The basics for doing your own PR
There are four main areas that can help you achieve a winning edge in business using PR:
1) Don't skip your planning
2) Don't forget the basics
3) Be newsworthy and appropriate
4) Practice
So taking each one in turn, lets look at what you need to do in detail:-
1) Don't skip your planning.
Take a look at where you are now, what do current customers and prospects think about you and your business? Do a mini reputation audit, surf the net to see what others are saying about you in blogs and forums or run a quick survey (try surveymonkey.com for a free facility). Is everyone aware of your current product offering and are they making accurate assumptions about your organisation?
Decide where you want to be. Have a goal and be specific.
Who do you need to reach to achieve that goal? Is it the current type of customer you have (just more of them) or is it a different group entirely? Which media do they consume, think print (local, national and trade or specialist), broadcast (radio and TV) or online?
What do you want to say? Have consistent key messages that everyone in your organisation knows about and make sure these follow through in your pictures. If you're saying you're friendly and approachable, don't have a stern-looking head and shoulders shot.
How are you going to do it? When composing stories, ask yourself why now and why me? What is it about the story that makes it news, and why should you be telling the story and not one of your competitors?
2) Don't forget the basics.
Make sure you have good pictures for print and online and good audio clips if working on the radio if your organisation is doing something sound related eg a band, or an artist with a sound installation.
Make sure you are always available for media opportunities. Rearrange other meetings if you have to because if you decline, you may never get another shot.
Be coherent and interesting, believe in what you are saying.
Take the low hanging fruit if you don't have much time to devote to PR, as long as it is reaching your target audience and it is saying what you want it to. So letters, regular features such as business profiles and expert advice are all useful and needed all the time by reporters.
3) Be newsworthy and appropriate.
Make sure what you are saying is timely. If you win a competition and issue a release a week later, it is less likely to be covered, especially if other people that won things at the same time issued their news the day after. You can draft the release before the announcement, even have the email set up ready to go to your preferred journalists, then as soon as you hear, press send and make sure you have a picture taken with the award as soon as you can. Or consider whether a press release under embargo may be the way forward, issued before the ceremony if you have the organiser's permission.
Choose to send your story to publications that are likely to cover it, or make it into a story that your chosen media will want to cover. So check that it is within their geographical and subject areas as well as being the scale of what they would normally cover in terms of value of contract, size of business and so on. Make sure you have read the publication (call ad sales and ask for a sample copy if it is not freely available), or listened to/watched the programme. There's few things more insulting to a journalist than when you have to admit you want them to cover your story but you haven't even bothered to pick up a copy of the paper.
4) Practice
Phone conversations ‘selling in' your story can be nerve-wracking if you have never done it before. So practice with your friend/colleague/partner, they can be everything from friendly reporter to weary and irritable news editor. That way you can practice what you would say in given situations. And when it comes to doing phone, radio or face-to-face interviews, a lot of people feel their first one or two interviews are terrible. So make sure your first one is a practice with a mate, and not live on air! Watch your breathing (breathe from your diaphragm not your chest, you'll sound calmer), smile if the story allows it (even on the phone or radio, it really does come across), don't fidget (hold your own hands out of sight if necessary) and keep your key messages on a card nearby if you need to.
If you follow the advice here, you'll have a basic PR strategy that will help you remain focused on your goals and messages and who you really need to talk to, plus help you choose appropriate stories and publications. Once you've had a practice, you're ready to go. If you feel a little nervous about it then there's always outsourcing your PR to a consultant, or consider coaching, which is one-to-one support on all the areas talked about here but takes a considerable smaller budget.
Clare Trenholm runs Paperclip Communications, based in Liverpool, providing a voice for others when they need it most. Visit http://www.paperclipcommunications.co.uk/ for more details or call 0151 244 5427.
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