COBA is one of the largest names in the floor matting industry, with more than 40 years of experience. Over the last few years, a number of competitors have been vying for the top spot, and one name in particular had started competing against COBA for search terms relating to anti-fatigue mats.
COBA asked us to generate relevant backlinks from heavyweight media as part of a broader SEO campaign to restore its rightful place at the top of the search rankings.
The challenge
COBA had a much larger backlink profile and a wider number of referring domains than the top competitor, but many were low quality, which had very minimal (if any) impact on SEO, and domain authority.
The competitor had a slightly higher ratio of DoFollow Links to their website. Therefore, COBA needed to generate high quality, relevant links from heavyweight websites to make inroads against challenger brands. With a strict budget, we decided to prioritise national coverage and high authority referrals, with a supporting trade campaign.
Because we were dealing with health content, we had to make sure everything we said was credible, trustworthy and quantified to avoid being penalised by Google. The same concept applied to the media: in an age of misinformation and fake news, our story had to be rooted in credible, unique data to gain trust of national news desks.
There was also an additional question: how could we make anti-fatigue mats interesting enough to make it into the top tabloids?
The Solution
We researched the news around this topic and found an appetite for research, opinions, and case studies on the dangers of sedentary lifestyle. However, the narrative was focused around offices and desk workers.
COBA was well placed to raise awareness of this issue among a wide audience and highlight the need for safety assessments. So, we worked with OnePoll to survey 1,000 employed adults who stand for more than four hours a day as part of their job, and found that four in five had experienced some sort of health problem as a result.
We partnered with a chartered physiotherapist who explained what the results meant, why standing is associated with health issues, and how to negate these ill-effects. We knew we had a great news hook, but we needed a really strong landing page, full of credible, engaging and useful information, to encourage news editors to include an external link.
So, we created an information hub with stats, information, video advice from the physio for both workers and employers. We also created a downloadable infographic with a CTA to spread the word, applying a Creative Commons license to it so anyone sharing it would need to reference the original source (COBA).
Finally, we also created tailored press releases for trade media (H&S, HR and manufacturing) to pitch after we’d achieved coverage in the nationals.
The Outcome
We took advantage of a slow news period in December, when Christmas stories had become saturated, but news editors still had targets to meet. This also happens to be one of COBA’s busiest times due to the Christmas rush in manufacturing and cold weather, which increases the discomfort of standing on hard floors.
A strong news hook thanks to reputable original data, expert commentary and ‘top tips’ meant the story was picked up by 10 nationals (print and online), one regional and one trade outlet, plus two news aggregators. A strong landing page with a variety of content meant 90% of outlets included a link, 22% of which were ‘do follow’.
Our story was covered by national titles including The Mirror, The Sun, MSN, and industry press, including Health & Safety Matters.
The Stats
308,002,637
Total reach
14
Pieces of coverage
9
Backlinks
69
Average domain authority of referring domains
The team at RKH delivered excellent results for this campaign, beyond what we could’ve initially hoped for. They understood the challenges of making a niche topic resonate and delivered a strategy rooted in credible insights and expert storytelling. By focusing on quality content and targeted media, they helped us stand out where it mattered most, and delivered an impressive amount of national coverage with backlinks.
Dan George, Group Marketing Director - COBA
The Team
Holly Hickey
Senior PR Account Director
Jodie Fast
PR Account Manager
Jessica Clayton-Berry
PR Account Executive
Ciaran Turner
Search Marketing Manager