Hard Numbers, a performance-driven B2B tech PR agency, has transformed their media relations success using Onclusive Planner as a strategic planning tool. Since implementing the service, they’ve:
- Generated 135 media opportunities
- Secured coverage in over 100 media outlets including The Telegraph, Forbes, and Mail Online
- Achieved a 50%+ pitch conversion rate.
With three-quarters of journalists only finding value in 25% of pitches or less, these stats are nothing short of impressive!
By reducing time spent on manual research by up to 50%, the agency has shifted their focus from lower value administrative tasks to more high-value strategic communications consultancy. The tool has become so integral to their success that Managing Director Darryl Sparey considers it “a no-brainer” for PR professionals.
We recently sat down with Darryl to discuss how their agency leverages forward planning to deliver exceptional results for their clients.
Why did You Choose Onclusive Planner?
“The forward planning service was one of the first third-party tools we subscribed to after our monitoring service and media contacts database. When looking at solutions, we didn’t waste time evaluating alternatives – I had previously used this service in a previous role and knew its value. There’s nothing comparable that offers a comprehensive, searchable, one-stop solution.”
“I don’t understand why every PR professional doesn’t subscribe to it. When you think about it, it’s a no-brainer to want something like this. One of the biggest challenges as a PR professional is getting the attention of journalists and knowing what they’re writing about. If you know a week in advance what the business editor of The Times is likely to be covering, it makes everything so much easier. That’s what Onclusive Planner allows you to do.”
What Challenges were You Trying to Address when Looking for a Forward Planning Tool?
“One of the biggest challenges was the time-consuming nature of gathering and organising forward-looking information. Previously, we would have to search Google for things like ‘fintech conferences 2025’ and then manually structure all that unstructured data into spreadsheets that could be shared with clients. The forward planning service has been invaluable for tracking everything from events and awards to government announcements, legislation, and industry reports – especially crucial for our fintech clients who need to stay on top of regulatory changes and industry developments.”
How do You Use Onclusive Planner in Your Day-to-Day Operations?
We use the service in several key ways:
1. For Pitches:
“The service plays a crucial role in our new business efforts. We discuss forward planning in every pitch meeting. We explain that we have access to a database of 200,000 future events that the national media uses to plan their news agenda. I can put a numeric value against something and it’s a big number, which shows our point of difference versus other agencies. We create 3-6 month timelines showing potential opportunities, from industry events to company financial announcements. For example, with an e-commerce client, we identified major retailers’ earnings announcements to plan newsjacking opportunities.”
2. Weekly Newsjacking Meetings:
“Our management team leads a dedicated weekly meeting centred around the planner tool. Team members bring updates on their clients’ activities, which we then enrich with the planner’s insights on industry events and news developments. This collaborative session allows us to workshop effective newsjacking angles for our clients.”
3. Awards Programs:
“We’ve successfully managed awards programmes for clients including our insurtech client Qover and an embedded finance provider. For both clients in the last year, a key KPI was to be shortlisted for industry awards. We achieved this in part by using Onclusive Planner to identify relevant awards. Having all the awards in one list that we could export and provide to the client quickly and easily was super helpful.”
4. Campaign Timing:
“When executing a campaign, we always look for when there might be quieter news days to take advantage of. We always check the planner to see what major events are happening – whether it’s a budget announcement, Davos, a key industry event, or other big events that the media will be focused on – so we can plan our timing accordingly.”
What Measurable Outcomes have You Achieved Using the Service?
“We’ve seen significant concrete results since we began using the Onclusive Planner service a few years ago:
- 135 media opportunities generated for our clients
- 20 of those media opportunities in the last year alone
- Secured placements in major outlets including Computer Weekly, MSN, City AM, Mail Online, Times Radio, LBC, Metro, Forbes, and The Telegraph
- Our clients were featured in over 100 different media outlets
- It contributes strongly to our 50%+ pitch conversion rate
How has the Service Enhanced Your Ability to Deliver Strategic Value to Clients?
“The service helps us demonstrate our strategic approach in several ways:
- It allows us to reduce time spent on ‘grunt shop tasks’ (manual research and data structuring) – probably by as much as 50%. ‘Grunt shop tasks’ are the time you spend on boring, monotonous stuff … that’s low perceived value to the customer. High perceived value to the customer is consultancy … By making the ‘grunt shop task’ shorter, it gives us more time for the ‘front shop tasks’ – the thinking, the consultancy, the advice.
- “It provides one centralised resource for tracking events, awards, industry data, and government announcements. In the fintech vertical for example, on any given day there could be an announcement of a whitepaper for a new payments infrastructure, a trade association launching a report, the government announcing financial performance figures for the previous quarter, and then layer on top of that companies announcing their results. The planning tool gives us all of this information in one place.”
- “It enables us to show clients we have robust systems and processes in place, differentiating us from other agencies our size. Normally, big agencies are really well managed but don’t care so much. With small agencies, your business really matters to them but they might not necessarily have the systems and processes in place. We wanted to be that sweet spot in the middle where we’ve got rock solid systems and processes, but we demonstrably care about the clients that we work with.”
- It allows us to provide more timely and relevant thought leadership content by anticipating upcoming industry events and regulatory changes. Particularly when it’s to do with legislation, which lends itself to longer form bylines and thought leadership. If you’ve got something that’s more newsworthy and you know that a news event is going to happen two weeks in advance, it gives you time to write not only the byline synopsis but the actual byline.”
What Features of Onclusive Planner Do You Find Most Valuable?
“For us, the most valuable features are:
- The ability to search by event type
- Industry-specific filtering
- Keyword search capabilities
- Flexible time frame selection of up to 12 months
- Headline monitoring for major news events
The ability to export data to Excel or Google Sheets is particularly useful for collaboration with clients and other stakeholders, especially when coordinating activities across different time zones. The structured, searchable nature of the data is also crucial. If you’ve got structured, searchable, filterable, exportable data, it just makes things far easier than if it’s just a cut and paste from Google.”
Can You Share an Example of How Onclusive Planner Directly Impacted PR Campaign Success?
“We’ve had several successful PR campaigns leveraging the forward planning service. For one client, we used the planner to identify up-coming changes to industry legislation, which created excellent newsjacking opportunities for us.
For our automotive clients, like Roadchef and FixMyCar, we regularly use the service to track and respond to data releases from National Highways, SMMT car sales data, and peak traffic periods during school holidays. For instance, we recently executed a successful campaign around EV car sales data, where advance knowledge of the SMMT announcement allowed us to prepare and place timely commentary.”
Ready to experience Onclusive Planner first-hand? Talk to us today to arrange a personalised demo for your agency or organisation.