Planning your own PR Campaign
Many new or small businesses do not have the budget to employ the services of a PR professional. The following is a basic guide to planning your own PR campaign:
1. Determine what you want to achieve from public relations?
2. Decide on your core messages – what do you want people to know/think about you, your business, your products or services.
3. Decide on your target audience – think about what a typical customer looks like. You may be looking to target different customer profiles so again plan accordingly, perhaps coming up with different strategies and tactics depending on your target audience.
4. Determine what media (both on and offline) your target audience is reading.
5. Put together a media list and find out all relevant contacts (names, phone numbers, email addresses. Get copies of the newspapers/magazines etc and make sure you know the different sections, journalists, deadlines etc.
6. Start looking to develop relationships with key journalists working in your target media. It’s okay to pick up the phone and ask who is responsible for certain pages/sections and ask if they have time for you to run a story suggestion past them. They may not always oblige but keep trying, be polite and develop a thick skin!
7. Link your PR activity in with any wider marketing strategy so that all of your messages are integrated.
8. Have a brainstorming session with colleagues, friends or family – come up with potential story ideas and think outside the box. Look at every element of your business which might present you with a PR opportunity – your products, services, people, personal stories and background, business and financial news, activity within the local community, client and customer case studies etc.
9. Invest in good quality photography whether that is of your products or your people or when covering an event. You can take your own images with a digital camera but it is really worth employing he services of a professional photographer to create a stock of high quality images which can be sent out to media – especially if you are looking to gain editorial coverage of any products. For product shots media tend to prefer cut outs rather than staged lifestyle shots. Find a good creative photographer and stick with them.
10. Depending on your type of business, it is worth contacting target journalists to put your name forward as an expert or spokesperson on relevant topics.
11. Look at some sample press releases issued by PR professionals (please contact Michele@michelehartpr.co.uk for examples and advice on press release writing). Good grammar, spelling and a strong, fluent writing style which tells the main points of the ‘story’ in the headline and opening paragraph are essential. You can include background on your business under Editor’s Notes at the bottom of a press release and always include a contact name, telephone number and email address on your press release.
12. If you have a blog or a website then do include the details on your press release. If you don’t, peak to someone now about how to create an effective website or blog and use this as a PR tool wherever possible.
13. Use social media (Facebook, Twitter etc) to direct people to your blog/website/news stories/updates/images.
14. Network whenever possible as PR is all about telling a story, not just to media, but to everyone you meet.
15. Don’t overlook radio and television. Radio in particular can offer some great opportunities to talk about you, your business and your products or services. Find out which radio stations are relevant to you are your target audience and examine programme schedules to determine which ones might be interested in using you as a guest.
16. Reader offers and competitions are a great way of telling people about products or services you offer. Speak to newspaper, magazine and website editors about the chances of running these, what their minimum prize values are and if you can data capture competition entrants’ details for future marketing purposes.
17. Send out product to key journalists for them to try. Include details with the product (EG. retail stockists, rrp, your website address, business background etc) and strong photography. If you offer a service can you persuade a journalist to trial it for free and ask if they will write about their experience?
18. Choose a local charity or cause and get involved. Make sure it is relevant to your business and then work with this cause to help raise both your profile and your credentials within your local community.
19. Determine how much time you realistically have to devote to PR as it can be a time consuming exercise and often requires a lot of hard work before you begin reaping the rewards. Also remember that a sustained campaign over a period of time (and one that is integrated into a wider marketing strategy) will prove more effective than just trying to do things ad hoc.
20. Once you have determined your PR strategy, budget and resources, plan this out carefully over 12 months and make sure that PR is given the same priority as other elements of your business planning.
No comments:
Post a Comment