SEO + Content Case Study

100+ placements for sports content

Creative content earns widespread & high-DA media coverage for online gambling client in less than one month.

Results

109

total media placements
88

total inbound links
61

avg. DA of websites

The Client

We designed this digital PR campaign for our client, Better Collective, specifically targeting one of their brands: NJ Online Gambling.

The Objective

Strengthen and bolster the website’s backlink profile and increase brand awareness via a series of data-driven digital PR campaigns. We prioritized earning inbound media coverage on websites with a domain authority (DA) above 50, and ones with a focus on professional sports.

Digital PR Strategy

Create newsworthy content the media wants to share

The Problem
One way to improve visibility in search is to earn brand mentions and links from publications with significant domain authority and name recognition. Our client’s industry faced a challenge earning regular attention from high-DA websites and journalists. As a result, they struggled with securing valuable links from mainstream media and niche media publications.
The Solution
Instead of focusing our attention on creating on-brand, advertorial content, we helped the Client produce a tangentially relevant campaign grounded in data. We surveyed Major League Baseball fans across the country to find out which MLB teams consume the most alcohol, and which stadiums have the priciest beverages. We then promoted the published study findings to sports publications and local news outlets in each of the MLB cities in the hopes of securing high authority media placements.
Why it Matters
It’s difficult to earn high-DA media coverage with overtly promotional content. Writers and publications tend to disregard and overlook pitches for content that reads like an advertisement.

That’s why we focus on content creation that offers something beneficial and “newsworthy” to journalists; namely data and research. By taking a subject that is hugely relevant to their industry and fans and making it newsworthy instead of promotional, the client experienced a much broader reach.

Some of the nation’s leading sports and general assignment news outlets covered the booziest fans campaign including Sports Illustrated, NBC Sports, Barstool Sports, and USA Today.

Results

Successful digital PR campaigns tend to have one thing in common: newsworthiness. The content we design for some clients, by nature of the industry they work in, is more serious. For others, we can have more fun with the data narratives we tell.

In this instance, we capitalized on the natural geographic rivalries of professional baseball fans, and the potential virality of the conversation surrounding fan consumption of alcohol. Our instincts were right: within days of promoting the content to local and sports media, we saw inbound placements flood the internet. Local sports journalists weighed in on how their teams compared against others, creating a fun dialogue centering around our client’s campaign. As a result, they saw widespread and authoritative media mentions in less than three weeks’ time.

Average domain authority of links earned.

Domain authority (DA) captures the relative authority of a website and its ability to rank for search terms. A website’s DA can range from 0-100, based on a number of factors including traffic, content, and public trust. The overwhelming majority of websites rank below 50 on this scale, websites with DAs above 60 are considered incredibly trustworthy and valuable to secure inbound links from.