Learn how Sojern, a leading travel marketing platform, uses Muck Rack to:
- Create targeted, international media lists
- Track and report relevant media coverage using data
About Sojern
Sojern is a leading travel marketing platform designed to boost growth and profitability for the travel industry. The Sojern Travel Marketing Platform is a set of easy-to-use software and services that delivers unrivaled traveler insight, intelligent audiences, multichannel activation and optimization, and a connected guest experience—all in one place.
Drew Baker, public relations associate at Sojern, says:
Using Muck Rack felt like a sigh of relief. Even the small details—like opening search queries in new tabs—makes our process so much more streamlined.
—Drew Baker, Public Relations Associate at Sojern
Before Muck Rack: Clunky software and numerous spreadsheets
I’ve had exposure to almost all the media monitoring platforms from my experience working at an agency, so I’d used Muck Rack previously. As for tracking coverage, we were using Google Sheets.
With Muck Rack: ‘Everything I want, when I want it’
We started using Muck Rack in January 2023. My first impression is that it has everything I want, when I want it.
Creating targeted media lists on a global level
The main feature that attracted us to Muck Rack was the journalist search feature that helps us compile targeted media lists. It’s super streamlined and the easiest I’ve ever used. It lets you narrow down your search to get super specific without the screen looking too busy. Much of the heavy lifting is done by our in-house team of 3, and Muck Rack helps us scale our efforts globally
Even the platform’s details, like automatically opening separate tabs when searching, makes our process so much easier. We can keep our search query open and not lose it while looking at contacts.
Within Muck Rack, we have more than 10 to 15 separate media lists that are specifically targeted by region, so we have lists for the U.S., Italy, Latin America and more. Searching for international journalists on Muck Rack has yielded comprehensive results.
Then, within regions, we have media lists for travel trade publications, adtech and martech publications, big business publications and more.
I also build media lists for specific stories. It’s very easy to pull certain journalists from, say, two of the biggest travel trades and two of the biggest business publications, so we can really target those publications.
For example, Muck Rack made it much easier for us to gather from a pool of business-related media and land some great coverage for Sojern’s acquisition of VenueLytics in Skift and PhocusWire, which were pretty big outlets.
Muck Rack has saved us a lot of time, especially when it comes to building media lists. It’s rare I can’t find a journalist in Muck Rack. They’re just one click away. I’d say it saves us two to three hours of head-down work when it comes to preparing to pitch a story.
—Drew Baker, public relations associate at Sojern
Track and report relevant media coverage using data
Tracking and reporting became much easier with Muck Rack. We have a daily alert set up that compiles coverage and creates reports for any piece of media that mentions Sojern. We compile those numbers each quarter and track general press coverage and engagement, which helps us pin down what announcement or coverage is making the most impact.
Muck Rack’s daily alerts help us track coverage that we otherwise would probably miss. For instance, we recently had our insights featured in a piece which had been repurposed from an article that came out months ago. So without Muck Rack, we probably would have missed that.
Muck Rack also gives us access to more useful measurements, like engagement—that’s huge for us, so we can not only see the amount of press we have received, but also see how many times readers have interacted with the piece giving us deeper visibility to our press. We’ll also use Muck Rack to do a competitor search so we can see what our competitors are talking about and what’s going on in the industry. It’s helpful, too, to search specific terms, like coverage on the Grand Prix in Singapore, so see what journalists in the Asia Pacific region have written about the event and if they were relevant to add to my media lists.
Fast questions with Drew Baker
1. How has it been working with Muck Rack’s customer success team?
It’s been really good. The chat feature has been great. The longest I’ve had to wait for a response is maybe an hour. And if it’s urgent and I let them know, I always hear back within five minutes.
2. What would your job be like if you didn’t have Muck Rack?
Processes would take a lot longer. We wouldn't have as much access to journalists to pitch. I think our pool of potential coverage would definitely decrease. It would be harder to track how Sojern is perceived in the news and how much Sojern is in the news. Having to do all that manually would really be a huge time-suck for us, and it would be fairly frustrating.
3. What would you tell other companies considering using Muck Rack?
If they’re looking for the most streamlined way to search for journalists and to organize their media lists, I would recommend it—especially for anyone working on a global level like us.
4. How would you describe your experience with Muck Rack in three words?
Streamlined, easy, intuitive
