About On The Rox
Welcome to On The Rox, a podcast from Roxhill Media where we ask some of the UK’s leading journalists how they would solve the everyday dilemmas PRs face. There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to working with the media – so we’re going straight to the source to find out how journalists like to collaborate with PRs and how you can stand out in their inboxes. Listen & follow
Guest spotlight
The Times’ Travel Content Editor Lucy Perrin joined us to unpack what makes great evergreen travel content — and why PRs need to rethink how they pitch. From building trust with editors to spotting SEO opportunities and knowing when to nudge for an update, Lucy shares practical tips to help your travel stories live longer, reach wider, and work harder online.
Episode summary
In this episode of On the Rox, The Times’ travel content editor Lucy Perrin reveals how to pitch digital travel stories that keep delivering for years. Learn what “evergreen” really means, why it’s now at the heart of The Times’ travel strategy, and how PRs can land lasting coverage.
Key takeaways
- How PRs can educate their clients in the value of evergreen – yesterday’s news vs. tomorrow’s inspiration.
- How to pitch stories that fit the format (and avoid the classic PR mistakes Lucy sees daily).
- How to build long-term relationships with editors – and crucial things to mention in your pitch.
Guest spotlight
Lucy is an editor and writer on the travel desk who started at The Times in 2019. She writes about all things travel, be it off-the-beaten-track destinations including Ras al-Khaimah and Kerala, to investigative pieces such as the revival of the travel agent. She was nominated for Young Travel Writer of the Year 2022 at the Travel Media Awards.
*Lucy is currently on maternity leave. In her absence, pitches should be directed to Blossom Green, Commissioning Travel Editor.
Read the full transcript
Alessia Horwich (00:00):
Welcome to On the Rox, a podcast from Roxhill Media that asks some of the best journalists in the UK for their solutions to the kind of dilemmas that PRs confront daily. At Rock Hill, we know there isn’t a one size fits all way of communicating with journalists. So instead of trying to tell you how to do your jobs, we go straight to the writers in the newsroom for their advice on the most effective ways to communicate your stories to them. My name is Alessia Hoch. I’m a former Sunday Times journalist, now the director of Creative Content and Brand at Roxhill. Today, we’re going to be talking about pitching evergreen travel content to the Times and Sunday Times with Lucy Perrin, the title’s travel content editor. Lucy and I have worked together several times over the past couple of years at Roxhill, but she’s also part of the team that I left when I left the Sunday Times in 2019. So Lucy, tell me what is evergreen content and how is it different to live content?Lucy Perrin (00:54):
I think it’s about using as much insight as you can and also taking a bit of a punt as well. I think Google’s changing all of the time with different algorithms and things coming in, so you can use data and stuff to let it guide you, but then you also have to have this awareness that what you’ve commissioned six months ago might need to completely change in six months time in terms of format and content and things as well.Alessia Horwich (01:19):
Yeah, it’s really complicated. I guess it’s newish for you guys. Why is The Times so keen on doing evergreen content?Lucy Perrin (01:25):
I think, obviously, it’s really important to try and create content that’s going to have a really long shelf life, and obviously traditionally it’s a print focus model, which we’re rapidly flipping on its head and moving away from and trying to stick to what The Times does best, which is creating really informative, engaging content written by experts, but stuff that’s going to be just as relevant in a month’s time as it is in six months time. So it’s very different to what you’d see in terms of a first-person newspaper article for instance, or even a first-person article that might go out online in the edition.Alessia Horwich (02:02):
What is the perfect Evergreen travel article?Lucy Perrin (02:03):
That’s a good question. I think it’s one of those funny things. So often it can be the things that are quite unexpected and you do have to take a bit of a punt and just see what works and then really go with that and expand on it. So some of the stuff that does the best versus Christmas content. So we have this article on Christmas markets in Europe, which is almost our golden goose in that it does so well every year. And then it’s about us trying to enhance that. So if we have this article that’s bringing us crazy amount of traffic, it’s then about looking at the analytics of that piece, seeing whereabouts readers are kind of clicking, how far they’re scrolling through, how we can make each section even better and not just thinking, “oh great, that’s a banker for us”, but how do we make it as rich and experienced as possible?Alessia Horwich (02:51):
And what is the light measure of success? Is it traffic or is it because making money off these articles too, right? That’s what sets them apart from regular editorial.Lucy Perrin (02:58):
Yeah, I mean I think it definitely has to go beyond traffic because I think it’s the times we have a reputation for creating valuable content to readers and you could get a million hits, but if someone’s on that page for 10 seconds, not only are you not really giving the reader what you want, but you’re also damaging the brand to some extent as well. Because when the reader next Googles “where to get some winter sun,” if they’ve had a rubbish experience with one Times article, they’re probably not that likely to click on another one and to go elsewhere. And I think obviously there’s so much content on the internet and people have so much choice, you have to be really careful with what you are putting out there to engage people and to keep them. So we look at things like time on page, scroll depth, all of that kind of thing.Alessia Horwich (03:43):
I feel like we need to go back to the beginning. I want to understand why evergreen content is a big deal for The Times. Why, I mean, you were brought in specifically to do this, right?Lucy Perrin (03:55):
YeahAlessia Horwich (03:55):
And that was three years ago, maybe four.Lucy Perrin (03:58):
I think they basically realised that there’s a massive opportunity to create content that can guide people at a time when people are increasingly conscious about what they’re spending their money on when it comes to travel, and they also want informative information really quickly. Not a lot of people have time to sit back on a weekend and read through reams and reams of travel content. And it’s this change in world that we’re in now where probably everybody who’s listened to this at some point has Google, “where’s hot in February?” or “where should I go for this or for that?” And they want the information quickly and from a trusted source. And I think as brilliant as first-person and lovely colour pieces are, they can be quite specific. So we want to create something that is a little bit more general but still insightful and informative.Alessia Horwich (04:50):
So it’s about building the brand and the trust in the brand also about reaching new audiences, I guess if you’re chasing SEO.Alessia Horwich (05:07):
And what about money? Is it about making money for you guys?Lucy Perrin (05:09):
I mean, I think as with everywhere, we have got to make money to still have jobs and things, and I think it’s this really careful balance that we are always making sure that yeah, it is about making money and things, but I think that the only way in which we will make money is if we continue to do what we’ve always done, which is create an honest, engaging, informative content, and then if people trust the brand and they read the content, then the money aspect comes secondary to that, whether that’s through advertising or affiliate links and things. Because I think as soon as people start to not trust a brand, that kind of all falls to the side anyway. So you need to have that kind of in place first before you can even think about the money aspect.Alessia Horwich (05:57):
Do you think that PRs understand what evergreen content is?Lucy Perrin (06:01):
I think it feels often when I have conversations with PRs like it’s quite a new thing and I think it can have this quite unsexy boring reputation as well that it’s not as jazzy as being on the travel section in print. And I know that it’s often, even though everything is kind of digital first in this world that we’re in now, I think a lot of clients do seem quite old school that they really want to be in physical print in The Times. And I think for a lot of PRs it’s this education piece that “do you want to have a flash in the pan”. You know, a quick thing where it’s great and you’re in there and then two weeks later everyone’s forgotten about it? Or do you want to have something that’s going to live at the top of Google for three or four years and people are landing on it every single day and engaging with that bit of content?Alessia Horwich (06:47):
Yeah, because when you put it like that, that’s pretty obvious choice, isn’t it?Lucy Perrin (06:49):
Yeah.Alessia Horwich (06:50):
Do they kind of engage with you in the same way on evergreen content as they do in the paper? Would they pitch you ideas specifically or do you see that less?Lucy Perrin (06:59):
I definitely see it less, and I definitely say there’s kind of not as much understanding in terms of how to pitch things. And that’s completely understandable because I think obviously internally we have a strategy in terms of what we’re looking at on what’s getting traffic and what we can see is working well. But I think with PRs not having access to those results, it must be really hard to know what to pitch and when and why and how to do it in a manner that doesn’t feel a little bit forceful sometimes. Also, I think I will get quite a lot of emails that will say, “hey, I’ve seen you’ve got an article on the best hotels in Barcelona, any chance you could put this hotel in?” It’s not really how it works when we’re completely independent in where commissioning writers who we really trust to find these places, I’m not just going to be like, yeah, cool, I’ll stick that in. But it’s all about kind of keeping the integrity of the piece and making sure that we are really researching these destinations and they’re completely right for the reader and for The Times as well. Yeah, like I say, you have such a kind of short trust cycle I think with someone being like, “oh, I’ve been to that place and it’s awful, why is that on that list?” I’m now not going to look at the other 15. And even with live pieces, I think we’re getting to the stage where we’re thinking about how can we make them a little bit more evergreen, and our systems in the backend are adapting to that as well, that if we want to update something in a couple of months time, we can easily go in and do that.Alessia Horwich (08:24):
That’s really interesting. What is a Times hotel?Lucy Perrin (08:27):
I think a Times hotel is one thing that our readers are really, really into is value. We generally wouldn’t feature something that’s not a four or five star, unless it’s this amazing little bnb in the mountains in Spain and it’s got a different thing to be rated against. I think something that you’d walk in and would have the wow factor. We try and avoid big brands, so Hiltons, Marriotts, things like that just because they lack a little bit of personality.Alessia Horwich (08:56):
Who are you thinking about? Who’s your reader when you are putting together these evergreen articles?Lucy Perrin (09:01):
I think we’re definitely moving away from thinking about readers in terms of age and where they live and all of that kind of thing. And we’re more thinking about times readers as being really discerning travellers who want to put the research into their holiday and they want to think, right, I’m having two or three holidays a year, I want to really nail this and go to their best place for me. I trust these journalists as experts in what they’re doing and that they’ve done the research and that’s why these hotels are in there. So I think it could be anyone of any age, but just has an interest in travel and in making the right decision.Alessia Horwich (09:42):
Is that they just don’t fall into these traditional categories anymore because it’s all over the place, and because it’s digital?Lucy Perrin (09:48):
Yeah, I mean I think that everyone in the world can use Google. It’s not like a certain age now that are doing it, whereas when you have a print audience, I think that’s very different and we can obviously see the demographics and see that we’re grown a big international audience now as well, that we have lots of different age ranges and I think we’d be silly to just focus on one target audience and really go into that because if you’re going to be appearing at the top of Google who isn’t seeing your stuff rather than who is seeing it.Alessia Horwich (10:18):
Yeah. Lucy, so you’ve said that not all PRs understand how to pitch to you, what they should be pitching, but let’s start with what other type of evergreen ideas that really work.Lucy Perrin (10:29):
So what we’re always looking for are ideas that we can massively scale out, and I think PRs can get a general sense of what those articles are because they’ll start to notice patterns when they look around the site. So really obvious ones are best hotels in best things to do in when’s the best time of year to go to this place.Alessia Horwich (10:49):
So PRs should be trolling the site, looking at what you do. I mean if all the content’s altogether, how do they tell what’s evergreen and what’s not? Is it just you’ve got to get a feel for it.Lucy Perrin (10:59):
I think what you can do is you can get a really good idea just by looking at the headline of a piece and asking yourself the question, “would I Google this?” A first-person piece might be one I did on why I took my mum to the most romantic place in the world. Nobody’s going to sit at home once searching for a holiday and Google that term. Whereas they’re probably going to Google “best all inclusive resort in the Maldives”, “when’s the best time to go to the Maldives?”, “is the Maldives better than Mauritius?” That kind of thing.Alessia Horwich (11:27):
Yeah. Are there any other ways they can get ideas? So are you guys chasing Google search trends?Lucy Perrin (11:33):
One good way to do it is to think from a topical perspective, what’s happening this year that we may not have yet thought about, and how can we either create new content or align our existing content to that? An idea would be, for instance, the Italy Jubilee that’s happening. There’s going to be loads of events and things. I think a lot of people are still like, what is this Jubilee? How is it going to affect travel? Is it going to make Italy busier? All of that kind of thing. So if PRs have contacts who are looking after certain parts of the different tourist boards for Italy and things like that, it’s coming in with ideas to say, “have you thought about doing a guide on this?” Or ‘how are you covering it?” Because it may well be that we haven’t actually got around to that yet or properly given it enough thought. So it’s all of these events and lots of different places that may well be worth us doing guides to and giving recommendations on where to stay and things.Alessia Horwich (12:27):
Okay, so the other thing I was thinking about is updates to existing articles, which is a thing. So how does that work?Lucy Perrin (12:33):
We have an SEO expert and he will guide us on exactly when we should be updating articles, and that’s based on times of year when the search is highest. But obviously we also have to prioritise what we’re updating because now we have thousands of pieces of content. It might be ideal that we’d update 300 pieces of content a month, but realistically when there’s four editors, it’s not going to happen. So we have to be a little bit savvier and look at what’s really doing well and prioritise based on that. So we tend to update things every five, six months.Alessia Horwich (13:08):
Okay. So does that mean that a PR can look at the date stamp on the article?Lucy Perrin (13:14):
Yeah, and I think it’s really frustrating sometimes if we’ve just updated a piece and then I’ll get an email from a PR like “just wondering when your next update and this”, and it’s like the date stamps at the top of the page, we’ve just done it.Alessia Horwich (13:24):
But is it annoying if they come to you and say, well, this hasn’t been updated for six months, you must be doing it soon and you’re not doing it soon because there’s only four of you or whatever.Lucy Perrin (13:33):
I think to be honest, I’d probably respect that just because I know that they’ve looked into it and I’m like, yeah, fair point. And I’ll let them know what’s happening with it and if we’re updating it or not.Alessia Horwich (13:41):
But they have to take into account this thing you’re saying about quality and it’s not just shoving something new in. So when they come to you and they’ve found one with a date stamp that’s six months ago, they can’t just be like, “hey, can update it, here’s a thing”. Is it a hook? Is it a reason? How do they sell that to you?Lucy Perrin (13:57):
It’s definitely got to have a reason to it. And I think newness is a big part of that because it’s important to understand that if someone really knows a destination, there’s probably a good reason, especially if it’s in a small area, why they haven’t put a specific place in that a PR might be wanting to feature. If it’s new I think that’s often quite different because if it’s just suddenly arrived and there’s lots of buzz around it, of course we kind want to be on that and to include that sort of thing. But again, it has to be right for The Times audience as well.Alessia Horwich (14:28):
I feel like I’ve highlighted three things, three what’s that they can pitch, and now let’s think about how. So how do you want them to be pitching to you? What needs to be in the email? Or you are not going to be discussing this with people on WhatsApp, I assume?Lucy Perrin (14:42):
Yeah, I think one thing to bear in mind is as always with PR, I think the best thing is building relationships as much as you can. And it’s quite hard to do that from a cold email that’s coming in, especially if it’s a request to say, “can you put this in this article?” or “what’s happened with this?” and you haven’t met the person, you haven’t had a conversation and things with them before. So I think wherever possible, try and have meetings with commissioner and editors, let them put a face to a name, let them know that you are kind of an expert in these certain areas and things and that you really rate this new hotel for these kind of reasons and what its USPs are and things and make that information. And if you can’t meet in person, make that information really clear and concise in an email, because obviously we get so many things through that what makes this just a really special hotel in Barcelona rather than another to add to the thousands that are already there?Alessia Horwich (15:34):
Yes, there’s so many.Lucy Perrin (15:35):
Yeah, I think also what’s the insight from the PRs perspective in terms of what’s selling really well? So if they have genuine data to back up to say, “this hotel’s been fully booked for the last three months or so”, or “it’s part of a big collection, but it’s this one because that’s doing really well right now”. I think that can be really useful for us to know general trends about different destinations and stuff, but also specific hotels to understand more about brands.Alessia Horwich (16:01):
More context there. I guess you can’t know the context of everything, can you, it’s too much of the world to cover.Lucy Perrin (16:08):
And I think I’m much more likely if I know a PR to open the email and to read it and things, rather than to just say it and think, “oh my God, I’m so busy, I’m going to really quickly scan that and then probably not get a chance to reply”.Alessia Horwich (16:21):
Yeah. So do you reckon, I mean if you’ve not met somebody and they’re sending you an email because you can’t meet everybody and they sort of say to you, “so there’s this roundup of hotels, whatever, that’s six months old, I’ve got this new hotel, here are three reasons why it’s valuable for you – I think it could sit really well in this lineup, and here’s the context”, is that if somebody does that kind of consistently, is that pleasing for you?Lucy Perrin (16:45):
I think consistently is an interesting way with that. I think if I feel like I’m getting spammed by this person, I’ll probably see their name and be like, oh my God. But I think if I’m getting really genuinely good recommendations every so often through, and it might be a case of say, putting a couple of suggestions in one email rather than just getting lots of emails over a couple of weeks. And I think it’s just being able to understand that they’ve done the due diligence and they’re not doing a copy and paste email that they’re sending to The Telegraph and The Independent and The Guardian. Sometimes it’s even the basic things, having my name in there, I’ve had different names and things and I’m like, how many people is this email going to? Then often it’s just the little things that personalise it a little bit more and it might be like, oh, I loved your article that you did on whatever. Every journalist is guilty of liking a bit of flattery and then being like, oh, here are some ideas you might like, and then they’re much more likely to respond and say, “oh, thanks, that’s really nice”.Alessia Horwich (17:43):
Yeah, because it’s really hard advise you to ignore them, right?Lucy Perrin (17:46):
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, to kill them kindness I think. Just think about the kind of articles as well that if you have a client that’s a little bit more niche than others, that can work in your favour because obviously there’s less competition out there. So for instance, articles that do really well for us are things like Best Cave Hotels in Cappadocia.Alessia Horwich (18:09):
That’s really specific.Lucy Perrin (18:09):
Yeah. Oh, Northern Lights, igloos, that kind of thing.Alessia Horwich (18:13):
Yeah.Lucy Perrin (18:14):
I think if the PR is doing the hard work and saying, I found these amazing ones, obviously you’re less likely to have a client there, but I think if you do, then great because that’s saving us a lot of effort as well to get those.Alessia Horwich (18:27):
What is something that you have to get right and what is something that’s less important?Lucy Perrin (18:32):
I think less important, obviously with print and live edition things often it can be on the exclusive and nobody else has been to this hotel first and things like that. I think now it’s just more about reputation and things being really well established for Evergreen things.Alessia Horwich (18:50):
Does that mean you’re not chasing exclusives, obviously, but does it mean that you’d probably want the dust to settle a bit on an opening before you?Lucy Perrin (18:56):
One hundred percent. I think it’s almost the opposite in a way to how you think typically of journalists dying to get the exclusive and be the first in. Because often you need to have a lot of press and excitement and buzz for someone to have a name in mind and then Google it and say, “oh, what’s the reviews of this hotel”. Because from a digital perspective, there needs to be that footprint already, otherwise there’s no point of doing a review of a hotel that’s only just open. No one really knows about it yet. And I also think as well, from our perspective, because we want the content to live for a long time, we want it to be really accurate. And I think often with new hotel openings, it takes the staff a long time to bet in. Things might change. They might decide something’s not working. So if we have content that suddenly becomes out of day or isn’t quite right, then it’s not going to work for us either.Alessia Horwich (19:52):
That’s really interesting because a completely turn it on it’s head completely. Yeah, and then what are the bits that are more flexible? What can they kind of get wrong? What won’t matter in the end, really?Lucy Perrin (20:05):
I mean, I think I just wouldn’t be afraid to pitch things in. I think as much as we’re saying do this and don’t do that, I think as long as you have a good relationship with that journalist and you’re sending sensible ideas in and you’re taking on board feedback for the owner that wouldn’t be quite right for hotels or Malaga isn’t really a focus for us at the moment. Just having the right attitude and response to those kind of conversations I think.Alessia Horwich (20:35):
Sounds great, thanks Lucy.Lucy Perrin (20:37):
No worries. Thanks for having me.Alessia Horwich (20:38):
A big thank you to Lucy Perrin for talking to us all about how to pitch Evergreen travel articles to The Times and The Sunday Times. In the next episode, Sam Joiner, who is visual stories editor at The Financial Times, is going to be talking to us about pitching data stories to the paper. To keep up to date on all the questions that we’re answering on On the Rox, visit us on social @roxhillmedia.
Introducing On the Rox.
Your new weekly podcast. Listen in as top UK journalists share their solutions to your PR dilemmas.
