Friday Interview | Sarah Waddington on future proofing the PR industry

By Laura Kingston

From a PR background myself, I’ve really been looking forward to this interview. First of all, can you tell us about how you got into PR initially?

I was very lucky that I found what I loved to do at a really early age. I studied Media Relations with French at Trinity & All Saints in Leeds and really enjoyed it. As part of the course we got to do various work placements. My first was a PR agency in Leeds and the second was at Tyne Tees in its Regional Affairs department. I loved both so when I came back to the North East after university I knew exactly what I wanted to do. I moved around a bit from agency to agency and completed an MA in Marketing to develop those skills. After that I was headhunted a few times until eventually I was running three offices for what was the largest independent marketing agency at the time. Then the recession hit. 

In the director role that I had, I wasn’t working with clients as much, it was more about managing the office and staff. Clients were looking at their budgets in the recession and asking if I would consider setting up on my own. One of the things that the recession created was a new approach from professional services who were putting staff back to home working. As a result, it became much more acceptable for a PR practitioner working from home to be taken seriously. I set up Sarah Hall PR in 2009 and haven’t looked back since. 

I got married again last year and we had been talking about rebranding for a long time as the business has grown so much. It’s less about me as an individual now, we have a much bigger team. So I changed my name to Sarah Waddington and we rebranded the business to Astute.Work. It reflects our growth into offering management consultancy as well as PR and marketing. Our management consultancy arm helps businesses to articulate their purpose, manage change and build capacity, whilst our PR and marketing division offers strategic insight and tactical support to ensure the organisation achieves its objectives. It’s a unique offering and I’m really proud of what we have created. 

How have you seen the PR industry change since you set up your business and how have you kept up with those changes?

It’s almost unrecognisable to what it was 10-12 years ago. The onset of digital and social media platforms means that everyone can now be a broadcaster and publisher. Any layman can have a view or voice an opinion, which means that brands can do that too. Instead of having to use traditional media outlets, if they are savvy, brands can go straight to their potential customers. 

At Astute.Work, a big change for us was helping brands to become publishers in their own right. We moved from a media relations first approach and now use a framework called PESO. It’s not in order of importance but essentially is: 

Earned – media relations, press coverage

Shared – influencers, who is important, becoming an advocate

Owned – website, social channels 

Paid – advertising

It’s all about engaging with the target audience and the key word there is engage. Listen to conversations and listen to what your customers are saying. Cascade that information which is massively valuable and often free if you are using social media to change operations within the business. That’s adding value. 

I’ve been very active in the industry for years which has been an important way to not only keep up-to-date with the industry but also, perhaps more importantly, to help shape its future. Paul Dobbie from Persuasion PR introduced me to CIPR NE (the professional body for PR practitioners) in an admin role initially. I moved around various roles, helping with events before becoming the North East Chair. After a few years I was invited by a past President to get involved at board and council level which is very much about agreeing the governance, setting policy and looking at how we influence the future of the industry. I did that for 10 years before deciding to stand for President. I became President of CIPR in 2018, was Vice-President last year and I’ve just stepped down. It’s been a busy decade…

Finally, what are your North East favourites? 

Well, we have a blended family of five kids so we try to get out and about at the weekend. We love to go to Seaton Sluice beach with our dog. She loves it there and the boys do sand dune jumping.

We’re quite time poor as my husband Stephen works in London Monday to Thursday, so to eat we often go to The Pavilion nearby – you can often find us in there! 

We also love Tynemouth Markets and North Shields Fish Quay. 

If we want to venture a bit further, High Force waterfall is a great walk.