Digital PR Case Study Australia – Reckon Startup Cities Growth Study

The Problem

We were approached by Australian-based and ASX-listed accounting software company Reckon, to increase their online authority and overall brand awareness towards existing and new small business owners across Australia. In essence, we were tasked to create content which could get on the radar of as many small business owners as possible across Australia. 

The Campaign

From a holistic perspective we wanted to tap into Reckon’s All for Small company value, enabling small businesses across Australia to reach their full potential

After researching the current Australian media landscape and Reckon’s main audience, we landed on the concept of Startup Cities, in which we wanted to crown the best city in Australia to start a business.

Our theory was that larger cities like Sydney and Melbourne, while they might be the obvious and traditional choice, the ongoing cost-of-living crisis combined with the increase in flexible working arrangements established during and post COVID, may no longer make them the best bet. Perhaps regional Australia is ripe for a small business boom? 

From experience working with Australian journalists, we know how vital a hyper-localised angle is for securing coverage. As such, we specifically included as many regional locations in the campaign as possible, enabling us to contact multiple local journalists with tailored, local angles that were specific to their city or region. 

This campaign sits in the sweet spot between Reckon’s dedication to supporting small businesses and the media’s appetite for local angles. It also feeds into journalists’ interest in ‘best & worst’-stories and the opportunity to compare cities countrywide and cities within each state. 

The Data

We were dedicated to making the campaign as subjective as possible. The data evaluates the top 50 most populated Australian cities for startup viability, analysing18 essential socioeconomic factors mapped into 4 major categories consisting of Talent Pool, Business Landscape, Internet Speed and Cost of Living. 

• Talent Pool assesses workforce quality through median weekly incomes, demographic and educational factors, and the presence of universities, drawing data from ABS and Statista.
• Business Landscape evaluates the business environment through business density, growth, and survival rates, using government and authority data.
• Internet Speed reviews infrastructure capabilities based on median internet speeds and latency, with Speedtest by Ookla providing the necessary data.
• Cost of Living considers living affordability through median rent, mortgage repayments, commute costs, and childcare fees, informed by ABS and government sources.

We collected the data from primary government sources such as ABS census data alongside over 800 survey responses from small business owners across Australia.

The Outreach

In order to reach Reckon’s target audience, we targeted online news publications as a main priority, as that is the audience’s leading source of news consumption.

As the Reckon audience has a local focus, rather than targeting the likes of the Australian Financial Review, which is typically focused on larger corporations, we wanted to get featured in both larger and smaller regional publications. 

We specifically focused on:

• National, regional and local business journalists
• General news and local journalists
• Hyper-localised publications & journalists within business or specific geographical areas related to the campaign

In total, we have outreached 24 different angles with a tailored and localised approach for each publication and journalist. 

The Results

• 91 pieces of coverage, 76 include a quote from Reckon’s CEO 
• 73 pieces of coverage were directly linked to the campaign page hosted on Reckon’s domain for optimal SEO and online authority building
• 55.8M estimated online coverage views (SimilarWeb)
• Exposure to 320,718 social media followers
• Exposure to 176,202 print readers (monthly) 
• 252 brand mentions
• 9 minute ABC NSW Drive radio interview with Reckon CEO Sam Allert, specifically discussing the findings of the campaign
• Online coverage includes: Canberra Times (x2), Courier Mail (x2), 7News, Daily Telegraph, Herald Sun, Geelong Advertiser
• Print coverage includes: Canberra Times, Geelong Advertiser, Weekend Advertiser & Mackay Mercury
• 7 News TV coverage (1.4M viewers)
• 55.8M total estimated reach across all platforms in the month of April
• 1 campaign mention from Australia’s Deputy Prime Minister, Richard Marles

Digital PR coverage examples:

Print coverage examples:

TV coverage example:

The Deputy Prime Minister of Australia shared the data study:

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