At Rostrum, we pride ourselves on supporting our team to learn and develop. Upskilling is vital when working in such a competitive and fast-moving industry. Not only does it help us improve our own skills and knowledge, but it also allows us to provide a better service to our clients.
As part of our training and development, we host regular sessions, where we invite industry experts in to talk to the team about trends and new techniques.
Recently, Rostrum Account Manager Nick Andrews gave us an update on the various tips and tools we can use to analyse statistics as well as exploring how to amplify PR stories using publicly available datasets. Find out what we learned below:
The ONS (Office for National Statistics) is the UK’s largest independent producer of official statistics and recorded data on the economy, population and society at national, regional and local levels. As a result, it is a gold mine of interesting and useful data that marketers can use to create entirely new campaigns or to amplify their existing insights.
To the untrained eye, these data points can seem complex, however when you’re able to drill a little deeper, they can provide PR professionals with an abundance of analysable data. These can be used to support campaign messaging or to supplement other research – like omnibus surveys.
There are a number of useful ways in which we can analyse publicly available data sets like those from the ONS. For example, by taking a data series that provides a snapshot across a number of time periods, we can calculate percentage growth over time which allows us to rank the fastest growing areas. You could then calculate which age group of the population is growing the fastest, or which export destination is seeing the highest increase in exports. In addition to this, you can use population data to supplement omnibus surveys and create hard hitting headlines.
Extrapolation simply means using findings from a nationally representative consumer sample to calculate what this would mean for the UK as a whole. Using this method allows us to create engaging headlines, the likes of ‘the Bank of Mum and Dad will still be behind £50bn worth of property transactions in 2020’. This is an effective tool in a PR professional’s arsenal, helping us to contextualise findings and catch the attention of national and trade journalists alike.
Data collectors like the ONS provide official and highly reputable statistics that can be further analysed, providing clients with insights to back up their key messages. Clients can also rest assured that the analysis will be accepted by journalists as robust and useable given the strength of the underlying data set.
If you need help developing a data-led PR campaign, or want to discuss the opportunity with one of our research and marketing experts, get in touch with us on enquiries@rostrum.agency
About Rostrum
Rostrum is a full-service communications agency, offering PR, content and influencer marketing, social media, training and design. We are among the UK’s top 5 B2B agencies and a PR Week Top 100 agency, specialising in financial services, professional services, consumer and corporate work, as well as crisis management, content and influencer marketing and social media. Rostrum creates campaigns and content to help our clients punch above their weight and we measure everything we do, delivering exceptional value for client budgets.
