This month the Zenith UK Owned Media team worked on the launch of the spring 2020 Emma Willis Collection with high street retailer Next.
Presenter-turned-designer Emma Willis has launched six collections with Next since spring 2019. With each range offering something a little different from the last (whether it’s the introduction of footwear, sportswear or lingerie), the team at Zenith identify the main points of difference and reach out to relevant publications and websites with the aim of generating coverage and backlinks to the collection landing page.
Read on to find out a little more about the team’s process.
Pre-launch
Ahead of every collection launch, the Zenith team support Next in different ways. The first step is collating a targeted list of relevant, authoritative publications to contact (both national, regional and niche).
The team also optimise promo videos of the collection for the Next YouTube channel, recommending elements such as titles, descriptions and thumbnail images to ensure they are as visible and discoverable as possible within YouTube.
Quotes from the videos are then lifted and included in Zenith’s press releases to add an additional layer of authority and exclusivity (these quotes are useful when it comes to finding hooks and additional angles to target too). For the latest collection, Emma spoke about motherhood and the values she’d like to pass onto her children – prompting the team to seek out parenting publications who might be interested in framing an article around these exclusive quotes.
Zenith are then able to start outreaching under an embargo (normally a week or so before launch date) which is hugely beneficial to publications as it gives them time to craft a story that will be ready to launch when the collection comes out.
Launch day
The most recent spring edit (featuring swimwear, tailoring, dresses and footwear for the very first time) launched online on the 27th February and in stores around the UK on the 10th March.
The main USP of this collection was the introduction of footwear into Emma’s offering – something the team honed in on during outreach to set the collection apart from the previous ones.
On launch days, Zenith review the main Emma Willis on-site landing page to ensure it’s fully optimised for search engines, checking both content and UX elements.
Post launch
Outreach efforts continue until the team at Zenith have contacted the entire whitelist at least twice. (Follow up emails are a great way to bring the writer/editor’s attention back to the initial email which might have become buried in their inbox.)
Zenith also monitor coverage throughout the campaign to identify key angles that are proving the most popular. The focus is then shifted to these and an additional prospect list is drawn up to continue generating traction.
Zenith will conduct a post campaign analysis once all articles are live and review the performance of the campaign, looking at how much coverage they have generated for the launch. Additional metrics such as backlinks, social shares and estimated views are included in the report. We’re excited to see the results of the latest collection launch!
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