One surprising number from your own data, pitched to the press and posted everywhere.
From 2009, OkCupid co-founder Christian Rudder published analyses of the dating site's anonymised data on its blog, OkTrends: what makes a first message work, the lies people tell on their profiles. The press picked them up again and again. Between August 2010 and April 2011 the posts averaged about 32,500 Facebook likes and 4,222 tweets each, and about a million unique views (Contently, 29 July 2014).
Rudder said a post would reach about a million readers but maybe a thousand would sign up directly, while the blog had driven a lot of OkCupid's growth (Digiday, 20 August 2013).
Marketplaces, SaaS, agencies, e-commerce and local chains: any business that collects data nobody else has.
Journalists need something new, and a number nobody has published is the cheapest newsworthy thing a business owns. In Cision's 2026 survey of 1,899 journalists in 19 markets, 66% said they rely on PR-provided content such as press releases and pitches, and original research ranked among what they value most (Cision, May 2026). Most want pitches short: 69% prefer under 200 words (Muck Rack, June 2025).
Self-reported. Christian Rudder on OkTrends (Digiday, August 2013). Reported. Contently's analysis of OkTrends (July 2014). Vendor. Cision's and Muck Rack's journalist surveys.
Cost to test. No media spend. A day a month for analysis and pitching.
Kill it if after three findings no outlet has used one.
Most readers will not sign up directly: Rudder put it at about one in a thousand, so judge it on coverage, links and branded search. Aggregate everything and never publish anything that identifies a customer. Be open about how you use people's data: OkCupid's 2014 post admitting it had experimented on users quickly became a story about consent. A weak sample gets challenged.
The Reddit Presence, Get on the Lists, The Waitlist Launch
A 30-minute call first. If it fits, two calls in one week and a written growth plan you keep.