For any consumer technology firm, product reviews and launch coverage are a vital part of the product sales life cycle, attracting early adopters to purchase the product on the day of launch.

This is something Firefly Comms recently helped Crucial to achieve, through the launch of its consumer-focused solid-state drive (SSD) the BX200. This new SSD is designed to start weaning people off slower, less energy efficient hard drives, which in turn slow down desktops and laptops. SSDs are easy to install as a replacement for your hard drive, and with prices constantly falling, they’re becoming a cheaper option to extend the life of your PC or laptop.

To fully maximise this launch opportunity, Firefly created a strategic review programme targeting the right publications. This didn’t necessarily mean going to the sites with the most readers, but the sites read by those most likely to purchase a new SSD, or those with an ageing hard drive that they were itching to replace. Firefly was also keen to help the Crucial BX200 appear highly in search results, so was keen to target websites that had a high domain authority. This would help the Crucial BX200 SSD appear higher in search terms like "SSD reviews", "Best SSD", "PC upgrades" and "hard drive replacement".

Firefly set up product briefings with key press and also shared product samples for review weeks in advance, to ensure reviews and news coverage was hitting on the same day.

Firefly secured 10 pre-launch product briefings with tier one press, which helped to achieve four day one reviews on eTeknix, bit-tech, Hardware Heaven and Vortez, and over 20 pieces of news coverage, including articles in TechRadar, The Register, The Inquirer, KitGuru, HEXUS and Tech Power Up.

Review samples were given to 100% of tier one media, with news coverage appearing in over 70% of tier one media publications. In total, the Crucial BX200 launch reached an audience of over 30m people.