5 Tips for Small Businesses who are doing their own PR
By Amy Billington, Founder of Lucky 8 PR
GET IN THEIR HEADS
The key to a successful PR campaign is taking the time to understand who your target customer is. This is the first step in putting together a PR strategy for your business. It’s important to get into the heads of your customers and understand who they are, what’s important to them? What influences them to shop? How much are they willing to spend? What are they reading? This will help you narrow down which media publications and which social media influencers and VIPs you will want to reach out to to ensure you’re getting in front of your target customers. It’s no use being featured by an influencer with 1 million followers if they are 1 million of the wrong followers. Targeted campaigns with the end customer in mind always bring a better return for your efforts!
2. WHAT DO YOU WANT TO ACHIEVE?
Think about what you want to achieve with PR. Many of my clients say they want to be seen in Vogue however; often their target customers aren’t even Vogue readers. I understand where they are coming from though as being featured in established, household name, aspirational media titles does bring your brand a certain amount of brand gravitas. Whether it’s Vogue, Forbes or The Sunday Times, a small brand can be featured in one of these established titles and though it may not always bring you a huge amount of sales it does build customer trust to be recommended by such well-known media. Being aligned with these media brands also can help if you’re looking to get your brand stocked with retailers, or if you’re looking to form collaborations with other more established businesses. It proves there is already a buzz going about your brand and respected publications are willing to recommend you.
3. DO YOUR RESEARCH
Once you have narrowed down your media list make sure you do your research on those publications. Identify the right journalists who you think would respond well to your brand whether that’s due to their personal interests or it just fits perfectly with the pages they contribute to. Get on their social media and find out what they are interested in. What have they written about or featured in the past? Do they have a holiday coming up which your brand might be perfect for? Are they obsessed with wellness and nutrition? Great skincare? You might just pick up a good opener with them to show you’ve really thought about the placement. This goes just as much for social media influencers as it does journalists.
4. BE READY AND MAKE A GOOD FIRST IMPRESSION
Not to pile on the pressure but you only get one chance to make a good impression with a journalist or influencer so make sure your brand is ready. Have your website, social media channels, photography and samples (if you are promoting a product) ready as journalists work on tight turnarounds and are used to brands having PR tools at their finger tips.
A good press release and email pitch is key here. If you’re not confident with your writing skills then employ the services of a brilliant PR (hello!) or a PR copywriter. Your email pitch should be short, digestible and communicate your brand’s key messages followed by your press release, which will include more detail. Make suggestions to where you see your brand fitting; suggest a section they contribute to even. Journalists are busy and get a lot of emails everyday so you want to communicate what you need to say within the first few lines.
Your brand is a personality in itself so ensure your brand’s voice, brand values and USPs are consistent across all your platforms including your press release.
5. FORWARD PLAN
Ensure you’re not missing any obvious opportunities and put together a PR calendar. Here you can include major consumer holidays from Valentine’s Day to Christmas, and new launches you are releasing throughout the year. Remember that monthly glossy titles can work 3 months ahead so if you’re dying to be included in that Valentine’s Day round up, you will need to be getting on media radars in the Autumn previous. Short lead press such as national newspapers, supplements and online can work anywhere from a few weeks ahead to next day so ensure you factor those lead times in so you don’t miss anything!
Amy Billington is the Founder of Lucky 8 PR, a London based agency providing PR and creative services to fashion and lifestyle brands.
With over 12 years experience working with new launches and high street labels to worldwide brands Amy Billington-Li launched Lucky 8 PR, a small but perfectly formed agency dedicated to providing exceptional multi-platform PR campaigns.