In the dynamic realm of public relations, where innovation is the key to success, our Central Asian PR agency embarked on a forward-thinking journey. This is the narrative of how ITCOMMS, within a short timeframe and on a limited budget, not only generated a captivating buzz but also saw a remarkable
67% increase in client inquiries — a noteworthy achievement within the B2B sector.
The Backstory
In 2022, Alexander Likhtman launched ITCOMMS PR Agency, targeting IT companies in Central Asia. Despite his personal brand recognition and esteem among PR specialists in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, the ITCOMMS brand remained relatively obscure. This posed a significant challenge in attracting new clients.
The Objectives
At the project's inception, the team set the following objectives:
Elevate Brand Awareness among PR specialists and business audience in Central Asia as the go-to PR agency for IT companies.
Boost the number of client inquiries to the PR agency.
Enhance brand loyalty.
Measuring Success
To monitor progress throughout the project's execution and upon completion, the team decided to track the following metrics:
The number of brand mentions.
Coverage views in media outlets and social networks.
The number of inquiries from new clients.
The Idea
As 2023 dawned, artificial intelligence took center stage in the media, particularly in the realm of PR. The ITCOMMS team was actively exploring AI's potential and integrating it into their operations. Tools like ChatGPT, Midjourney, Lumen5, DeepL, and others played pivotal roles in various tasks, from audience analysis and creating buyer personas to generating images for the agency's social media campaigns.
Amidst this backdrop, a thought emerged:
How else could AI streamline the work of PR specialists?
Their first revelation was the press release—an invaluable tool for PR practitioners in Central Asia. With AI, they could expedite press release creation, helping PR specialists assemble a well-structured document that would increase the chances of publication in media outlets.
The Concept: Create a press release generator powered by ChatGPT.
Simultaneously, the service would showcase ITCOMMS' immersion in the IT sector, capturing the attention of both the media and potential clients. The press release generator was developed in collaboration with Cherrypick Studio.
Development Budget: $60. PR Campaign Budget: $0
The Solution
The ChatGPT-powered press release generation service takes the form of a landing page with a user-friendly information input form. The form's questions are crafted to mirror the structure of a press release, simplifying the work for PR specialists and aiding them in creating highly informative materials that pique media interest. The service is entirely free of charge.
The application's backend is hosted on fly.io (a Flask application) that receives form submissions via a webhook (HTTP POST). The data from the form is transformed into a query to the OpenAI API (GPT-4). The query is standardized for all service users, ensuring that the resulting press release is coherent and effectively conveys the key message. Users receive three press release variants in .docx format via email.
The PR campaign for the service was launched in May 2023 and ran for one week. It encompassed the distribution of press releases to key media outlets in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Russia.
The press release about generator was generated using the ITCOMMS service.
Additionally, the team engaged industry thought leaders and owners of thematic Telegram channels, sharing a link to the service for their personal testing and evaluation.
Furthermore, we also featured the project on Product Hunt, a specialized platform for startups. This allowed the generator to become visible among foreign media and platform aggregators of various AI-based services.
Service announcements were published on all of the agency's own media:
website
agency's social network accounts
employee social networks accounts
email distribution
The Outcome
8,900,000 total online Coverage Views (according to Releasd and SimilarWeb)
+67% increase in new inquiries for PR services.
37 organic publications across media outlets and social networks in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and China.
Top 10 Product of the Day on Product Hunt.
Over 20 positive reviews of the service.
3,800+ visitors to the press release generator.
Social media posts
Media publications
Conclusion
Why This Case Study Matters to You:
This case study serves as a vivid illustration of how to create an information event, harness the power of newsjacking technology, and align with trending topics based on external hype— in our case, the AI boom.
It underscores the notion that a brilliant idea can elevate a brand even on a limited budget. It's a testament to the power of innovation in the world of PR, proving that with imagination and determination, the possibilities are limitless.
Our fearless PR pro, Jeanna Skripal, leads the project:
"𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘴𝘦𝘳𝘷𝘪𝘤𝘦 𝘪𝘴 𝘶𝘯𝘪𝘲𝘶𝘦 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘰𝘯𝘭𝘺 𝘪𝘯 𝘪𝘵𝘴 𝘶𝘴𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘦𝘤𝘩𝘯𝘰𝘭𝘰𝘨𝘺 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘯𝘦𝘸𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘭𝘦𝘴 𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘢𝘭𝘴𝘰 𝘢𝘴 𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘵𝘳𝘪𝘣𝘶𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘗𝘙 𝘪𝘯𝘥𝘶𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘺. 𝘋𝘶𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘨𝘦𝘯𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘰𝘳'𝘴 𝘰𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯, 𝘪𝘵 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘷𝘪𝘴𝘪𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘣𝘺 3,000+ 𝘱𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘭𝘦 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘢𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘭𝘥, 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘳 20 𝘶𝘴𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘷𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘱𝘰𝘴𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘷𝘦 𝘳𝘦𝘷𝘪𝘦𝘸𝘴. 𝘞𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘴𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘢 𝘴𝘶𝘤𝘤𝘦𝘴𝘴!"
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