Sitting behind my desk with my broken ankle propped up, feeling rather sorry for myself, I thought that I would take a break from my emails, and write my next post.
Today, I would like to share a few DIY PR tips, for any of my LinkedIn connections that cannot afford the services of a PR professional. It amazes me that advertising is a standard business tool, which is even included in Pastel software, but PR – especially for newly launched companies, is hardly ever considered.
While advertising certainly has its place, PR is a very powerful tool, especially for newly launched companies that have little to no budget for marketing. It is a very credible source of marketing, as the message comes from a third party – the media – and not directly from the company.
I have listed a few PR tips for companies that want to start communicating with the media:
- Make a list of the publications that you want to target. Call them up, and find out who would be the correct person to send motivations through for editorials. Call that person and introduce yourself and your company, ask them if they have a list of features for the year ahead that they can send you, and if they are happy for you to send through motivations for editorials moving forward. Try and build a relationship with them, even take them for coffee or lunch if you get the chance.
- The features list is very important. It will give you a list of topics that the publications are working on for the rest of the year. Look through the list and identify the features that your business fits into, and make a note of the editorial deadline. You then need to think of topics / angles for the relevant features (as newsworthy as possible), and send motivations to get the journalist interested in interviewing you for the feature.
- If a journalist uses your story or interviews you, please remember to thank them! A bunch of flowers goes a long way, and the better the relationship is with the journalist, the more likely they are to feature your company again.
This is just a starting point, and once your business is booming from all the leads that these articles generate, you need to look into hiring a professional PR person to take the campaign to the next level. You know where to find me when this happens!
Good luck, and I hope that these tips help in some way.
