Photo. Amanda Vaisigano is a PR Consultant and Mentor who makes PR accessible to small businesses
PR is the rarely discussed, and rather curious beast that is often the force behind brands that suddenly skyrocket in growth. It’s a hidden lever that creates visibility and makes an unknown name, a familiar and trusted brand.
Although the PR industry can be incredibly confusing from the outside, the reality is that it's a craft that any business owner with a story to tell, can wrap their head around.
Which is just as well – because hiring a PR agency comes with a price tag many small and start-up Kiwi businesses simply cannot justify. However, what many small businesses lack in financial resource, they are willing to invest in time, grit and persistence.
If you’re wanting to work PR into your marketing efforts for 2020, here’s my five-step formula to help you give PR a crack.
1. Understand the lay of the land
The first thing you’ll need to do to generate value from your PR efforts lies in understanding how the New Zealand media landscape works.
It’s important you have a good grasp of how busy journalists, editors, producers and publishers are and study up on lead times and pitch timeframes to ensure you’re reaching out with timely information.
Once you have a clear insight into who the outlet your pitching to is owned by, what their deadlines are, the large workloads they tackle daily, and the limited budgets they do so on - it gives you context about how to navigate the landscape.
It’s important to have compassion and understand the nuances of the media realm including etiquette, respect and relationship building. At its core, it’s simply about being a good person.
2. Building relationships and networks
Relationship building is the cornerstone of public relations. Like any great relationship, the foundation of success is trust. It takes a good dose of time, genuine engagement and thoughtful content to develop this trust.
PR should be a value exchange with the media outlets you want to work with. You’re giving them something they want that is going to serve their audiences, and in exchange they are giving you the attention of their listeners. So, find people that you can connect to and create mutually beneficial relationships with.
Start by spending plenty of time upfront in researching relevant media outlets and getting to know the journalists and writers personally.
Conduct an online search for news in your industry, create a list of journalists who write the stories that you come across. Learn all you can about these journalists; follow them on Twitter and start thoughtful engagement, set up a Google Alert for the names and read the stories that pop up. If you’re able to – comment on stories demonstrating your expertise and proving your credibility.
As your network takes shape, you’ll begin to discover what each media outlet is likely to publish according to their individual agendas and the context they operate in.
3. Pitch Perfect
The media exists to inform, educate and entertain its audiences. So, when it comes to contemplating your pitch – consider whether you actually have a genuine story to tell. And if you don’t, then it might be worth exploring how you can bake a story into the DNA of your business.
The DNA of a really good pitch includes tons of research, understanding the audience of the outlet you’re pitching to and being really clever in drawing out a link to your business or brand.
Having a fine understanding of the broader political landscape, key dates of any relevance and solid imagery are all added extras likely help your pitch get over the line.
Journos are bored of covering the same topics over and over. The holy grail is a fresh angle on a tired topic. The statement “great stories happen to those who can tell them,” rings true here.
Your pitch should essentially form a bridge between the publication’s needs and your needs, giving clear hints regarding what angle could easily be taken to generate a story that their readers will love and that also tells your story.
4. Choose quality over quantity
The days of spraying out cookie-cutter media releases to every possible journalist are long gone, and this sort of behavior may even see business owners being ignored entirely by some publications. There is nothing more annoying for a journalist than receiving an email about something that’s completely irrelevant, or a topic you just ran an article on.
Instead, try a low-volume, high-quality approach that seeks to tailor content and angles for specific journalists at a limited number of outlets.
You might like to select which ones based on shared business values, their key audience demographic, the numbers they’re likely to receive on the stories they publish or the quality of the relationship you have with a journalist.
5. Be determined
As the saying goes, if at first you don’t succeed, try and try again. And then try again. And again.
PR isn’t a game won by the faint of heart or easily offended.
Remember, media schedules change – new stories pop up and editors cut stories at the last minute. You won’t get responses to every pitch you send out -- even those that were seemingly a perfect fit.
Don’t let this get to you. Continue sending out those pitches, thinking of new angles and going back to editors with alternative ideas, offering different opinions, experts, data or products.
If your story lands flat - don’t be afraid to ask for critical feedback so that you can polish it up for the next time around.
Amanda Vaisigano is a PR Consultant and Mentor who makes PR accessible to small businesses. Email amanda@publicitystudio.co.nz or visit www.publicitystudio..co.nz
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