Practical PR That Really Gets Results                                     Home

The really great thing about PR is that it’s free (or at least it can be).  Public Relations is all about good communication.  Successful businesses often portray themselves in such a positive way that old customers are influenced to remain loyal and new customers are influenced to try them out.  Remember perception IS reality – when someone perceives you to be good, trustworthy, or fun to deal with, then that is what you become to them. Easy! 

Essentially you can sum up PR with two points: 

1. Get the good stuff in

                             And crucially…..

2. Keep the bad stuff out.

In this article we will focus on the first item, as item 2 is a little more specialised. 

GETTING THE GOOD STUFF IN 

This isn’t as hard as it sounds. Firstly, as in all good business strategy, know your target market.  I once worked with a large financial institution who assumed their customers were broadsheet readers.  When the PR team were advised to conduct a survey of existing customers the senior management were bowled over to discover that 90% of their customer base were, in fact, red top readers! This meant that all the PR work they had carried out so far had fallen on deaf ears (or blind eyes!). 

When you know who you want to reach then you can decide which would be the best type of media to get your message across, i.e. print or broadcast (or sometimes both).  You will also need to decide whether your message is dominated by gender, age, business, race, in short, anything that will give you an edge with the publication you’re targeting.  For example, if your product is largely for young women, you would target glossy magazines, e-magazines, women’s supplements in newspapers and court make up and fashion journalists.  

A good PR tip, however, is to always start with your local market.  If you’re a small business this is invaluable.  Local newspapers are a fantastic way to get yourself known at a grass roots level and are usually more than willing to listen, providing you have something interesting to say.  Moreover, most people really trust their local papers so building up good links with these journalists can really pay off.  It’s important always to offer the journalist an ‘angle’.  Say for example you plan to open up a new restaurant locally.  As well as the usual launch night for  VIP’s you could get some glamorous, fun people on the streets in branded t-shirts handing out samples of your food to passers by.  Let the local newspaper/radio station know and offer to run a competition in conjunction with them.  This will almost guarantee you coverage and build up good will between you and the journalist. One beauty salon I worked with offered a free facial worth £75 as a prize at a charity ball run by the local radio station.  This resulted in  weeks of ‘radio mentions’ as well as a regular slot giving beauty advice to their listeners!!   

Some excellent ways to get noticed are: 

1. Take to the streets.  As in the restaurant story previously. 
2. Run regular competitions along with your local newspaper or radio station.
3. Be against something – pick something topical in your area and set yourself against it from an industry point of view.  For example if the council are increasing parking charges make sure your company is first in line to voice disapproval. (it will penalise shoppers, damage the towns reputation as visitor friendly, bad for local business etc).
4. Stunts – a great way to get noticed by the media.  To celebrate 10 years in business volunteer to bungee jump for charity. The headline “Local Business Man/Woman Bungee Jumps for Joy” is much more interesting than “Local Business Celebrates 10 Years Trading”.
5. Sponsorship-Volunteer to sponsor local awards ceremonies and indeed put yourself forward for as many industry awards as you can.
6. Work in Conjunction with a Charity.  Pick a local charity and dedicate your business to fund raising for it.  Have fun days where everyone has to pay a pound to wear jeans or have a mad hair etc.  Remember to let the local media know.
7. Offer yourself as Guest Speaker – if you are an expert in your field or have a rags to riches business story to tell make sure people know about it.  Most clubs/network groups like this are delighted to have experienced business people talk at their meetings.  Again, take some pictures and let the local media know!
8. Become an Industry Expert – Get to know the business/consumer correspondent in your local paper/radio station and make sure you offer yourself as an industry expert in your area.  If, for example you are a business accountant, you could comment on financial issues in your local business pages.  If you are a hairdresser, you could offer top tips for hot summer hair!!

 Getting noticed at a regional level often has a snowball effect.  Your local TV station will often pick up stories from your local paper and national papers often scour local ones to see if there is anything of wider interest in them.  

Try, also, to put yourself in a journalists shoes.  If you make it easy for them to run your story you’ll have a much better chance of getting featured.  They have deadlines to meet and pages to fill and if you can help them, become someone they call on for comment, then you’re home and dry. 

And lastly remember Murphy! – with the best will in the world your fantastic PR campaign will mean nothing if somebody of national importance dies (think Queen Mother, Princess Diana) or if there is a major disaster (terrorist attack, floods). If there is even a hint of anything like this in the air before you launch a campaign – pull it and wait for the furore to die down.  In PR terms a quiet news week is always your best bet.

Back Home