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Digital PR Angle Selection

Most PR campaigns fail at the idea stage and no amount of outreach rescues them. The common error is producing something interesting to the client's industry rather than to a news desk, and pitching it to national press whose reporters need a story their readers care about, not a supplier's survey. Test the angle before you spend on the asset.

CATEGORY
Links & authority
FORMAT
digital-pr-angle-selection.md
STEPS
6
PRICE
Free - no account
WHEN TO REACH FOR THIS

Use before commissioning a data study or campaign, when you need to predict whether journalists will actually cover it.

The skill file

digital-pr-angle-selection.md 
---
name: digital-pr-angle-selection
description: Use before commissioning a data study or campaign, when you need to predict whether journalists will actually cover it.
---

# Digital PR Angle Selection

Most PR campaigns fail at the idea stage and no amount of outreach rescues them. The common error is producing something interesting to the client's industry rather than to a news desk, and pitching it to national press whose reporters need a story their readers care about, not a supplier's survey. Test the angle before you spend on the asset.

## What you need first

- a defined target publication list with the specific sections and reporters you want
- proprietary or hard to obtain data, or a way to get it
- a headline you would be willing to see printed

## Method

1. Write the target headline first, before any data is gathered. If you cannot write a headline a stranger would click, the study will not be covered and you have saved the budget.
2. Check the angle passes one of the reliable news tests: it is local and splits by region, it is a ranking or league table someone will be annoyed by, it is counter intuitive, or it attaches to a date already in the news diary.
3. Reject anything whose finding is obviously predictable. A study confirming what everyone assumes has no news value even if the data is impeccable.
4. Search the last two years for the same angle. Repeats do get covered, but only with a clear new cut, and reporters who ran the earlier version will spot it.
5. Design the asset so the linkable page holds the methodology and full data, and the pitch carries the finding - reporters lift the number from the email and only link when they need to send readers to the detail.
6. Pre-pitch the concept to two friendly reporters before production. A no at this stage costs one email and saves the whole campaign.

## What this produces

A validated campaign angle with target headline, publication list and a pre-pitch response on record.

## Where this goes wrong

- building the asset first and looking for an angle afterwards
- pitching a client survey with a small self selecting sample, which good desks check and reject
- burying the finding on a page with no methodology, so reporters cite the number with no reason to link

---

From the QuQi skill library - https://www.quqi.io/skills/digital-pr-angle-selection
Free to download · no account, no email

What you need first

  • a defined target publication list with the specific sections and reporters you want
  • proprietary or hard to obtain data, or a way to get it
  • a headline you would be willing to see printed

Method

  1. 01 Write the target headline first, before any data is gathered. If you cannot write a headline a stranger would click, the study will not be covered and you have saved the budget.
  2. 02 Check the angle passes one of the reliable news tests: it is local and splits by region, it is a ranking or league table someone will be annoyed by, it is counter intuitive, or it attaches to a date already in the news diary.
  3. 03 Reject anything whose finding is obviously predictable. A study confirming what everyone assumes has no news value even if the data is impeccable.
  4. 04 Search the last two years for the same angle. Repeats do get covered, but only with a clear new cut, and reporters who ran the earlier version will spot it.
  5. 05 Design the asset so the linkable page holds the methodology and full data, and the pitch carries the finding - reporters lift the number from the email and only link when they need to send readers to the detail.
  6. 06 Pre-pitch the concept to two friendly reporters before production. A no at this stage costs one email and saves the whole campaign.

What this produces

A validated campaign angle with target headline, publication list and a pre-pitch response on record.

Where this goes wrong

  • building the asset first and looking for an angle afterwards
  • pitching a client survey with a small self selecting sample, which good desks check and reject
  • burying the finding on a page with no methodology, so reporters cite the number with no reason to link

Use this skill in your own AI

The download is a plain markdown file with the name and trigger in its frontmatter. Where an assistant supports skills it can load itself, that frontmatter is what it reads to decide this one applies.

Claude Code Save it as ~/.claude/skills/digital-pr-angle-selection/SKILL.md and Claude loads it on its own when what you are doing matches the trigger line. Put it in .claude/skills inside a project instead if the whole team should have it.
Claude Upload the file in the skills section of your settings. Once it is there it applies itself in any conversation where the trigger fits, so you do not have to remember it exists.
ChatGPT There is no skills format to install into, so paste the file contents into a Project instruction or a Custom GPT instead. It then applies to every chat in that project rather than only the one you paste it into.
Anything else Paste the markdown into the chat before your question. It works in any assistant, it just has to be pasted again each time.

Questions about this skill

When do I select the angle rather than brief the study and find the angle later?

Before any budget is committed, because outreach cannot rescue a bad idea. The cheap test is writing the target headline first: if you cannot write one a stranger would click, you have saved the whole cost of the asset. Commissioning the data and hunting for a story afterwards is the order that produces uncoverable campaigns.

What do I need in hand before starting?

A target publication list down to the sections and reporters you want, data that is proprietary or genuinely hard to obtain, and a headline you would be willing to see printed. Without reporter level targets you are pitching a desk with no reason to care, and a client survey on a small self selecting sample is checked and rejected by good desks.

What do I end up with, and which part gets used?

A validated angle with target headline, publication list, and a pre-pitch response on record from two friendly reporters. The pre-pitch is the part with real value, since a no at that stage costs one email rather than a production budget. Everything else is documentation, and an angle no reporter has seen is still a guess.

What most often ruins this, and what does it cost?

Producing something interesting to the client's industry rather than to a news desk. A finding everybody already assumes has no news value however clean the data behind it. The other expensive error is burying the finding: reporters lift the number straight from the email, so a page with no methodology or full data gives them nothing to link to.

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