Traditional PR: your news, your leaders and the press that covers them
You have real news: a launch, a round or a new leader. Traditional PR puts it in front of the reporters who cover your beat, and gets your leaders ready for the call.
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One story, many earned links
Your story, with data worth citing
- National newsNew data on your category
- Trade press
- Industry blogs
Clients
Their stories ran in
Outlet coverage from our client reporting. Logos belong to their owners; no endorsement implied.
In short
Green Flag Digital's traditional PR is media relations for your own news: launches, funding rounds, executive hires, awards and profiles of your leaders. It is for founders and marketing leads with real news who want press without a vague retainer. We pitch the reporters on your beat, prepare your leaders and log every piece of coverage.
Why now
Why it matters now
We started in SEO and link building, then moved into digital PR, and over the last few years we have folded in traditional PR as well. So your announcements run beside the data stories and expert comment that feed search and AI answers.
Reporters still start from pitches. In Muck Rack's State of Journalism 2026, 86 percent of journalists said at least some of their work began with a PR pitch, and 43 percent said it was rare to get a pitch relevant to their beat (Muck Rack, via the University of Minnesota). The year before, 54 percent of more than 1,500 journalists said they seldom or never respond to PR pitches (Muck Rack 2025, via Michael Smart). The door is open, but only to the pitch that fits.
Fit is harder for a newer brand. One head of PR told us that when it's a comprehensive report, not having a very recognizable name is difficult to make it happen as a publication. Brand building takes time, she said, but they are really ready to invest.
Buyers have felt the other side of it. A founder told us he'd hired traditional PR companies in the past, and it was a lot of vagueness and a lot of "well, we don't know." With traditional PR terms, he said, they put a lot on the company: the company has to do all the work, and they're just communicating. Another marketing lead told us his current PR process did not focus as much on growth as on total impressions and reach, which was not optimal from an organic standpoint. A security marketer told us, "We do have a PR agency as well that should be doing more of this for us. I don't think it is doing a fantastic job." We built this module so that doesn't happen.
Traditional PR · GFD ONE module
What we do
- Announcements: launches, funding, partnerships and hires, pitched to the reporters on your beat, with a press release where it earns its keep
- Leader profiles and interviews: we find the reporters, podcasts and panels that fit your executives, and prepare them before each one
- Reporter relationships: we map the reporters on your beat and keep the list current. As Joe tells the team, if there's four different reporters from Virginia that are covering good campaigns, then those are worth repeating and showing more. But at the minimum, try to get one at each.
- Awards: we pick the awards worth entering and write the entries. For some brands, we shouldn't engage without an awards component.
- Message work: whether it's your company, a person, a campaign, a press release or an event, is it being correctly structured and communicated to your audiences? In advertising they're called audiences; in PR they're called publics.
Traditional PR · GFD ONE module
Why your leaders belong in the press
Readers trust a story more when they know the person behind it. Joe caught himself doing this while reading an Adweek piece he found on Google News: "Author is useful. I'm familiar with him. I've seen his name around. I know that he teaches a marketing course." Of a trade site he already knew, he said, "I know the brand, the layout here is fine, it's professional. I trust it." Joe closed that walkthrough with one line of advice: don't sell yourself short in the world of PR, marketing and media.
Interviews build that familiarity for your leaders. The head of PR we quoted above told us her company already works with an executive PR contractor who helps them with the C-level.
Buyers ask for the big names. One marketer asked for just super high reputation news outlets, and said even just mentioning them would be fantastic.
Plenty of companies have the story and no one to pitch it. One in-house marketer told us, "we think we have something that we could potentially pitch and I just don't have a way to do that right now." Another said they were running up against the fact that the PR team there is relatively small.
Compared
When a press release helps
A press release is a tool, not the plan. It really depends on your brand and how prominent you are. For an established brand, name recognition alone makes a press release worth doing. If you're more of a middling brand, the press release itself may not get you much. In that case we pitch the story to reporters one by one and put the release on your newsroom page as the record.
| Wire press release | Direct pitch to a reporter | |
|---|---|---|
| Best for | Well-known brands, public companies, required disclosures | Most growing brands, and any story that needs a reporter to care |
| What you get | Syndicated copies and a record of the news | A story written by a reporter on a site readers and AI engines trust |
| How we use it | As the record on your newsroom page | As the main way your news reaches the press |
One buyer told us he had heard a lot of people say press releases are working very well for AI. A wire release alone is a weak signal. A reporter's story on a site AI engines already trust is a strong one, so that is what we pitch for.
One marketplace founder told us that if they had a Wikipedia page, that would be very powerful for their SEO and their AI as well. Joe summed up that call's goals: Main goals are getting cited in Google search, AI systems, et cetera. They go hand in hand.
Traditional PR · GFD ONE module
Plan the news before it breaks
Timing matters as much as the pitch. One growth lead told us his company had just secured Series A funding: "However, we didn't announce it, but we would like to." He also worried that come the holidays, the publicists probably have their calendars already put away for the year, and by the end of the year he wanted at least one campaign. Another head of marketing wrote to us that her company was launching a new market category and wanted a PR partner to take it to market and lead ongoing thought leadership, US-first. So we start with the calendar.
What's included
What you get
- A news calendar for the quarter: what you can announce, when, and to whom
- Pitches to named reporters for each announcement, written for their beat
- Briefing notes for every interview, with the likely questions and your three points. If we think reporters are going to ask how we got to a number, sharing that level of detail is worth it.
- Every placement logged with its link, plus the AI pickup we track in GFD ONE
Traditional PR · GFD ONE module
How it works
- List the news. At kickoff we go through what is coming: product, people, money, partners and awards.
- Pick the angle. We create the story for you in content and then pitch it, and it builds up your brand.
- Pitch and prepare. The pitch goes to reporters who cover the beat, and your leader gets a briefing before any call. We read every pitch through the eyes of the journalist, the way a reporter thinks as they scan: is it relevant to my beat? Niche language helps it stand out, because it shows we did our research, and a little curiosity gap makes the reporter want to dig in more.
- Adjust. Usually in that early period, kind of like with Meta, we have a learning period of the first 30 to 60 days or so where we're testing out different concepts and angles and seeing what works.
- Log. Every placement lands on your dashboard with its link, so nobody has to ask what PR did this month.
The limits
What we will not promise
PR carries risk, and we say so before you sign. Reporters decide what runs, so no PR firm can promise you a story. As one founder told us, we want coverage. Another buyer said it well: "I know there's nothing's guaranteed in terms of the exact number of links per month, that's not super important to me, it's more important to get a few of those really, really high quality ones." Joe explains the odds with a power law: One out of 10 things will account for like 80 percent of results if you do 10 things. So you never know if it's the first one that's going to hit or the fifth one or the ninth one. So we try to get a good portfolio of things in motion to be able to statistically hit the numbers.
We will not dress up a paid placement as press, either. We use a paid spot only when the outlet labels it as paid, and we tell you which placements are which.
Nor will we pad the count. Joe weighs placements plainly: If you got a New York Times link, that could be worth like 100 points on its own, versus if you were to get 12 different stories from smaller radio stations, those would be worth, I don't know, eight points. It takes just as much time to pitch high quality media and pitch high quality assets as it does to go pitch tons of small sites. And usually the links last longer. They have higher staying power. As Joe told one buyer, a good balance of quantity and quality is key. There will be waves where content will get hit by different Google algorithm updates, but the links help solidify the brand and create more of a floor.
Case study · moveBuddha
35 placements for moveBuddha in April 2026 from study pitching
Among them MSN (DR 92), AZCentral (DR 86) and the News & Observer (DR 82).
One month of placements
35placements for moveBuddha, April 2026, by domain rating
- DR 85+4
- DR 75 to 848
- DR 45 to 747
- Under DR 458
- Not known8
Who runs the work.
Our announcements share an outlet map and reporter relationships with our study pitching, which has placed a client in national and local news.
Results and coverage from our client reporting.
Joe RobisonJoe Robison
Founder and principal, Green Flag Digital
Joe sets the strategy on every engagement and makes the final call on what counts as evidence. A principal reviews the findings before any client reads them.
Joe Robison on LinkedInWhat clients say
“Green Flag consistently delivered high quality PR pieces that got mentions and links from some of the largest media brands on the internet.”
Ryan Carrigan, Owner, moveBuddha · via Clutch
The work
Proof from B2B and consumer brands.
These are clients we can name, with the results they got.
B2B · Cybersecurity16earned stories for an upstart cloud security company, 23.3M potential readersRead the case study
B2B · Ed tech SaaSRustici Software165 to 1,868weekly organic sessions after a three-site relaunchRead the case study
B2B · Business insuranceBizInsure51placements, USA Today, Newsweek and MarketWatch among themRead the case study
Consumer · Moving3,740referring domains from one data-study programRead the case study
Consumer · Health mediamindbodygreen+35%traffic on refreshed articles within weeksRead the case study
Consumer · ToursBucket List+902%organic traffic over four yearsRead the case study
Consumer · BeddingPureCare13Knew monthly visits from 22 articlesRead the case study
Consumer · EducationBrokeScholar15 daysfrom publishing the Ramen Index to a New York Times featureRead the case study
Consumer · TravelReservations.com275+placements across 26 digital PR campaignsRead the case study
Get started
See where you stand.
Tell us where to look. We come back with where you stand today, who gets named instead of you, and the work we'd take first, then walk you through it in a 20-minute teardown.
Questions buyers ask
What is traditional PR?
Traditional PR is media relations around your company's own news and people: announcements, interviews, executive profiles, awards and press releases.
How is traditional PR different from digital PR?
Traditional PR sells the story of the company, the CEO or a launch. Digital PR builds a story from data or expert comment, even when you have no news. One founder told us that before his launch he was looking around: "well, do we just need PR or, you know, what do we need? And then I came across this thing of so-called digital PR." A media partnerships lead described her company as having two goals: traditional PR in outlets like Forbes and TechCrunch for buyer power, and new media like podcasts and newsletters from a conversion standpoint. Digital PR is often talked about in more of an isolated way. But I think there's a big opportunity to really connect all the different frameworks. Each story adds to the same pool of trust. Joe lays out the scope in three parts: backlinks to support SEO, traditional PR activities, and optimizing for AI search. Brand mentions have an even stronger impact on showing up in AI search than links do. I think there's a hidden authority cliff and it's hard to put a number on it, but I think when there's enough signals, it'll really help. It's best to try different methods to see what works for your brand in your industry, and you can eventually lean on some methods over others, but it's generally a good idea to diversify. We run both, so your announcement months and your quiet months both produce coverage.
Do you guarantee coverage?
No. Reporters decide what runs. Journalists who don't mind covering and linking to businesses are gold, and we keep track of who they are. Joe borrowed the habit from finance: Finance guys sit back watching the market all day. Watching data, watching signals. I can do the exact same tracking journalists. We answer for the work: the calendar, the pitches, the briefings and a log of every placement, with its link.
Do you write press releases?
Yes, when a release helps. Often a direct pitch to the right reporter does more, and we will tell you which your news needs.
Can you work beside our current PR firm?
Yes. One SEO lead asked us for authoritative, quality editorial links that were not going to compete with their traditional PR efforts. Another told us there may be another agency working at the same time. A third warned us, "I have not found that vendors on their way out do a stellar job, especially something like PR." We agree the lanes at kickoff, so nobody pitches the same reporter twice.
How much does traditional PR cost?
It is the Digital PR module in a GFD ONE plan, sized to your news flow on a 20-minute teardown.
What do you most want from search right now?
Three taps, then your site. About a minute. Public data only, no logins.
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Sources and method
Methodology
This page describes how Green Flag Digital runs traditional PR as of 2026-11-10. It draws on Joe Robison's recorded calls, trainings and team meetings and his written notes from 2021 to 2026 and on anonymized buyer calls. The moveBuddha result is marked client-safe in GFD's client records.
References
- Muck Rack, State of Journalism 2026, as summarized by University of Minnesota University Relations, April 13, 2026. umarcomm.umn.edu
- Muck Rack, State of Journalism 2025 (1,500+ journalists), as summarized by Michael Smart, June 12, 2025. michaelsmartpr.com
- Green Flag Digital buyer calls and client records, 2023 to 2026, anonymized.
History of this topic
- 2025: More than half of journalists in Muck Rack's survey say they seldom or never respond to PR pitches (reference 2).
- 2026: Muck Rack finds 86 percent of journalists trace at least some of their work to a PR pitch, while 43 percent rarely get one relevant to their beat (reference 1).