Founder Of International Agency Believe Advertising & PR | Best-Selling Author| Helping Entrepreneurs Gain Global Media Coverage
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Your audience’s first impression of you is important and can determine how successful or unsuccessful your marketing is. With the ever-growing digital age, public relations has become an even more important arm of any business’s marketing arsenal. While no two businesses are alike, these essential PR tips that I have learned over the past two decades of working in the industry can help you get started on the right foot.
Begin by understanding your company’s mission. What do you want your audience to take away from your message? Are you promoting a product or service? Advocating for a cause? Trying to improve customer satisfaction? Knowing what your company stands for will help you target your messaging more effectively.
Keep your messaging clear and concise. You don’t have time to waste on unclear or convoluted ideas. Your goal is to get your points across as quickly and easily as possible so that people can understand and act on them.
Communicate with the media. With the advent of social media, it’s easier than ever for reporters to find out about new developments in your industry and connect with you directly. Make sure you’re following up with them regularly and providing them with timely information that will interest them (and potentially bring in more readers or viewers).
Be ready to defend your position. People have strong opinions about their own industries and will often launch attacks against industry players they don’t agree with. So it’s especially important that you’re well prepared to respond in a manner that doesn’t make people defensive.
Get organized and create a publicity calendar. This will help you identify upcoming events and opportunities as well as plan your communications accordingly.
Keep track of what you’ve accomplished by documenting your progress regularly. Be it the editors you pitched your press release to and your responses, to the amount of coverage you received that week, this will help you stay accountable and motivated, ensuring that your PR efforts are effective from start to finish. You’ll feel more satisfied handling the massive projects when you’ve completed the small ones.
Know your data. Public relations is all about data. And the more data you have, the better your decision-making will be. For example, when an influencer does a post for you on social media, you can check how many likes, comments and shares were received so you can compare which influencers are gaining the most amount of attention for you. Data can also help you determine which media outlets to reach out to. If the majority of your consumers are in London, New York or Sydney, for example, then you know you should be focusing your PR efforts on reaching the press in each of these three cities.
Set your goals. What are you trying to achieve? What are your specific objectives? Once you know those things, you can start to look at PR data in a way that will help you achieve them.
Do your research. One of the most important steps in any PR campaign is market research. It’s the key to uncovering who your target audience is, what their needs and wants are and how best to reach them.
Develop a public relations plan for your brand. Creating a public relations plan is an essential step in ensuring your brand is successful. PR plans can consist of what’s trending each month and deadlines for journalists for special issues—for example, Christmas gift guides for monthly magazines start getting produced in July. The plan can also include your key press contacts that you will be targeting each month and the newsworthy angle that you will be pitching to each of them. By planning ahead, you can set up systems and processes that will help you promote your company effectively.
If you’re looking to get more hands-on with your PR work, consider signing up for PR courses offered by universities or educational institutions. Both have the potential to give you a deeper understanding of the industry and enable you to develop specific skill sets relevant to public relations. Or reach out to professionals in the industry that you know for coaching. I often coach startups and entrepreneurs on media training skills and how they can boost their PR themselves. Networking is key for finding new opportunities and expanding your knowledge base.
Public relations can be a tricky and intimidating field, but it doesn’t have to be. With the right approach, you can hit the ground running and start making an impact on your company’s image and reputation. Outlined above are 10 essential public relations tips that will help you get started. If you’re ready to take your PR to the next level, these tips will be just what you need.
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