Building a Successful PR Campaign in Germany

According to the International Federation of Robotics (IFR), Germany, with 309 industrial robots per 10K employees, is the most automated country in Europe and third most automated country in the world, following South Korea and Singapore. Today, Germany employs more industrial robots than the United States and the robotics and automation (R&D) market in the country is expected to grow steadily.

Germany also boosts close collaboration between internationally renowned research centres, such as the Max Plank Society and the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, and its forward-thinking automation and tech companies. As a consequence, it is not surprising that the country drives innovation in fields such as industrial automation, machine vision and smart tech.

The country’s automotive tradition is rightly celebrated, and boosts names such as BMW, Volkswagen, Porsche, Audi and Daimler. In aviation, Lufthansa is the biggest name, famous among marketing strategists for having pioneered social media engagement through its MySkyStatus platform. Other major corporations include Bayer in the pharmaceutical sector, SAP in software production, T-mobile in telecommunications and Siemens in industrial automation technology.

However, the backbone of the German economy is formed by thousands of SMEs, the so-called Mittelstand, located especially in the South and the West. These employ most of the country’s working population and in most cases are just as forward-thinking as major corporations. The Mittelstand represents therefore a very interesting target for B2B marketing and communication. For companies looking to establish themselves in this space, international market entry PR offers a direct route into a receptive and technically literate audience.

So, how do you tap into this very promising and dynamic market? The automation sector in Germany is very competitive, so it’s not easy to shine in such as complex landscape.

To reach your German audience effectively, a well-thought international automation PR campaign is a must. In this sense, a balanced mix of paid (advertorials), earned (PR) and owned (content marketing) media is the way to success. This is where international reputation management becomes essential, ensuring your brand is perceived consistently and credibly across borders.

The key is not quantity: sending lots of press releases and blogposts to the media is definitely not enough. The German media landscape is extremely dense, as a consequence every publication tends to have a very specific topical focus and a well-defined readership profile to distinguish itself.

The key is to find the right outlet for your content, namely the publication that has a demonstrated focus on your area of expertise and addresses exactly the kind of reader you have in mind. Also, timing is a factor: with so many trade shows going on in Germany, you might find that the best time to pitch your story to the media is around one of them.

Let’s say you produced a case study on how you managed to effectively reduce noise in your factory without forcing your workers to wear acoustic PPE all day, and you’d like it to reach the best acoustic engineers in Germany. When and where do you pitch it? Well, at Stone Junction, we know the answer!

With 63 letters, this was a 1999 German Word of the Year, and refers to the “law regulating the labelling of beef”. This word, which became quite widespread due to the mad cow disease outbreaks, offers a good example of how complex German can be, especially for technical expressions.

Unsurprisingly, German is not an easy language to translate into, so even with the best translators, you can’t expect to simply translate your content and get good media coverage.

German is often characterised by complex paragraphs with lots of subordinate sentences, which combine with the audience’s preference for informative, specialised and highly technical content. If you don’t consider these characteristics when writing the English original, you message won’t be as effective as it could be.

Writing for the German media is an interesting challenge, but one that a technical PR agency with a strong international PR team can easily overcome.

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