Let’s talk about the thing everyone wants when it comes to be PR…national coverage.
The BBC. Forbes. Vogue. The Guardian. The Telegraph. Everyone wants a glossy double-page spread or a live TV slot where you can wave to your mum. And we totally get that! Nationals are often seen as the ultimate PR goal. It make sense. National media brings reach, credibility, and gets some serious eyes on your brand.
We always say that nationals are never completely impossible. But there are huge caveats to that. And nationals are rarely if ever the right place to start.
You can’t just wake up one day and decide to be in the nationals. It’s something you work hard for and build to. And I don’t mean you need to work hard on your business in general (we know you’re already doing that). I mean you need to work hard at PR. Your business might be amazing but if you haven’t done any PR before that you’re starting from scratch.
Nationals are earned over time.
You’d be surprised how many opportunities start to come to you when you’ve done these things. They won’t come quickly. But they will come (if you work with the right PR 😜).
We wrote a whole blog on how Jess made it across the nationals using this very method. I’d highly recommend checking it out if you want to see a practical example of how this works – https://www.carnsight.com/2025/01/28/how-reactive-pr-sparked-two-national-media-hits-365-days-later/
There are a number of things at play:
Journalists don’t cover businesses. They cover people and they cover stories.
And for it to be a story, you really have something big going on when it comes to national coverage. Think:
Without that, your news is sort of just a bit of an announcement. And announcements don’t make the nationals.
Timing can really make or break a story in in PR – especially at a national level. If your story hooks on to something that’s happening right now, your chances increase massively.
This is where reactive PR comes in – when news breaks, you respond quickly with expert insight, and you become part of the conversation.
Done well, this can lead to some amazing quick wins. And done consistently, it builds recognition that leads to bigger opportunities later on.
The brands that consistently land national coverage aren’t spending all their time thinking about nationals, they’re usually the ones focused on:
When your whole strategy becomes “we need national coverage” you often miss the smaller, strategic opportunities that actually get you to the nationals in the process.
Be honest with yourself if national coverage doesn’t feel realistic right now. Your time will come if you put in the work. Here’s what you can be focussing on instead:
These are the building blocks to nationals. Trust me.
At the end of the day, national coverage is absolutely achievable. But it’s not the magic fix you might think it is. And it won’t be instant either. What you really need is strong stories, smart timing, consistency and a bit of patience.
At Carnsight Communications we create strategies and campaigns to showcase our clients’ brilliant work through PR, content and social media. We help them get noticed by the right audience, at the right time. We specialise in creative agency PR.
You need to load content from reCAPTCHA to submit the form. Please note that doing so will share data with third-party providers.
More Information
