It's two years since SASS media Ltd won its first contract with Bishop Chadwick Catholic Education Trust, supporting more than 30 schools with their media requirements and helping them celebrate Ofsted and exam successes.
Since then, we’re pleased to say SASS, a PR support, media relations and copywriting business, based on a foundation of success in journalism, has gone from strength to strength when it comes to providing media support to a variety of organisations in the public, private and charity sectors. Set up by two proud Middlesbrough lasses, Sarah Walker and Sarah Dale, SASS has packed a great deal into the last two years…
We have worked with 34 clients since September 2022, many of whom have been for short term contracts or one-off press releases, but 11 of whom have been with us on a long-term or retained basis.
In the last 12 months, we have taken on no less than eight new clients while retaining nine clients from the previous year.
A significant contract win for us was Jacksons Law, who we have been working with for two days per month since October 2023.
We are now starting to see momentum build in terms of the amount of press coverage we are attracting for the firm.
We also won a retainer contract with the charity Taste of Africa Northeast this year, after working with them for a shorter period last year. In October and November 2023, we achieved 17 pieces of online media coverage for them, which achieved an estimated 596,000 views, reaching a potential audience of 130 million and achieving more than 1,000 social media interactions. This was in addition to appearances on BBC Tees, Look North and ITV’s Tyne Tees news.
In the last twelve months, our original client Bishop Chadwick Catholic Education Trust, which we had an 18-month contract with, also renewed until August 2025. Between September 2022 and February 2024, we achieved 194 pieces of online coverage for the Trust, in addition to several radio and TV appearances. The online coverage had a potential combined audience of 400 million, with 7.59 million estimated views and 1,800 interactions on social media.
As well as renewing our contract with Bishop Chadwick, we also continue to work with one of our first clients Benham Publishing, for whom we write and edit eight chamber of commerce magazines.
The success of SASS has also seen the two Sarahs take an office in Regus Fast Track House in Thornaby – and the pair of us enjoy working on the doorstep of the Tees Barrage, where we can regularly be found having walking business meetings!
In two years, we’ve written about everything from a new lifesaving lung screening service to Jacksons Law Firm’s awards success. Our work has also seen us writing about beauty pageants, big infrastructure projects like HS2, green cement production and financial services training.
We continue to work for Our Hospitals Charity, the fundraising arm of South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, creating a regular newsletter keeping fundraisers and other stakeholders up to date and we’ve recently enjoyed writing about the success of Catrina McHugh MBE, who runs Open Clasp Theatre Company based in Newcastle.
We’ve covered events including the Saltburn Food Festival, the UK Top Influencer Awards and Taste of Africa’s various events that tie in with Black History Month in October.
We’ve helped new businesses get established and supported longstanding businesses to take a new approach to their PR and marketing strategies.
However, we’re aware it’s still quite difficult for people outside of marketing and PR to get their heads around what exactly we do.
At SASS, we pride ourselves on helping organisations get their key messages out to stakeholders and/or sell more products and services through positive and proactive publicity.
We create press releases and send them out to the media, advise on strategies for dealing with negative publicity if appropriate and help organisations make the most of their own media channels including their websites and social media.
We write regular blog posts for clients and can offer a combination of blog posts and website content writing, press releases, media relations and crisis management support through our retainer packages.
We are also true to our journalism roots and continue to write for a wide range of B2B publications.
In our PR work, we are able to use our journalistic style and flair to give clients the best chance of achieving earned media coverage. We also measure our success in this area and share this data with clients.
We’re pleased to say the future looks bright for SASS and we’re hoping many more organisations across the North East will put their trust in us to tell their unique stories.
For more information, visit us at www.sassmedialtd.co.uk or call Sarah Walker on 07896 894538.