How hyper-personalisation turns good PR into effective PR

We talk a lot about personalisation in PR. In theory, it means tailoring your message to the person you’re speaking to. In practice, it usually means dropping a name into a cut and paste email and pressing send.

This approach simply doesn’t work anymore. With so much information competing for attention, people only notice what’s genuinely relevant.

Hyper-personalisation is about understanding your audience using research, insights, and sometimes a bit of data, to get your content in front of the right people. Yes, it takes more time, but it delivers results: stories people actually want to hear, read, and share.

Sometimes it’s as simple as putting together two slightly different versions of a press release - one aimed at sector specialists, another at a broader audience. Other times, it’s small changes to headlines or messaging and then watching to see what actually gets engagement. The point is to keep testing, learning and refining.

At MMC, this is second nature! We use research to guide everything we do, from media pitching to social media posts. That means actually looking at the results, noticing patterns in how people respond, and tweaking our approach so it’s relevant to the person we’re reaching out to.

If you’re pitching to a journalist, you need to know what they cover and the sectors they focus on. Issuing a blanket press release to people you haven’t researched won’t do much for your client, and it could damage your credibility.

The same goes for thought leadership articles. Senior leaders, operational teams and technical decision-makers are all looking for different things. You don’t need to rewrite a piece from scratch each time, but tweaking the language, tone and emphasis can make the difference between something people ignore and something they pay attention to.

PR, at its core, is all about people. It works best when you actually listen, pay attention, and avoid sending everyone the same message. Hyper-personalisation just helps make sure what you’re saying is relevant, so your PR actually gets noticed.

So if you’re wondering whether it’s worth tailoring your campaign for different audiences, the answer is almost always yes!