Generating good PR – a guide for small businesses & charities
Building brand awareness through good publicity is crucial for businesses and charities. One effective approach is utilising press releases. Journalists still rely on press releases for news, so craft press releases that are newsworthy, timely, and full of impact.
For anyone wanting to build brand awareness, good publicity remains a cornerstone of the wider PR strategy.
Your all-important digital marketing and messaging will be even more effective when tied in with the bigger PR picture – and publicity, online or in good old-fashioned print, gives a third-party seal of approval that can’t be beaten.
But when you’re a smaller business or charity, with a smaller budget and team, where do you start and what should you prioritise?
The press release
This remains the best way to get your story told – journalists still rely on press releases as a trusted source of news. Newsrooms are busy places, so receiving a good story, packaged in a good press release and accompanied by a good photo, is a big help that will go a long way to winning you coverage.
The act of writing your press release can be hugely advantageous to your business or charity too – because you’ll end up with one succinct document detailing all of your key messaging and agreed across your team.
And this can then be re-purposed for your website, newsletters, emails and social media channels.
Golden rules:
- Make sure it’s newsworthy – Above all else, your press release has to be ‘news’.
To be newsworthy it needs to be timely, relevant and impactful. Press releases that are ready to be copied and pasted, with little editing and all the info, quotes and images provided, make busy journalists happy. But they have to tell a really good story too.
If it’s not a new announcement or upcoming event, consider a human interest angle, because stories that are unique, compelling, inspiring, amusing, or otherwise have emotional impact or appeal will climb the news agenda.
- Make sure it has a photo – A story needs an image – especially in today’s digital age, and providing one boosts your chances of your story being picked up. Be creative in your photo or video set-up – and call on a professional if you can’t produce high-quality visuals in-house.
- Make sure it reaches the right person, at the right time – It’s so important to spend time researching your contacts so that your story reaches the right people, and at the right time to meet their deadlines (which can be way in advance). Always avoid mass, impersonal mailouts. Make an effort to get to know the journalists you’re contacting and the content that they publish. Remember that local newspapers are fiercely geographic – if you’re out of area (even just a little) you are not relevant to their audience. If you want to get on radio or on a Podcast, let them know you have a confident speaker ready to go on air. If you want to get on TV, you need to pitch a package they can ‘see’ on film.
Wider PR strategy
Think of your press release as a great foundation to build the rest of your PR strategy on.
You can pop it on your website, share it in your newsletters and email campaigns, tie-in any paid advertising and be sure to plan your social media around its release and the coverage it generates.
And finally, don’t be afraid to outsource – it can be a really cost-effective way for small businesses and charities to maximise their reach and ensure their PR & marketing planning is prioritised.
Clare Fitzsimmons
Clare started her career as a journalist before moving on to become the youngest UK newspaper editor. Based in Stratford-upon-Avon, in 2009, she founded Park Lane Public Relations Ltd. Clare’s company has grown to offer full marketing packages
