PR on a Budget
I recently spoke to SPA+CLINIC about how small businesses can achieve meaningful PR results on a low budget which is available to read here.
The response I received from the advice I gave in this piece has been overwhelming and so I wanted to create a more in depth blog post about what PR is, how you can use it in your business, and cost effective ways to achieve your goals and get results.
So, if you’re new to the world of public relations, the first thing you need to understand is what it’s role is. Public relations is essentially the practice of relationship & reputation building. It is essential that an organisation and it’s stakeholders build relationships that are mutually beneficial. PR is about influencing, engaging and building relationships that ultimately shape and frame the publics perception of your organisation. A public relations professional will be able to build strong relationships with media and influential individuals across their career, which allows them closer access to pitch stories and businesses.
As well as navigating important relationships so that you can feed influential voices the narrative that you want to see portrayed, it is also important that public relations professionals are able to predict public attitudes. Anticipating, analysing and interpreting public opinions that arise is important so that you can anticipate their impact and manage issues before they turn into a crisis. In the event that your business does face a crisis situation, your PR managers job is to be on the front foot, managing the situation. This encapsulates media, internal and public communications, written statements, media releases and anything in-between. In this situation and at all times, the job of PR is to protect the reputation of the business.
So, how can you achieve successful PR while on a budget?
- Pitching to the media costs nothing! Whilst it can be difficult to capture their attention if you don’t have a pre-existing relationship, they are always looking for a fresh new take! This I why it’s so important to find your USP (unique selling point), what about how you do business is different? what gap in the market are you filling? what is something that the average person wouldn’t know about your product/processes? This is your hook and what you need to use to catch the medias attention.
- Events are a great way to capture your brand image and perpetrate your ideal reputation. This doesn’t have to be extremely costly but set aside a small budget and spend on the important things that people will really remember. Create a guest list of people who will be important connections for your business in the future (this is not something you should invite clients to). This could be held in your office/clinic/store or wherever it is you work from, have a budget for food/drinks, and educate those in attendance on your brand and mission. Gift something tangible for those who attend to walk away with. A voucher that will bring them back to your business is a great idea, and if they have a great experience they may even be inspired to write about/advertise it.
- Sign up to free websites that advertises for sources that are required on articles that journalists are working on. Wait until one comes through that is relevant to your business and expertise and have your pitch ready to go as they can get snapped up quickly. I keep a general pitch template ready to go that I can edit to make more relevant to the job.
- Pair up with another business or account of a similar size and target audience to you and organise to do a giveaway on Instagram. Be careful to disclose carefully the rules of the giveaway and which account will be announcing winners as there are so many fake accounts these days trying to scam peoples details from giveaways!
These are just a few ways you can achieve low budget public relations that will still generate incredible returns for your business, but don’t stop here! Get creative with your resources and be persistent in your efforts.
Nikki X
