Every few months, someone reaches out to Payper and opens with some version of the same line: "Look, I'm not sure PR is really for us. We're in a pretty boring industry." They run a construction company, or they manufacture industrial components, or they do something in logistics that's genuinely difficult to explain at a dinner party.
Almost every time, they're underestimating what they have to work with.
As someone who spent years in a newsroom before co-founding a PR agency, I can tell you that the most memorable pitches I received weren't from consumer tech brands or fashion labels. They came from businesses solving real problems in industries most people never think about, and the stories were compelling precisely because nobody had told them before.
Why do businesses in 'boring' industries assume PR isn't for them?
There's a perception problem at work, and it's entirely understandable. When most people picture PR success, they imagine a founder being interviewed on Breakfast about their new app, or a lifestyle brand featured in a glossy weekend supplement. If your business manufactures structural steel or runs an agricultural supply chain, that world can feel unreachable.
The assumption gets the media landscape backwards, though. Journalists in New Zealand, and internationally, are drowning in pitches from exactly those kinds of businesses. According to Cision's 2026 State of the Media report, 72% of journalists say fewer than a quarter of the pitches they receive are relevant to what they actually cover. The inbox is full, but it's full of noise, and most of it sounds the same.
That's where the advantage starts for businesses in less-covered sectors. When a journalist receives their fiftieth pitch about a consumer SaaS product and then one arrives from a construction company that's just completed a seismically innovative building method, the contrast is immediate. The story has substance and data, and it hasn't been told before, which is exactly the combination journalists are looking for.
What actually makes a story newsworthy when your product isn't glamorous?
Almost never the product itself, regardless of industry. Newsworthiness comes from impact, timing, conflict, or human interest, and businesses in 'boring' industries often have more of these raw materials than they realise. The trick is learning to spot them.
A construction company building a hospital doesn't make headlines for the concrete mix. The story is about the community the hospital will serve, the jobs the project created, the engineering challenges the team overcame, or the fact that it came in under budget during a cost-of-living crisis. An agricultural supplier expanding into remote regions becomes a story about rural communities, about economic resilience, about the people who keep small towns functioning.
At Payper, we often find that the businesses most hesitant about media relations are sitting on stories with genuine depth. They've solved hard problems, they employ significant numbers of people in specific regions, or they've weathered industry changes that reflect broader economic trends. Journalists actively seek out these kinds of narratives, because they can write something original rather than recycling the same tech-startup-raises-funding formula.
When we worked with Southbase Construction, a business that could easily wear the "boring industry" label, the coverage didn't focus on construction for its own sake. It focused on the projects, the people, and the community outcomes, angles that resonated with journalists because they connected to stories readers genuinely cared about.
Five angles that work for businesses journalists don't usually cover
If you're in one of those industries where PR feels like a stretch, these are the angles worth exploring. Not all will apply to every business, but chances are at least two or three will.
1. The hidden impact angle. Most businesses in traditional industries have outsized effects on communities, economies, or infrastructure that nobody outside the industry knows about. A regional employer, a company building critical infrastructure, an organisation supporting primary industries... these stories resonate with local and national media because they reveal something most readers wouldn't have known.
2. The data and numbers angle. Journalists trust numbers more than opinions, and industries like construction, agriculture, logistics, and energy generate genuinely interesting data. Trends in building costs, shifts in supply patterns, changes in energy consumption, employment figures by region. If you track something that reflects a broader economic trend, that data is worth more to a journalist than any press release about a product feature. The 2026 Cision report found that journalists most value original research and data when deciding which pitches to pursue. If your business generates proprietary data about your industry, you're holding a pitching asset that most consumer brands would envy.
3. The people angle. Behind every "unsexy" business are people doing interesting things. The engineer who designed a bridge that had to withstand a specific seismic load, the logistics manager who rerouted a supply chain during a flood, the apprentice who went from school dropout to site manager. Human interest doesn't require a glamorous industry, just a good story told well.
4. The community and regional angle. Regional media in New Zealand is hungry for stories with local impact. If your business operates outside Auckland and Wellington, you have an audience of journalists who aren't buried under hundreds of pitches per day and who genuinely want to cover local economic and community stories. This is often the fastest path to earned media for businesses in traditional industries, and don't underestimate the reach of regional outlets. Their audiences are engaged, loyal, and often include local decision-makers.
5. The trend and industry shift angle. Every industry undergoes change, and the shift itself is often the story. Construction moving to prefabrication, agriculture adopting precision technology, energy companies pivoting to renewables. Journalists cover change because it's inherently newsworthy. If your business is part of an industry-level trend, you can position yourself as the expert source for that larger story, which is far more valuable than a one-off product mention.
How do you find the story when you honestly think there isn't one?
Start by asking yourself the three questions a journalist would ask: what's changed recently in your business or industry? What's difficult about what you do that outsiders wouldn't understand? And what surprised you in the last twelve months? The answers usually surface something worth pitching.
Maybe you've hired 30 people in a region where other businesses are contracting. Maybe your costs have moved in a way that reflects something bigger happening in the economy. Maybe a project you finished had an unexpected ripple effect in the community. These aren't the kinds of stories that arrive with a press release template attached, but they're the ones journalists want to write.
Muck Rack's 2026 State of Journalism report found that 40% of journalists choose their own story topics, and 86% say at least some of their stories start with a PR pitch. That's a significant opening, but only if the pitch gives them something real. The same report found that 43% of journalists seldom receive pitches that match what they actually cover. The relevance gap is massive, and businesses in under-covered industries can exploit it by simply offering something different from the usual noise.
If you're still stuck, try this: describe what your business does to a friend who has no idea about your industry, and pay attention to the moment they lean forward and say "really?" That's your angle.
Why substance beats sizzle in the current media landscape
Something has shifted in the relationship between PR and journalism over the past few years, and it works in favour of businesses that have genuine substance to offer. Newsrooms across New Zealand and globally have shrunk, which means individual journalists cover more ground with less time to investigate. According to Cision, 49% of journalists cite shrinking budgets, staff cuts, and heavier workloads as their biggest obstacle. They need pitches that arrive with the hard work already done: verified data, named sources, clear context, and a reason the story matters to their audience.
Payper is a results-based PR agency in New Zealand where clients only pay when coverage lands. That model has taught us something useful: the pitches that convert tend to be the most credible rather than the flashiest. A well-prepared pitch from an infrastructure company with clear data and an articulate spokesperson will outperform a vague pitch from a consumer brand with a bigger marketing budget, because it gives the journalist what they need to write the story with confidence.
When Payper ran the national announcement for Meridian Energy's Community Decarbonisation Fund, the story was about hospices, food rescue organisations, and community groups receiving funding that would lower their energy costs. The coverage landed across 19 outlets, reaching over 328,000 New Zealanders, precisely because the substance was there and the human impact was clear.
Does it matter that journalists haven't covered your industry before?
Not in the way you might think. Being in an industry that journalists don't cover regularly can work in your favour, because there's no template they've already grown tired of and no fatigue from hearing the same angles recycled every quarter.
Consider the difference: a journalist who covers the tech sector might receive 50 pitches a week from startups, all structured roughly the same way. A journalist covering business, regional affairs, or community news might receive one pitch a month from a construction firm or an energy company. The competition for attention is dramatically lower, and the novelty factor is higher.
This is especially true in regional and trade media. Regional newspapers, radio stations, and online outlets throughout New Zealand are actively looking for stories about local economic activity, employment, and community investment. Trade publications in sectors like construction, agriculture, energy, and manufacturing have dedicated audiences who care deeply about industry developments. For businesses that have never considered PR, these outlets represent genuinely accessible starting points.
Working with clients like Evnex, a company making EV charging infrastructure, the coverage doesn't rely on the product being inherently exciting. It works because there's a genuine story about New Zealand's energy transition, about a Christchurch company building technology for a shifting market, and about the practical realities of electric vehicle adoption. Journalists cover that because it connects to something their readers are already thinking about.
The open field
The businesses that think they're too boring for PR are often the ones with the best stories. They just haven't learned to see them yet. If your industry doesn't get much media attention, that's not a barrier, it's an open field with almost no competition.
What matters is whether you can identify the human, economic, or community story inside what you do, and present it in a way that makes a journalist's job easier. If you can do that, the coverage will come, and it'll be more durable than anything built on hype, because it will have been earned on substance.
Get in touch here and we'll give you a straight answer.