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Before Muck Rack: Two platforms made for more work, time and money

I’ve been with Dittoe PR for 13 years now, and before Muck Rack, we were using two platforms. One was for media monitoring, more specifically coverage tracking, competitor tracking, share of voice tracking and sentiment tracking.

The other was a media database, which often didn't include updated contact and beat information on writers. We had many instances where the data was outdated, and we’d spend more time searching for additional information. It also didn’t let us quickly search for journalists in specific topics, like sustainability or retail. There was also no quick way to search by role or beat. It put that work on us, the individual, and so it felt like we were starting from scratch with research versus getting any assistance from the platform.

Having the two platforms also meant two bills. Plus, it took us more time and effort to train employees to become proficient in both.

We really wanted to see where we could streamline from an operational standpoint so we could keep teams active in one platform and really excel in that.

I’ve worked in PR for over a decade, so I was familiar with Muck Rack as one of the “majors.” It became more top of mind as our team began to grow and we brought on new members who had used Muck Rack at their previous agencies. They were a great starting resource as we began to assess our options.

With Muck Rack: ‘Far more robust than what we’d been using’

As the VP of client services, it’s my job to oversee and optimize our technology resources. I was initially drawn to Muck Rack because it was far more robust than what we’d been using.

We started using Muck Rack in May 2020. Now, we have over 30 seats, and everyone from our interns to our senior VP-level executives use it.

Building impactful media lists with the media database

At Dittoe PR, we don’t do anything from a batch perspective—never have and never will. We truly pitch every journalist individually with a tailored storyline based on their work and interests.

That’s why we are constantly active in Muck Rack’s media database. The accuracy and credibility of the information in there is invaluable and much more precise than other platforms we’ve used in the past. It helps us build impactful media lists, which, in turn, help us connect and build relationships with journalists who want—and need—our stories.

And it’s not just about looking up media outlets, beats or journalists. We love identifying press targets by conducting article searches, too. We can see who has written articles in the past three months that contain specific keywords. We’re big on pitching people who have recently written about the topic at hand, so this helps us narrow down our search by time frame.

We also like using Muck Rack to find writers and journalists who live in specific geographic areas. For example, for a recent film premiere event in Indiana, our account team identified and invited fitting regional and national journalists to attend in-person events. This created more meaningful coverage opportunities that spotlighted the film as well as the resort, which held the event.

Overall, we find ourselves doing a lot less double-checking and cross-vetting when sourcing contacts. Our confidence in the information we can find within a platform like this has really grown. Muck Rack’s database is intuitive and makes our media lists easy to maintain.

Monitoring coverage and building coverage comparison reports

Coverage reports are huge for us, so we have those set to update in real-time. We generate them for our continuous client work and for specific PR campaigns we support that are of high value to our clients.

We also use the coverage comparisons feature to track our clients’ competitors’ performance. We look closely at share of voice. It’s great when we have clients that start with a low share of voice and we can showcase our role in its improvement.

Sentiment analysis is also really helpful. We have clients that maybe got less coverage than a competitor, but then we can look at sentiment and are able to explain, “Oh, that competitor has a huge influx of negative press,” so it helps us tell those stories when we need to. Overall, it’s a great tool to help us show our clients that we’re driving positive narratives.

For some clients, Muck Rack’s key messages are really important. It shows them how key messages are resonating in the coverage we secure. This is increasingly being showcased in our quarterly reporting scheme.

Fast questions with Ashley McMurray

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

It’s been great. We did some virtual team-wide demo’ing when we first started using the platform, and the Muck Rack support team really came through as we adjusted to working from home during the pandemic.

We also love the chat feature. It’s been really helpful for all our teams, whether it’s alerting Muck Rack when someone’s information needs updating or when we need help narrowing down and perfecting our search terms.

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

It would be harder because I would have to make sure a team of 33 PR individuals is fully competent and comfortable to do all their reporting and other research on two different platforms. The onboarding and training has become much more streamlined.

Across the team, there’s just so much time saved in not having to cross-vet information.

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

It’s by far the most comprehensive tool we’ve used for PR/media relations. It’s the one we found that’s most consistently updated in terms of journalists. I also feel like Muck Rack consistently brings forth new features. That was something I never saw with some of our past platforms—they would just stay the same for five years with no real added value.

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

Streamlined, impactful and robust.

5. If you had to explain how your team works on Muck Rack to someone in a tweet, what would you say?

Muck Rack is our go-to platform for managing the quintessential needs of our PR business, the identification of meaningful press targets that align with our clients stories, and the measurement of tailored KPIs to showcase the value of our media relations efforts.