How to get a UK brand noticed by US media

PR is the same, no matter the continent.

While the days of wine-fueled lunches with editors might (largely) be over, PR professionals still spend much of their day courting the media. Meeting a journalist, even if it’s only for 10 minutes over coffee, is an opportunity to tell them precisely what your business or client does, positioning them as go-to experts whenever a comment is needed.

This is hardly a problem in the UK where even a trip across the country, between London and Edinburgh say, can be done in a day. It’s also straightforward enough to pick up the phone and have a conversation with someone in the newsroom, knowing that we are in the same time zone and share an understanding of how the British press operates.

Building relationships with journalists in the US, on the other hand, is certainly a challenge when you have few opportunities to talk to them in person. You might speak the same language—but differences in writing style and media culture more generally can lead to UK PR teams pitching news stories and features that are of little interest to stateside audiences. Add to that different time zones, deadlines and public holidays, and it might be extremely difficult to catch a reporter at their desk.