A once-powerful driver of PR programs is looking frail
Volume was a formidable king. For decades, it guided PR programs.
Get more hits, higher impressions, score coverage in places with big audience reach.
Shit so simple and obtuse that our obsession with it already kinda looks stupid.
The classic incarnations of volume are dying fast in the AI-search era.
We could get a client 20 placements in big, sexy outlets. Impressions out the yin yang, etc, etc. If those pieces aren’t scraped by AI for answers to category-relevant prompts, their utility is fast declining.
I saw this yesterday, clear as day. I was looking at citations for a smart eyewear company. They are up against Meta/Rayban and a few others in a crowded category. They’re doing OK, but they were absent across a number of key unbranded prompts on ChatGPT.
My analysis showed that one piece – ONE – in Tom’s Guide was the source of the problem. They are not in this piece. Everyone else is. And it is having a profound impact on how they show up because the article is cited in over 400 category answers.
Good thing for them it’s an affiliate listicle that features multiple brands and is updated on the regular. The prescription for their problem is obvious.
Presence in ONE article – and not even a profile or “only-them” type article – is all they need to dramatically improve their visibility.
The lesson?
We are moving from the era of volume-based PR, where constant pitching at low success rates drives programs, into an era where smaller tweaks and fixes based on data-driven insights about gaps brands face become the norm.
PR is moving from heavy-lift operations of attrition into a surgical strike era.
Volume is withering on the vine. Thank God!