MENU

REIGNING IN PUNTER INTEREST FOR RACING POST


Fancy yourself a bit of a racegoer? Then you’ll definitely have heard of Racing Post - the daily racing and sports newspaper. Not only do they have the paper but also a website – and there was a job to do. The team tasked us to gain links from sites with a larger following than them to generate more awareness and traffic for the site.

And we did just that – we came up with a programme that over six months delivered in three areas – repurposing Racing Post, a PR-for-SEO press office and the BIG idea.

With a wealth of daily content in the paper, we jumped (get it?) into action and newsjacked away for the PR for SEO effort. We gained links on websites for media who wanted insights from the experts in Racing. We offered interviews and secured coverage in the nationals, regionals and on the telly using hooks like Eurovision through to Frankie Dettori, who was chasing a historic third victory at the Prix de L’arc de Triomphe at the time.

To end the campaign, we did what all good PRs would do – hijacked the Grand National. Using the insight that it attracts casual punters who study form but don’t know what to do with it, we tied in with what football team you support. To aid our effort, we studied all 104 football clubs in England and Scotland and found horses who were racing who were performing similarly to the club you support i.e. Lake View Lad was perfect for Tottenham Hotspur as like the football club, he has an abundance of ability, but questions surrounding his stamina could undermine his top-four credentials. This got people talking and made racing even more relatable to the average punter.

Over the period search visibility on horse racing terms increased by 22% and domain authority of the site jumped up from 64 to 71. We gained 142 links in one day, smashed the KPIs on every metric and did a whole bunch of brand PR as “collateral damage” in the racing world.

Next Article: