PR is the Art & Science of marketing your Brand and Business

Public Relations (“PR”) is often thought of as a tool used by the “big players” – large brands or companies that can afford to invest time,money and employees in such marketing “luxuries”. The truth is, PR is every bit as important (and accessible) for a small business as it is for the big fish.

Today, PR is the art & science of marketing your brand and business not only to traditional media sources, but, also, to bloggers and influencers with a large social media following. The goals of today’s PR remain the same, only the methods are evolving (or growing).

It is important to understand the role of PR is to build relationships and promote brand visibility, all part of an integrated marketing effort, it will also help to increase the impact of other plan activities of your marketing campaign such as a direct mail, social media, and networking.

Three key areas of Public Relations for Your Small Business

There are three key areas of public relations you can use to boost your advertising results ten-fold over your paid advertising.

The key to public relations lie in:

• Public relation or publicity
• Merchandising
• Promotions

With a solid plan in place that encompasses all these areas, you’ll have a great approach to use public relations in the best way possible. Public relations include all that is the media. Don’t limit yourself. The attention of newspapers, television, radio, magazines, bloggers, ezines, youtube stars and more are all equally powerful. Online marketing is just as, if not more, important as conventional media.

Get Noticed by the Media

Here are the steps to get noticed by the media:

1. Put together a press release for your company. The press release should be relevant to your target market and address consumer interest, not just announce your business.

2. Compact your press release to include one hook and one angle. Choose the most attention-getting to make sure the media person you are sending it to is interested in reading it.

3. Put your press release in professional formatting. With press releases you need a dateline, the most important information at the top, facts, figures and wrap it up with contact details including who and how. Print the press release on your letterhead.

4. Send your press release to all television and radio stations, local and metro newspapers, national newspapers, industry magazines, and any other form of media that reaches your target market. Don’t forgot to include relevant blogs, ezines, press release submission sites and to industry professionals.

More important than a perfect press release is to make sure you have addressed the needs of your target market in the products/services you offer and made that clear in the press release. If you are provided people a solution to a problem, a way to avoid a problem and an opportunity to enhance their life the media and public will be interested.

If you have a connection (or the ability to get a connection) with a celebrity, this can practically guarantee you’ll get attention. Make sure you are offered newsworthy information, and then follow up with media outlets to make sure they are publicizing that information.

“One of the most powerful techniques every business should use is free publicity. As the name implies, there is no cost, just the time and effort required to attract attention to your business.” Jay Abraham

Although the easiest way to maximize your PR plan is to outsource it to an established PR & marketing professional, our FREE test drive can show you how to put together press releases that work! Checkout how the pro’s do it and craft the perfect press releases for your business.

Sean McCarthy is a Certified Business Coach and the Founder of Loveland, CO -based Colorado Coaching Company.  Coaching can take place in person, over the phone or online. If you need help growing your business, shifting your mindset, call or email Sean at (970) 541-1099 or [email protected] to schedule your initial strategy session.