Greenest Suburbs

SolarRun is an Australian solar energy company that offers solar solutions – including solar panels, solar batteries, solar inverters, and solar heaters. With a network of local franchisees spread across the country, they help homeowners cut energy bills while reducing their environmental footprint.

The brand operates in the renewable energy sector, competing in a fast-growing but highly competitive market where trust, visibility, and proven results matter.

When it came to national recognition, especially in the media, Solar Run was in the backseat. Why?

Newsrooms are flooded with pitches on sustainability. Stories about solar energy, “going green,” or environmental initiatives are competing and crowding up for the same headlines. For a company without an established PR footprint, breaking through is hard.

Solar Run needed a fresh angle — something journalists hadn’t heard a hundred times before. The challenge was to position Solar Run as an authority in renewable energy, without spending a cent on paid link building. This included:

• Earning quality backlinks from high-authority Australian publications.
• Reaching a national audience with a story that positioned Solar Run as a thought leader.
• Driving organic brand visibility that translated into trust — and ultimately, more leads.

There was one more twist: this would be UR Digital’s first-ever digital PR campaign. No past media relationships. No standard procedures to lean on. It was a proof-of-concept as much as it was a client project.

We decided the way in wasn’t to shout louder — it was to say something new.

The breakthrough idea came from rethinking a simple question: What makes a suburb “green”?

Traditionally, it’s been about tree cover or parkland. But what if we defined “green” by the uptake of solar energy? It was a fresh, data-backed narrative that tied perfectly into Solar Run’s brand and the national conversation about energy independence.

Step 1: Building the dataset

We scraped and analysed solar installation data from the Clean Energy Council, covering January 2020 to December 2023. Every Australian suburb was ranked by the number of solar installations. The data was cleaned, checked, and prepared for storytelling — including year-on-year comparisons and state-by-state breakdowns.

Step 2: Turning numbers into a story

We had the complete data with the suburbs ranked and charted. The problem? A ranking table is just numbers. We turned it into a full report:

• Visual suburb rankings
• State leaderboards
• Eye-catching maps and charts
• Key insights that made the dataset easy to digest for both the public and journalists

We published the findings on a dedicated “Australia’s Greenest Suburbs” landing page, built for both readability and SEO.

Step 3: Crafting the pitch

Once the pillar article was ready for take off, we wrote a press release framed around a simple, headline-ready hook: Australia’s Greenest Suburbs Revealed – Solar Energy Edition. Using Medianet, we distributed it directly to journalists and editors in sustainability, property, and general news.

Step 4: Hitting the right targets

Rather than mass-blasting, we targeted:

• National newsrooms
• State-based outlets looking for localised angles
• Niche renewable energy publications
• Real estate and property media (who saw the suburb rankings as lifestyle and investment news)

The story’s angle gave every outlet something local to latch onto — and that’s exactly what they did.

The campaign landed harder than we’d imagined.

• Backlinks: 30 high-authority backlinks (average DA 70+) in under four weeks.
• Coverage: Featured on Channel 7 News, PerthNow, Time Out,com.au, iHeart Radio, RealEstate.com.au, PV Magazine, and dozens of other outlets — with coverage in every Australian state except the Northern Territory.
• Traffic: 30,000 impressions and 1,000 new website visitors during the campaign period.
• SEO Win: Achieved a Google Australia featured snippet for “greenest suburbs,” outranking a major competitor in location-based sustainability data.
• Lead Impact: Solar Run reported a measurable lift in enquiries, with potential customers referencing the campaign when contacting the brand.