What Is Digital PR? How It Works and What It Costs
Digital PR earns stories about your company in online news outlets, with a backlink to your site. How it works, what it costs in 2026,…
Most companies ask for media coverage the wrong way. They send an announcement, wait, and then wonder why no reporter called.
I spent more than 25 years at top New York PR agencies and in-house at the NBA and NASCAR. The biggest lesson from those years is simple: media coverage is earned with a story a reporter needs, not with news you want to share. In this post, I will walk through how two of the biggest campaigns of my career actually earned media coverage, what they taught me, and how a company of any size can use the same playbook today.
Why media coverage matters more now than it did ten years ago
Media coverage used to be about one thing: reach. A story ran, people read it, and the phone rang or it did not.
Today, a single story works for years. It lives in Google search results. It earns a backlink that helps your website rank. And it becomes a source that AI tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity read when someone asks them to recommend a company in your category. We explain how that works in AI Search Visibility: Is Your Company in ChatGPT’s Answer?
Reporters still need PR. In Cision’s 2026 State of the Media survey of 1,899 journalists, 66% said they rely on PR-provided content for story ideas, making PR their leading source of story leads. Muck Rack’s 2026 State of Journalism report found that 86% of journalists say at least some of their stories start with a PR pitch.
So the door is open. The problem is what most companies send through it. In the same Cision survey, 72% of journalists said fewer than a quarter of the pitches they receive are relevant. That is the gap between companies that get media coverage and companies that do not.
Lesson 1: Give reporters a story, not an announcement
When the NBA made its first official visit to India, the easy pitch was “NBA comes to India.” That is an announcement. It is true, it is pleasant, and almost nobody needs to write it.
The story was bigger. This was a first, it was organized with the U.S. State Department, and it brought NBA All-Stars Pau Gasol and Chris Bosh to a country of more than a billion people where basketball was still finding its audience. That made it a business story, a diplomacy story, and a sports story at the same time. Each of those angles opened a different set of reporters.
The campaign earned 1,219 media hits around the world, in outlets including AP, Reuters, Bloomberg, USA Today, The New York Times, The Washington Post, ESPN, Sports Illustrated, and The Times of India. You can see the full results in our NBA case study.
How to apply it: Before you pitch, write the headline you want a reporter to run. If it reads like a press release headline, keep working. Ask what is new, what is first, what is surprising, and who else cares. Media coverage follows the answer to those questions.
Lesson 2: One great story can be worth more than a hundred mentions
The most important piece of media coverage from the India campaign was a single article: the first-ever NBA front-page feature in the Financial Times.
A Sony India executive read that story and contacted the league. That call led to a multiyear, multimillion-dollar deal to broadcast NBA games live in India for the first time. One front-page story opened a market.
This is the part of PR that is hard to put in a spreadsheet. Volume matters, and we track it closely. But the right story in front of the right reader can change a business overnight. The executive who reads the Financial Times is not the same reader who scrolls a sponsored post.
How to apply it: Make a short list of the five outlets your best customers, partners, and investors actually read. Build at least one story specifically for each of them. A handful of placements in the right outlets often does more than dozens of placements nobody in your industry sees.
Lesson 3: Media coverage is how you change a reputation
At NASCAR, I worked on executive and crisis communications for Chairman and CEO Brian France, amid unfair media scrutiny. The goal was not to win one news cycle. It was to change the story that people told about him, and that takes a steady stream of credible media coverage over time.
We put him where the real story was. That meant talking about the leadership decisions behind NASCAR’s $8.2 billion TV deal with NBC and FOX, the new playoff format, safety, and the sport’s diversity program. It meant his philanthropy, including the Luke & Meadow Foundation and the NASCAR Foundation. It meant media training, and panels at CES and the Milken conference, where business leaders were listening.
From 2015 to 2017, positive media coverage rose 394%. Speaking engagements rose 700%. His improved image was pivotal in signing Monster Energy as a sponsor at $20 million per season. The NASCAR case study has the details.
How to apply it: If your company has a reputation problem, do not wait for the bad stories to disappear. They do not. They get outnumbered and outranked. Identify the three or four real strengths of your business or your leader, and earn media coverage about each of them, every month. Our crisis and reputation management work is built on exactly that idea.
Lesson 4: Relevance beats volume, every time
Reporters are buried in pitches. Muck Rack found that 88% of journalists immediately disregard pitches that miss their beat, and nearly half say they seldom receive pitches that match their coverage.
The fix is relevance, and relevance is often local. Muck Rack also found that 78% of journalists say a pitch feels genuinely relevant when it directly affects the community their audience belongs to.
That is why so much of our work today ranks all 50 states. For Social Catfish, an online-safety company, we built an annual 50-page State of Online Scams study from FBI, FTC, and platform data, and pitched a state-specific version to reporters in every state. A reporter in Ohio does not need another national scam story. They need to know how Ohio ranks. That approach earned Social Catfish 3,862 editorial backlinks and coverage in CNBC, USA Today, Reuters, Business Insider, the TODAY Show, and Fox News. Read the Social Catfish case study.
How to apply it: Before you send anything, read the last five stories the reporter wrote. If your pitch would not fit naturally next to them, do not send it. Then ask whether there is a local version of your story. There usually is.
Lesson 5: Bring something reporters cannot get anywhere else
The single most reliable way to earn media coverage is to bring a reporter something new. Cision’s 2026 survey found that original research, expert access, and embargoed information are what journalists value most in a pitch.
At the NBA, the asset was access: a first-ever visit, All-Star players, and a government partnership. At NASCAR, it was a chairman willing to speak about the decisions shaping the sport. Most companies do not have All-Stars. But every company has data, or can create it.
A good data study is one of the most dependable ways I know for a smaller brand to earn national media coverage. It gives the reporter a fresh number, a ranking, and a reason to write now. Seniorly, a senior living company, earned 317 stories with backlinks in 2025 alone from monthly studies on retirement and older Americans. Our data-driven studies page shows what goes into one.
How to apply it: Look at the data your business already has, or the public data your industry depends on. Ask what question your customers argue about, then answer it with numbers. That answer is your next pitch.
Lesson 6: Make every story work twice
The last lesson is the one that has changed most in my career. Media coverage used to fade when the news cycle moved on. Now it does not have to.
When a story includes a do-follow link to your website, it keeps working. It helps you rank in Google. It gives AI tools a credible source to cite when a buyer asks who the best company in your category is. Across our clients, Prism has placed more than 25,000 stories and earned 20,000 backlinks, and those links are still doing their job long after the stories ran.
How to apply it: When you earn media coverage, check whether the story links to you. If it mentions your brand without a link, ask the reporter politely to add one. Many will. We do this for clients as part of our full-service PR work.
A simple checklist for your next pitch
Before you pitch any reporter, run through these six questions:
- Is this a story, or an announcement?
- Which five outlets do my most important readers trust?
- Does this pitch fit the reporter’s beat and recent stories?
- Is there a local or state version of this story?
- Am I bringing data, access, or an expert the reporter cannot get elsewhere?
- Will the story link back to my website?
If you can answer all six, your odds of earning media coverage go up dramatically.
The bottom line
The NBA and NASCAR are two of the biggest brands in sports, but the lessons are not about size. The NBA earned a front-page Financial Times story because it had a real first to share. NASCAR’s chairman rebuilt his reputation because he showed up, steadily, where the real story was. Social Catfish and Seniorly were not household names, and they earned national media coverage with data that nobody else had.
Media coverage is earned the same way at every level: with a story a reporter needs, sent to the right reporter, at the right time.
If you want a senior team that has done this for the NBA and NASCAR working on your story, schedule an intro meeting. Or start smaller with our pay-for-performance linkbuilding pilot, where you only pay for the links we secure.
Frequently asked questions
How do I get media coverage for a small business?
Give reporters something new and relevant to their audience. Original data, a local angle, and an expert who can explain what it means are the most reliable ways for a smaller company to earn media coverage.
How long does it take to get media coverage?
A strong, timely story can land in days. A reputation shift, like the one at NASCAR, usually takes months of steady coverage.
Is a press release enough to get media coverage?
Rarely on its own. A press release is a format, not a story. Reporters respond to stories that fit their beat, with data or access they cannot get elsewhere.
Does media coverage help SEO?
Yes, when the story includes a do-follow link to your website. Editorial links from trusted outlets help you rank in Google and give AI tools credible sources to cite.
What is the difference between earned media and paid media?
Earned media is coverage a reporter or editor chooses to publish. Paid media is advertising or sponsored content you buy. Earned media carries more credibility with readers, with Google, and with AI tools.
