Personal Capital is an industry-leading digital wealth management company. They do the right thing by the everyday investor by taking a holistic, 360-degree approach to money management.Their state-of-the-art tools and technology provide investors with a complete financial picture and on-staff Financial Advisors provide expert guidance, and local strategies, based on a personal understanding of one’s financial picture and goals.

Before having a tool like Muck Rack, our team was very dependent upon our external agency to provide us with weekly reports and status updates on their efforts. 

I had Google Alerts set up so I could track where we were mentioned in the press here and there, but it was a very manual approach. We would get weekly reports from our external agency, but we were lacking a centralized dashboard with a high-level view of our PR efforts. 

In addition to having more insight into the reporting side of things, we also wanted to take some ownership over managing our company’s relationships with reporters and build those contacts ourselves.

We started out trying to manage our own internal database in a spreadsheet to house contact information for our top tier media outlets and reporters, but it was very static and difficult to maintain. As reporters would change jobs or move to different outlets, we were unable to keep up and spent a lot of our time doing administrative research to get accurate contact info.

Media Research & List Building

One of the features I personally use the most is the search capability. I love the fact that I can search for specific outlets. With Muck Rack, I can identify a specific geographic market and quickly see a list of the four main local news stations in that area and have contact information for reporters who work there immediately. It makes building media lists so much easier. 

A major goal of mine when we first started bringing our media relations efforts back in-house was to build up an internal list of our “friendlies” as I call them—the journalists who we have been able to build really strong relationships with and keeping them updated with new data or insights from our spokespeople.

In addition to running these searches and building media lists within the Muck Rack platform, the notes feature has been invaluable in my tracking efforts. I find myself frequently logging notes on the last time I’ve engaged with a reporter on our list and how that interaction went. It’s like Salesforce for PR pros, where you can add quick tidbits about your last conversation with a reporter and some personal details about them you can refer back to later. It provides a strong foundation for future outreach, because I can see how long it’s been since we last spoke and jump right back in on the conversation without having to do a ton of new research. It’s much easier to have that right in Muck Rack than having it in various Post-It notes written on my desk.

Monitoring & Muck Rack Alerts

I monitor news coverage within Muck Rack every day. I’ve created and saved my own keyword searches for topics I want to stay on top of. I have one for the Personal Capital brand as well as another for our spokespeople so I can pop in and see if they were mentioned or quoted somewhere. I get daily updates on those searches straight to my inbox—I love it!

In addition to monitoring our brand mentions, I have a few Muck Rack Alerts set up for our competitors to see what their storylines are and which outlets are covering them. 

Alerts have also been useful as we prepare for an upcoming campaign, too. For example, if we’re doing something around social responsible investing—a new trend in the investment world where you can personalize your portfolio to align with someone’s personal values—I’ll start to monitor what outlets and reporters are already covering the topic and use that to build media lists.

1. In addition to media results, what are some of the other benefits you’ve experienced using Muck Rack?

I have been so impressed by the Muck Rack team and how the company constantly strives to make the software better. There have been so many enhancements recently on the reporting side of things, such as the addition of the broadcast monitoring. Muck Rack has made our lives easier and really allowed us to bring media relations back in-house. We’ve relied on the tool to help us with those efforts. 

2. How has Muck Rack helped your team to better collaborate on media relations efforts?

The ability to add notes right to journalist profiles and within our media lists has brought us all a lot closer in our media relations efforts. If I reach out to a reporter and see that my colleague also has a call scheduled with them, I can tag them right in Muck Rack and give them a heads up. It’s so nice to have that visibility when you’re collaborating as a team. We need to be as efficient as possible.

3. What would your job be like if your team didn’t have Muck Rack?

I would be doing a lot more administrative work. Muck Rack really frees up my time, allowing me to have those conversations with reporters or work more on the editorial side of things. I’m not wasting time chasing down reporter contact info or following up on storylines. Muck Rack has allowed me to focus on the more enjoyable parts of my job and less on the administrative tasks.