how hard we try, the ideas just won’t come. This is where AI tools can really help. Whether writers need ideas for a headline or a structure for a blog, AI can help generate outlines or suggest different angles, helping them get unstuck.

AI can be a helpful starting point, but the content still needs to be shaped, checked and edited by a human content specialist. Tone of voice and context still matter, and that’s something AI can’t fully replicate. But when used thoughtfully, AI can help nurture the seed of an idea into something more structured, giving writers a solid base to build on.

#3 Global campaign support
Another common use of AI across PR is transcription and translation. For teams managing multiple interviews, international clients or content that needs to land in more than one language, AI can be a huge time-saver.

Let’s be honest, no one speaks every language. AI tools can help transcribe interviews quickly and provide initial translations of press releases, articles or social posts. These translations aren’t final, but they offer a solid starting point for creating accurate, local-language versions that reflect cultural nuance and tone.

This means faster turnaround across time zones, greater consistency in messaging and more time spent on tailoring content to local relevance, not just getting it out the door.

#4 Media monitoring and reporting
Finally, AI can help PR teams stay on top of coverage, conduct real-time media monitoring and streamline admin tasks.

With tools like Google Alerts often falling short, AI can fill the gap for things like real-time monitoring, competitor tracking and sentiment analysis, scanning the web in real time to show how people are actually talking about a company or issue.

By tracking keywords, coverage patterns and industry conversations, AI helps B2B tech PR teams respond quickly when stories break or sentiment starts to shift.

Where AI won’t replace human PR professionals

There’s no doubt that AI tools in PR are useful. Otherwise, PR professionals wouldn’t be investing in them.

However, not everything in PR can, or should, be handed over to AI algorithms.

For a start, PR is rooted in trust and relationships, and even an AI system running the Matrix wouldn’t be able to replicate human awareness, sensitivity, good judgment and ethics.

Building strong connections with journalists, navigating tough stakeholder conversations, handling a crisis with sensitivity, developing content that balances thought leadership with brand awareness, all of these require judgement, context and emotional intelligence.

The same applies to strategy.

Understanding the correlation between clients’ business and PR goals, interpreting nuance and making informed decisions based on years of experience is where human PR teams still matter most. AI can support the work, but it can’t set the direction.

Creativity too has its limits with AI.

While tools can generate ideas or scan past campaigns for inspiration, they lack the insight to craft a pitch that lands with a specific journalist, or an angle that differentiates a client in a crowded market. After all, AI and ML learn from existing data sets, so originality can be limited.

In B2B tech PR, where technical accuracy and positioning are key, relying too heavily on AI risks eroding credibility.

The real opportunity: support, not substitution

The real opportunity for AI in B2B tech PR lies in its ability to support teams, helping them work faster, smarter and with greater precision.

Used well, AI can automate the heavy lifting, but it needs clear boundaries.

Research still needs validating.

Media outreach still needs the human touch.

Thought leadership content and social media posts need skilled writers to avoid rinse and repeat-style content (please remove that rocket emoji and any mention of a cornerstone…). With LinkedIn as the main platform for B2B tech companies, it’s worth remembering that it prioritises content with originality and authenticity, and penalises anything that feels generic or AI-generated.

AI’s role will grow in PR

AI in B2B tech PR has a clear and growing role, but it’s not a replacement for people, and it shouldn’t be treated as one.

The PR teams seeing the most value are those using AI to strengthen what they already do well.

They’re not automating creativity.

They’re not outsourcing judgement.

They’re applying AI where it makes sense, and keeping people where they matter most.

As AI tools evolve, so will the opportunities. But the foundation of impactful and measurable PR and strong, long-lasting client relationships will remain very much in human hands.

And as AI becomes more embedded in agency workflows, transparency will matter more than ever, helping clients understand how it’s being used and the value it brings to their campaigns.

Find out about the team of experts (not bots!) behind our PR campaigns and get in touch to learn how we can support your business.

 

In this blog, we discuss:

  • the visibility challenges digital infrastructure brands face
  • why traditional PR often falls short in this sector
  • how a performance-focused approach can help

 

There’s a certain irony in working in digital infrastructure.

You’re the engine room of the internet – powering websites, platforms and content; keeping storage, cloud services, networks and data flowing.

You make the digital world work, keeping everyone else online, connected and visible.

And yet… generating visibility for your own brand? That’s more of a challenge.

The digital infrastructure market is crowded. Buyers are sceptical. Sales cycles are long. And your competition are behemoths like AWS, Microsoft and Google.

So how do you cut through?

How do you prove you’re not just another “cloud solution”?

How can you prove – categorically – that PR spend is worth the investment?

Common challenges for digital infrastructure brands 

Do any of these challenges sound familiar? If so, read on. Digital infrastructure brands are among the hundreds of B2B tech brands we’ve worked with for the last 30 years and these are the problems we see most often. 

Struggling to generate visibility and differentiate: Being seen is one thing. Getting noticed is another. Visibility puts you on the radar, but standing out is what makes people pay attention. Your tech might be smarter, faster, more secure but if your message sounds like everyone else’s, it’ll get lost. Buyers are under pressure and short on time so your PR needs to grab attention, outshine the competition and be remembered.

Your buyers have complex buying cycles: Selling into a buying committee is like trying to convince a table full of people to agree on where to eat: the IT lead wants performance; the finance lead wants savings; the compliance officer wants a stress-free audit.

Infrastructure deals take time; they’re high value, involve multiple decision-makers and often drag on for months. With all the internal discussions, questions and delays you need to keep one foot in the room the whole way through. So how do you stay relevant and helpful without being pushy or annoying?

Performance PR can help digital infrastructure brands

It increases visibility through:

  • Press releases which get your news in front of the right journalists.
  • Articles which give your take on the issues your buyers care about.
  • Case studies which prove you can deliver.
  • Videos which bring what you do to life in a way that’s quick, clear and shareable.
  • Award entries show you’re recognised for your solutions and work.
  • Social campaigns which put your message in front of decision-makers where they’re already scrolling.

It can aid complex buying cycles:

PR must support and nurture journeys, not just bring in the leads initially. Therefore there needs to be a drip of communication, with messages delivered clearly, confidently and consistently.

  • PR can keep you visible across a long decision-making process period so you’re not forgotten.
  • It can deliver a steady flow of interviews, thought leadership and media features which can educate and reassure your buyers throughout the process.
  • It can help to secure third-party endorsements e.g. via customer testimonials or mentions in analyst reports which make it easier for buyers to justify their decision internally.

All these PR activities can position your brand as a trustworthy, forward-thinking choice. And earning trust is key, because when buyers are comparing options, the brand they’ve seen offering consistent, valuable insight is the one they’re more likely to pick. And when you tailor messaging to your buyers’ different roles, your sales team can use PR’s useful content and coverage to keep conversations warm – and crucially – moving.

How Performance PR can secure internal buy in

Even if you do, not everyone in your organisation is likely to get what PR does.

To non-marketing teams and senior management, things like “brand awareness” or “engagement” sound fluffy. Instead they’re focused on: leads, deals and revenue. So when you talk about top-of-funnel activity or PR coverage, the first question is often: “What’s the ROI?”

A fair question, but it puts a lot of pressure on professionals like you to prove the value of work which doesn’t always result in conversion overnight.

Have you ever had to justify questions like: 

“How many leads did that article bring in?”

“What’s the value of that podcast appearance?”

“Do we really need to be on that panel?”

Well this is where Performance PR comes in. 

Performance PR is built on measurable KPIs, ensuring every campaign is aligned with your business objectives. By directly linking actions to outcomes, it delivers clear evidence of impact. It ditches vanity metrics and speaks the language the boardroom wants to hear.

It arms you with proof so when leadership asks what PR is doing for the business, you can confidently say: “Let me show you.”

Measuring PR’s impact for digital infrastructure brands

So just what might those numbers and outcomes look like in a Performance PR campaign designed to target these challenges?

Visibility: If PR is helping you to become more visible, you’ll see increased media coverage, search interest, social mentions, website traffic and backlinks.

Complex buying cycles: To measure whether your PR efforts are supporting complex buying cycles, you want to track metrics which show how PR is influencing awareness, trust, education and conversion over time. Are more people searching for your brand, visiting your site or downloading your content after a campaign? Are leads engaging with thought leadership, mentioning articles in sales calls or moving through the funnel faster?

If you’re in digital infrastructure and battling to stand out, drive your pipeline and prove ROI, it’s time for a partner who gets it. That’s where we come in. Find out more about Performance PR and how we do it here at Whiteoaks. Ready when you are.

Hook, Hampshire, 11 May 2022: Whiteoaks International has been awarded the PRCA Gold Communications Management Standard (CMS) accreditation. This is the fifth consecutive year the agency has achieved CMS accreditation.

The award is the result of a successful audit and moderation session that examined areas including business planning, business development and benchmarking.

Renna Markson MPRCA, Deputy Director General and Engagement Director, says:

“Congratulations to Whiteoaks International for achieving the Gold CMS Award for demonstrating best practices in PR over the past five years. The quality assurance report commended the agency for their detailed and comprehensive response, especially their benchmarking evidence, which demonstrates their strong position in the marketplace. The report also noted that they have a collaborative approach to business planning and a strong track record in new business development. Clients are offered transparent and detailed contracts, which is testament to the Whiteoaks International’s commitment to quality service.”

The accreditation is based on the ISO9001 standard for quality and Investors in People, and is unique to the PR and communications industry.

“As an employee-owned business on an ambitious growth path and dedicated to delivering on our mission of guaranteeing better results from integrated B2B PR and communications campaigns for our clients, we are delighted with our Gold CMS accreditation,” says Whiteoaks MD Suzanne Griffiths.

“Our passionate team of specialists is committed to giving our clients exactly what they need – results, proactivity and impact so being recognised for that is a great motivator for the team and great acknowledgement of their commitment.”