Byrna Campaign outperforms expectations with Guaranteed Paid Placement and Multichannel News Release

Summary:

The world is increasingly a more dangerous place. As senseless acts of violence continue to rise, people concerned with their personal safety are looking for ways to protect themselves and their loved ones. Last year, approximately 13 million guns were sold in the United States, and of those, roughly 5.4 million were sold to first-time gun owners. Unfortunately, among those first-time gun owners are those that underestimate the necessary training, education, and self-reflection required to take on the risk and the reality of using deadly force when necessary. Byrna Technologies, a company that specializes in the development, manufacturing, and sale of innovative less-lethal personal security solutions, is on a mission to change that.

401 media outlets featured the story
201.3M total potential audience reached
3.5x higher engagement than the national average

Industry: Public Safety
Company size: 51-200 employees
Headquarters: Andover, MA, USA
Products used: PR Newswire distribution, Multichannel News Release (MNR), Guaranteed Paid Placement
Customer Since: 2010

The Challenge

Raising Awareness and Driving Engagement

Building awareness and education for less-lethal personal self-defense products is critical to Byrna’s success. The Byrna team partnered with Christine Chiu, Executive Producer and star of the Netflix hit series Bling Empire to create an awareness campaign for Byrna® SD, a CO2-powered launcher designed to provide a less-lethal alternative to a firearm.

Now, celebrities aren’t always experts in the products they’re promoting, but the alignment between Christine Chiu and Byrna was particularly unique. Her celebrity status coupled with personal experience as a firearms practitioner was an interesting connection to Byrna’s product suite on its own. However, as a mother, a business owner, an Asian woman and a citizen of a high-crime area, the team believed that Christine’s persona could speak to the everyday people concerned about their own safety and the safety of their loved ones--ideal prospects for less-lethal self-defense products.

To best leverage this unique celebrity opportunity, Byrna was looking for a partner to help drive measurable campaign engagement, improve placement on relevant websites, and increase awareness and brand recognition.

The Approach

A Winning Multichannel Distribution Strategy

Armed with multimedia content and a powerful story, Byrna turned to Cision to help elevate their story. Using a Multichannel News Release (MNR), the team created a custom-branded landing page to showcase the Christine Chiu campaign content, combining paid, owned and earned media strategies to help them reach target audiences, drive traffic and promote content. A key component of their campaign strategy was using Cision's Guaranteed Paid Placement offering, which guaranteed placement of their story on premium websites. The Cision team seamlessly converted their campaign content into native ads and articles that maximized audience reach.

With this multichannel distribution tool in their overall strategy, Byrna was able to maximize their visibility for coverage, resulting in their ability to reach a much wider audience, drive authentic engagement with their best prospects, and deliver powerful editorial-style content to their target audiences on sites they trust for media coverage.

The Results

Coverage That Exceeded All Their ROI Expectations

Byrna’s awareness campaign generated significant buzz with over 400 media outlets featuring the story, from Apple News to major syndicates like ABC, NBC, CBS, and relevant local and international markets. The custom landing page made it easy for online publications to share and add content, and that was critical for getting pickup in content portals and channels interested in covering Byrna’s campaign. The Byrna team had a performance report almost immediately after launch that was instrumental in helping the team both view and articulate results quickly and effectively.

Additionally, the Guaranteed Paid Placement campaign, designed to amplify Byrna’s story, produced higher-than-average results:

44% Click-Through Rate (CTR)
3% Call to Action (CTA) (58% higher than the 1.9% national average)
>1 minute on content (52% higher than the 40-second national average

“With these results, we saw the return on our investment immediately,” said Pham. “The coverage alone was, for me, well worth the investment but, the ancillary benefits that came with it were real and tremendously valuable,” he continued. “Not only do we have media outlets picking up our story and talking about our brand - but both are improving our SEO. And all of that is creating greater awareness to help us fulfill our mission to provide less-lethal personal safety options to a wider audience. It’s a win all around.”

About The Client

Personal security

Byrna is a technology company specializing in the development, manufacturing, and sale of innovative less-lethal personal security solutions. The Company is the manufacturer of the Byrna® SD personal security device, a state-of-the-art handheld CO2 powered launcher designed to provide a less-lethal alternative to a firearm for the consumer, private security, and law enforcement markets. Visit byrna.com to learn more.

Key outcomes & benefits

Cision’s Multichannel Solution Maximizes Results for Byrna Technologies

Drove measurable campaign engagement using multimedia and an impactful branded landing page with a strong call to action
Story featured on relevant, premium websites targeted to their audience
Increased brand awareness and reached new audiences with an effective multichannel distribution strategy

01 /01

David North

Chief Financial Officer

Byrna Technologies Inc.

Our marketing team was wowed by the Visibility Reports. We saw record sessions on our website. At first, we thought it was an error, but quickly realized the results were due to the Multichannel News Release with Christine Chiu. Our CEO is thrilled.

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Multichannel News Release (MNR)

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