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How to do your own PR and get results!
Getting your story in the press is a great way to get your message out there, raise awareness of your brand and even generate sales. But there’s lots of competition for those column inches, in print or online. How do you get your story to stand out and get the coverage you’re aiming for? Here are my tips for doing your own PR.
1. Be Social
PR stands for Press or Public Relations - the emphasis is on relations. Go out and build relationships either through social networks, attending events or picking up the phone and getting out meeting people.
Use social media like Twitter, Facebook and Instagram to build your fans and advocates and they will do your job for you telling their friends and spreading the word.
Connect with relevant journalists on social media or seek them out at events you attend (press badges are often easy to spot). Don’t be afraid to introduce yourself and hand over a business card or better still a sample. You’ve then got a good excuse to follow up with them.
2. Be an Expert
Whether you are a cheesemaker or an insurance broker you have expertise in what you. If you demonstrate this expertise through a blog or social media journalists will identify you as someone to speak to in their research. For example if you are an vegetable grower and blog about the impact of a wet spring on the asparagus harvest and share that opinion on social media or even send it direct to the press, journalists may call for a further comment to quote in their piece.
3. Be an authority
Make sure you know your facts, have some figures to hand, journalists love data, such as the size of the UK asparagus market or your own increased volume of asparagus sales over the last five years. Have an opinion and don’t be afraid to share it.
4. Be targeted
Do your research. Buy the newspapers or magazines and spend time looking at online publications. Think about their approach and themes. What do they cover and what don’t they cover? How can you make your story relevant to them? It’s often worth having several angles of the same story up your sleeve, for example one for the local media that focusses on the local connections, one for the national food press and one for the trade press.
Create a list of the relevant journalists by reading the magazines or papers. Magazines usually have a boiler plate at the front with names of key staff and some contact details. Papers can be a bit harder to get contact details for but google is a powerful tool and you’ll be surprised how often you can track down someone’s email address! You can always pick up the phone and ask who is the relevant person.
Build a database - keep a record of the names and contact details of your target list of journalists. Keep a record of what you have sent them and when and a note of how they responded. The more information you can add the better and don’t forget to keep it up to date.
A scattergun approach doesn't work. Think carefully before sending your news - is it relevant to that person or publication. Make the covering email personal and highlight why you think it is relevant to them.
4. Be concise
Whether you’re telling your business story face-to-face or writing a press release you have a just a minute to get your audience's attention.
I still regularly think about an acronym I learned 20 years ago: AIDA which stands of Attention, Interest, Desire, Action. You need to get your readers attention, engage their interest and encourage them to take action whether that's buying your product or writing about you.
Journalists receive dozens of emails a day and many will go unread so make sure you get a compelling heading in the email subject line to get their attention and make sure they’ve not lost interest by the time they get to the key part of your message. Think about the key points you want to get across (sometimes called the top line), why should they be interested and don’t forget the what, where, why and when.
A press release shouldn’t be more than a few paragraphs long and fit on one side of A4 (and this doesn’t mean size 8 font!). Make it easy to read with good line spacing. You can add a few notes on a second page and don’t forget to include your contact details.
5. Be newsworthy
A press release is not a sales pitch. Don’t over-hype the story or exaggerate - be genuine and honest. Write objectively as if you were writing something you’d read in a paper or magazine.
Think about what makes it a story that they’ll cover (this will depend on the type of publication). Do you have data or research that shows a new trend or a nutrition benefit to your product? Do you have tips to share or inspiring recipes.
6. Be visual
Include one or two photos as thumbnails in the copy. Have good quality high resolution images to hand. Dropbox is a great way to store and share high resolution files. Include links to to Dropbox or offer to share them on request.
7. Be smart
Make it easy for the journalist. Put the story in the email and don’t assume that they will open an attachment. If you send an attachment send it as a pdf document that can be opened on any platform.
8. BE APPROACHABLE
Remember to include your contact details and offer to answer any questions or send samples.
Invite them to visit you or meet for a coffee. Journalists are real people and this is all about building relationships.
9. BE PERSISTENT
Silence doesn’t mean rejection - journalists are busy and often inundated. If you don’t receive a response it’s fine to follow up after a few days or a week but avoid becoming a pest by chasing them too many times, that won’t yield results.
If they are not interested in your story ask them if it’s ok to send them other news in the future and ask them what sort of things would be relevant to them.
If you would like more advice or help about PR do get in touch, I'd be happy to help!
How to be successful at Food Festivals
If you are a food or drink business thinking of taking part in a food festival here are my top tips which I hope will help!
FOOD FESTIVAL TOP TIPS
1. Understand the different kinds of festival
Food festivals fall into three categories:
- Authentic festivals which celebrate local food, farming, and cooking (e.g. Abergavenny, Ludlow and Aldeburgh). These festivals are not commercial, no big brand names but they do attract a good engaged audience.
- Trade shows for the food sector like Speciality Fine Food Fair or the Farm Shop & Deli Show are an opportunity to meet buyers from independent retailers, wholesalers and supermarkets. They are expensive to attend but can be a worthwhile investment it if you are looking to grow your business; it’s often worth the cost in the long term.
- Commercial consumer shows such as Foodies, BBC Good Food and Taste Festivals - these are my least favourite! Visitors go for a day out, often to eat and drink and try as many samples as they can. They tend to be expensive to take part in. If you sell alcohol or street food they can be fun, but if you're selling fresh or store-cupboard food I'd give these a miss.
2. Do your research
It’s important to research and visit food festivals before you book yourself in. Talk to other producers who’ve taken part in shows before. The food community is supportive and collaborative so they are likely to want to help. It’s also worth giving the organisers a call. Find out who the typical visitor will be, visitor numbers and if buyers or press are attending.
3. Set your objectives
What do you want to get out of attending - do you want to just make a profit on the things you sell that day, is it about reaching a new audience to raise awareness about your brand or is it to meet buyers from retailers or wholesalers, or chefs.
These are all good reasons to take part in shows, but you are unlikely to achieve all three in one go!
4. Work out the overall cost
Do you need accommodation for you and the team and will you make enough to cover the cost of petrol to travel 200 miles?
Don't forget all the costs involved, many shows charge extra for electricity, so if you have a product that needs to be refrigerated or power for laptops do make sure you factor this in.
If you're aiming to make a profit be sure to factor all these costs in.
5. Think about stand presentation
Do a test run at home, set up a stand and try arranging things in different ways. Get friends to give you feedback. Build height into your stall and use props to give it life. Have clear signage and labelling to make it easy for people to see what you are selling. A pop up banner that tells your story and provenance costs under £100 to produce and is a worthwhile investment.
5. Build up loyalty once you’re at a show
Run a prize draw so you can collect email addresses and send out an email newsletter. This will help you keep in touch with customers and get feedback. For instance, your newsletter can be sent to people who attended a particular show and could then link to Survey Monkey to get feedback on your products from that show. You can also then tell people what other shows you are attending or where they can buy your products.
6. Find ways to draw people to your stand
Encourage people to taste things - it makes it easy to engage with people and draws them to your stand. They may not stop and look otherwise. If you’re selling food, it’s all about the senses, so people need to be able to see, touch and taste the product. The sort of people who go to food shows are into exploring and discovering – and it’s a great way to get your product out there and get people to try it.
7. Tell your story
Engage with people as they pass by and find ways to open conversation with them. There's nothing more off-putting than seeing someone behind a stand, sitting down, on their phone, looking like they'd rather not be there! Ask them questions to open up a conversation and create an opportunity to tell them your story.
If you're not there to run the stand yourself, then make sure the person who is can to talk to people about the products and your brand story too.
