Something I've noticed across nearly ten years of running Payper is that the pitches journalists respond to fastest almost always have a number in them. Not because numbers are inherently exciting, but because they give a reporter something concrete to anchor their story around, something their editor can put in a headline and their audience can actually react to.
Most founders I speak to assume they need to commission expensive market research before they can do what people call "data-driven PR." The reality is much simpler. You're almost certainly sitting on numbers right now that would make a journalist's ears prick up, you just haven't looked at them that way yet. We recently covered how to get media coverage when you don't have any news, and data was one of the most effective approaches in that piece. This guide goes deeper on how to find, shape, and pitch data-driven stories, specifically for New Zealand businesses that don't have a dedicated research department or a budget for polling firms.
What Counts as "Data" When You Don't Have a Research Team?
When I say "data," I don't mean academic-grade research with peer review and confidence intervals. Journalists don't need that. What they need is something specific that tells them something they didn't already know, presented in a way they can verify and understand.
A single interesting number from your business can carry a story. The percentage increase in customer enquiries since you changed your pricing model. The average time your clients spend on a particular process before and after using your product. The number of applications you received for your last job listing compared to two years ago.
These are all data points that exist inside your business right now, probably in a spreadsheet or a CRM that nobody thinks of as "PR material." Muck Rack's 2026 State of Journalism report found that 40% of journalists actively value original data in pitches, which makes sense when you consider that most of what lands in their inbox is opinion dressed up as insight.
Five Types of Data You're Probably Already Sitting On
You don't need to hire a research firm to have something worth pitching. Most businesses generate useful data as a byproduct of doing their normal work, they just never think to extract it and frame it as a story.
- Customer behaviour data: How your customers use your product, what they buy most, when demand spikes, what problems they're trying to solve. If you sell anything online, you have this. E-commerce platforms, CRMs, and even basic analytics dashboards contain patterns that, once you pull them out and contextualise them, can tell a story about your industry that nobody else has access to.
- Pricing and cost data: What things cost in your industry, how that's changed over time, where the hidden costs are that consumers don't see. Journalists covering business, consumer affairs, and economics are constantly looking for real numbers they can use, not estimates from industry bodies, but actual figures from someone doing the work.
- Hiring and workplace data: Application volumes, salary benchmarking, skills gaps you're seeing, what candidates care about. In a labour market where everyone has opinions about talent shortages, having actual numbers to back up those claims makes you the person a journalist calls for comment next time.
- Usage trends and patterns: Seasonal variations, geographic differences, year-on-year changes. If your business operates across multiple regions or has been running for more than a couple of years, you can spot trends that tell a larger story about your sector.
- Operational benchmarks: How long things take, how much things cost, what the failure rates look like, what the success rates look like. These are the numbers that make for genuinely interesting reading, because they come from the reality of doing the work rather than from a consultant's assumptions.
How Do You Turn Internal Numbers Into a Pitch a Journalist Cares About?
Having data is only half of it. The harder part is framing it in a way that makes a journalist think "my readers need to know this" rather than "this company is trying to get free advertising."
The key, and it genuinely is this simple, is to make the story about the trend rather than about your company. A journalist will almost never write a story that says "Company X saw a 40% increase in sales." But they will absolutely write a story that says "Demand for electric vehicle chargers has surged 40% in the past twelve months, according to data from New Zealand company X, as the country's EV fleet continues to grow faster than charging infrastructure."
See the difference? In the first version, your company is the story. In the second, the industry trend is the story and your company is the credible source. That second framing is how Evnex regularly appears in coverage about New Zealand's EV market, because they can provide real operational data that no journalist can get anywhere else.
At Payper, we spend a lot of time in the briefing stage asking clients what numbers they have access to, not because we want to build a dashboard, but because those numbers are often the most pitchable thing about their business. A founder who can say "we've processed X thousand transactions this year" or "our waitlist grew by X% after we launched in Christchurch" gives us something a journalist can verify, quote, and build a story around.
Should You Commission Your Own Research?
If you have the budget, commissioning a small survey or research project can be one of the most effective PR investments you make. A well-designed survey of 300 to 500 people on a topic relevant to your industry can generate multiple stories over several months, and the cost is often surprisingly manageable.
The reason surveys work so well for media coverage is that they create genuinely new information. A journalist can't get the same data by calling someone else, because you're the only one who ran the study. That exclusivity, combined with a clear and interesting finding, is exactly what makes a story attractive to a reporter working on deadline.
In New Zealand, where the business media landscape is concentrated and competitive, being the source of original research positions you as an authority in your sector. Farmlands' rural wellbeing work is a good example, using survey data to tell stories about rural communities that no other organisation was capturing, and getting coverage from outlets that might not otherwise have written about them.
A few practical tips if you're considering this route. Keep your sample size credible, 300 is usually the minimum for anything you want to present publicly, and be transparent about your methodology. Journalists are trained to scrutinise claims, and if your sample is 47 people from your LinkedIn followers, that will get picked apart rather than picked up. Work with a reputable polling or research firm if you can, or use established survey platforms that allow you to access representative panels.
Why Do Journalists Trust Numbers More Than Opinions?
This comes down to the fundamentals of how journalism works. A reporter's job is to tell their audience something that is true, verifiable, and relevant. An opinion, however well-informed, is none of those things in the way that a concrete data point is.
When a journalist writes "industry experts say the market is growing," they're relying on someone else's assessment. When they write "the market grew 23% in the twelve months to June 2026, according to data from Company X," they're stating a fact that they can attribute and that their editor can feel confident publishing.
Cision's 2026 State of the Media report found that 58% of journalists want access to credible sources and 66% rely on PR content for story ideas. The journalists who responded consistently ranked specificity and relevance above everything else, and data is the most direct path to both of those things.
This is especially relevant in New Zealand, where a shrinking journalist workforce means individual reporters cover broader beats and have less time for original research. A founder who can hand them a verified data point with context is doing part of their job for them, and journalists remember that the next time they need a source on deadline.
How Should You Present Data Without Putting People to Sleep?
The most common mistake people make with data-driven PR is leading with the methodology rather than the finding. Nobody outside your research team cares that you surveyed 412 respondents using a stratified random sampling approach across three age cohorts. They care that 67% of New Zealand small business owners are worried about cash flow in the next six months, and that this is up from 41% a year ago.
Lead with the headline number. Put the most surprising or significant finding first, in plain language, and then provide the context underneath. If you've got five interesting findings from a research project, rank them by newsworthiness and pitch the top one or two. Save the rest for follow-up pitches over the coming weeks, each one tailored to a different journalist or publication.
Payper is a results-based PR agency in New Zealand where clients only pay when coverage lands, and one of the things we've learned over nearly a decade of pitching is that a single compelling statistic in a subject line outperforms a beautifully designed PDF report attached to a three-paragraph email almost every time. Journalists don't have time to open reports at their desk. They skim subject lines on their phone between interviews, and a number catches the eye faster than a paragraph of context ever will.
Present your data in the pitch email itself, not in an attachment. Three to five key findings, each one phrased as a headline-ready statement, followed by a brief paragraph explaining what it means and why their audience should care. Our guide on how to pitch a journalist covers the mechanics in more detail, but the principle is the same: respect their time and make the story easy to see.
The Bonus Most Businesses Haven't Thought About Yet
There's a second audience for your data stories that most businesses in New Zealand aren't thinking about, and it might end up being more important than the original readership.
AI search engines, the tools an increasing number of people use to find recommendations, compare products, and research companies, heavily favour earned media coverage when generating their answers. Gartner has predicted that PR and earned media budgets will double by 2027 specifically because AI-powered search engines cite earned and organic content at dramatically higher rates than paid advertising. Research analysing over one million links cited by AI assistants found that 94% came from non-paid sources.
Data-rich content performs particularly well in this environment because AI models are designed to prioritise specific, verifiable claims over vague assertions. An article quoting your survey finding that "62% of NZ consumers prefer local suppliers" is far more likely to be cited by an AI system than one that says "more consumers are choosing local." The specificity is what makes it usable.
This means every piece of data-driven media coverage you generate is working for you twice: once when someone reads the original article, and again every time an AI system references it while answering a question related to your industry. That compounding effect is something we've written about before, but the short version is that data-backed coverage ages better and travels further than opinion-based coverage in an AI-driven information landscape.
What Are the Mistakes That Waste Good Data?
Even businesses with great data often undermine themselves in how they use it. The most common mistakes are worth naming because they're all avoidable.
Making the data about your company rather than about the industry is the biggest one. Journalists are allergic to company announcements disguised as research. If every finding in your survey somehow proves that your product is the best solution, nobody will take it seriously. The strongest data-driven stories include findings that are interesting regardless of whether the reader has heard of your company.
Sitting on data until it's stale. Timeliness matters enormously in media relations. If you have interesting year-end data, pitch it in January, not March. If your quarterly numbers tell an interesting story, get them out within a week or two of the quarter ending. Data that's six months old feels like yesterday's weather forecast.
Overcomplicating the presentation. The more charts, footnotes, and caveats you pile onto your data, the less likely a journalist is to use it. Simplicity isn't about dumbing things down, it's about respecting the fact that a reporter needs to explain your finding to their audience in a sentence or two.
Not having a spokesperson ready. Data needs a human voice. When a journalist picks up a data story, their next step is almost always to call someone for comment, to add colour and context to the numbers. If the person who knows the data best isn't available for interview, you've handed the story to whoever answers the phone instead. Make sure someone on your team can speak confidently about what the numbers mean and, just as importantly, what they don't mean.
Where to Start This Week
If you've read this far and you're thinking "I might have some useful numbers but I'm not sure where to begin," the simplest starting point is to ask yourself one question: what do I know about my industry, from running my business day-to-day, that most people outside it don't know?
The answer to that question is almost always data-shaped. You know what things cost because you buy them. You know what customers want because you talk to them. You know how the market is changing because you're competing in it every day. Those everyday observations, when you attach a number to them and frame them as part of a larger trend, are exactly what journalists are looking for.
Open your sales dashboard, your CRM, your customer feedback spreadsheet. Look for anything that's changed significantly in the past twelve months, up or down, and ask yourself whether that change reflects something happening across your sector. That change is your story. Frame it as an industry trend, make sure the number is accurate and defensible, and you've got the raw material for a pitch that's more likely to land than anything built on opinion alone.
Get in touch here and we'll give you a straight answer.