View all case studies Caro

Before Muck Rack: Other platforms couldn’t keep up

When I worked at another firm before starting Caro, we used a competitor platform, and it felt like its database of journalists was never updated. I think, previously, journalists would stay with a publication much longer. But now there’s so much turnover, and journalists are going freelance. It was hard to keep track of—and even these platforms couldn’t keep up.

Not having the correct contact information made my job that much harder. So many emails would just bounce back. Then, I would end up Googling journalists, and Muck Rack would pop up with their up-to-date profiles.

So when I started working at my previous job at Soho House, the team was renewing contacts for different platforms, and we signed on with Muck Rack. To me, Muck Rack has always just been the most up to date, constantly updating and innovating.

It really worked out well, so I decided to continue to use it when I started my own studio, Caro, in June 2020.

With Muck Rack: a whole 360-degree experience

At Caro, we’re a team of four full-time employees and two consultants. We do everything on the platform—from searching journalists to pitching to putting together competitive analyses.

Overall, Muck Rack is super simple to use. I’ve trained multiple people on my team, and I think it really only takes a day or two to get comfortable with. It’s set up in a way that, if you’ve used Google, you can use Muck Rack. Then, you can get more advanced with it as you go, and the Muck Rack team will even sit down with you and show you features that meet your needs.

Building robust media lists that land clients in top-tier publications

Muck Rack makes building media lists a lot quicker. There’s even a feature where you can add a journalist to a Muck Rack media list from an article you’re reading.

With Muck Rack, it’s easy to find journalists and the corresponding information needed to pitch them. It makes our overall process so much more efficient, and we’re able to get better results.

For example, one of our clients, a direct-to-consumer furniture brand, recently collaborated with a design firm for a hotel. We built out a list on Muck Rack, and we were able to secure an exclusive with Vogue.

We also built out secondary media lists for different types of targets. Together, it was a whole 360-degree campaign, and the launch was really successful because of our efforts. The client was really happy with the press, which was exciting for our team.

Sending pitches—without worrying about annoying journalists or editors

Not everyone on my team sends pitches through Muck Rack, but I love it. It just makes for a full 360 experience.

But even if you aren’t pitching through the platform, Muck Rack makes it easy to see what other media lists editors and journalists are on and if they’ve been recently pitched. That way we can be sure not to pitch the same people every week. This is much easier than cross-referencing a million Excel documents.

It’s also nice that Muck Rack will automatically cancel repeat contacts on a list if you accidentally add the same person twice. This is such an underrated feature. At my old firm, we’d use some sort of Google add-on just to tell us if there were duplicates. Then, we would manually go in and delete them—then double-check because it didn’t always catch everything. It was an extra step that took a lot of time.

Muck Rack also makes it easy to collaborate. If someone on the team is already having a conversation with a journalist, we can make note of that so someone else doesn’t reach out.

Tapping into comparative coverage reports to understand their clients’ industries

My team also uses Muck Rack to compile comparative coverage reports for our clients. This helps us see what journalists are writing about, gather lists of contacts and overall better understand their competitors’ landscape. It also helps us set goals based on what competitors are doing.

Primarily, we use these reports internally, but we’ll use Muck Rack to track coverage—our clients’ and their competitors’. Muck Rack’s alerts are so much more effective than even Google Alerts. They come in faster, and they’re more targeted because you can use so many different keywords.

Overall, these features are helpful when looking at the industry landscape as a whole.

Fast questions with Caroline McKay

1. How has it been working with Muck Rack’s customer success team?

Whenever we need a journalists’ contact information updated in the database, I will message the team, and they’re really fast to respond.

2. What would your job be like if you didn’t have Muck Rack?

It would be a lot slower and a lot more frustrating. We’d have to put so much time into just simply finding the right people and getting their contact information. It would be challenging to be as strategic, and our outreach would be limited by these constraints.

Muck Rack allows us to be more nimble with how we think about our strategy and use the technology to do our best work.

3. What would you tell other companies considering using Muck Rack?

If anyone is considering Muck Rack over one of its competitors, I’d say definitely go with Muck Rack. I've tried all of them, and I’ve never had a better experience.

I really think Muck Rack can help so many companies as long as you have a communications department or individual looking to engage with the media. It’s one of the most useful tools we have overall.

4. How would you describe your experience with Muck Rack in three words?

Helpful, tech-forward and friendly. I just never feel stupid asking a question or reaching out to someone on the team for help, which I think is rare for tech platforms.