I was invited to take over all the PR activity for GSF Car Parts in 2014 so the business could raise it’s visibility in trade and specialist press outlets.

During the course of 7 productive years working with GSF I was also asked to take over the output of The Parts Alliance in 2016. That was  run as a separate account at that time and we were engaged because the levels of coverage we were achieving and the engagement our content generated with GSF Car Parts was significantly outperforming the group’s PR.

I produced 100% of the media output for the business including product PR, people news, corporate updates (including acquisitions) and all email marketing. It was a busy time as The Parts Alliance consolidated. I handled news on the sale of GSF Car Parts and the subsequent sale of The Parts Alliance to Uni-Select Inc.

The early work for GSF Car Parts was perhaps the most vibrant and varied output, meeting the initial brief from the founders of capturing the ‘personality and expertise’ of GSF Car Parts. We achieved consistently high levels of positive coverage in trade, specialist and national media with some quirky and creative content, as well as the conventional. A couple of years of that output can be viewed in the Cision archives here.

It’s worth noticing both the volume and breadth of output – with different pieces deliberately tailored to different audiences, titles and publication sections. There’s often a fine and sometimes frustrating balance between getting the coverage the client would like and giving the publications the content they are seeking!

Most PR accounts simply don’t produce either enough material or ensure that it’s relevant enough to readers. Journalists always need to know PR agents can be relied upon to write copy that is concise, doesn’t make too many outlandish claims and is delivered on time and to the brief as this makes the difficult job of writing and editing a publication a little bit easier.