and strutt your stuff
2008 | The 6 Myths Killing Your PR
NEWS: It's not just for breakfast anymore! elizabeth brown - be inpulse branding marketing and design
Myth Number One: You need big news to generate buzz.
You don’t need big news to generate buzz and you don’t need to wait until something earth-shattering is occurring in your business to generate news releases. You do need to start looking at your business through fresh eyes in order to realize that there are human interest, charitable ventures, employee and customer success stories all around you. You do need to tie events in to your marketing calendar and write them up before hand to attract attention and guests, and afterwards to tell the media, your customers, your employees, and the general public how great the event or promotion was, and inspire some envy among those who missed out.
Debunked: You don't need big news to generate big buzz.
Myth Number Two: PR is just for the press, or media professionals.
PR is the common abbreviation for Public Relations (not 'press release.') While press releases may be a part of your overall PR strategy, PR is not limited to releases you write for the press. Webster’s defines Public Relations as: the business of inducing the public to have understanding for and goodwill toward a person, firm, or institution ; also : the degree of understanding and goodwill achieved. You don’t need an intermediary, like a reporter or editor, to tell you what is newsworthy about your business and control the flow of information from you to the public or from you to any audience you want to reach, internal or external. In fact, with the proliferation of the internet as a means of communication for all media, your ability to get your marketing and PR messages directly to the audience you want to reach is easier and more cost-effective than ever before. In addition, you are probably overlooking many internal places you could “publish.” Do you generate regular advertising pieces for print or e-mail marketing to your clients? Include PR stories. Do you advertise in your local paper or your local high school’s publications? With your local PTA or civic organizations? Do you have unused space on shelving, stations, at your cash register? Clear acrylic frames, available at any office supply store, make a great and professional looking display you can use just about anywhere in your place of business. Use color and imagery to draw the eye. You will find that PR stories, testimonials, human interest anecdotes and other non-advertising marketing will create more buzz than your advertising, and create that “good will” that PR is intended to generate, increasing customer loyalty and referrals.
Myth Number Three: You Are Writing for Print Publications.
Even your local print newspapers are online, and most print online versions of their papers or archive their articles. In addition, you need to begin thinking about writing about your business first for web and e-mail applications in order to maximize the number of “hits” or readers that you attract. Again, this is a time for you to step back with fresh eyes or consult with a PR professional so that you begin to expand the number of outlets to whom you submit regular articles. We all love to see ourselves in print, but would you get more real return from buzz within your local civic organization or a trade publication?
Debunked: News isn't just for breakfast anymore - stop thinking PR is written for the morning edition!
Myth Number Four: Your Article Needs to be Short, Concise, and to the Point!
Again, back to the web. The truth is that when it comes to website and e-mail publications, and that includes stories published online in media outlets, it is content and content rich in keywords that attracts hits and readers. You can learn more about keywords and internet marketing from many sources, from books available in your local library or on amazon.com to marketing professionals – and if you ask around a bit, my guess is that you’ll find some internet-savvy individuals within your own clientele who will be happy to give you tips on what to include for electronic-media-ready articles.
Myth Number Five: Your Article Should be Purely Objective, Free of Self-Promotion.
Hunh? We’ve already touched on the definition of PR being (in part) to generate good will for you with the public. You can’t toot your own horn without, well, tooting it! When writing about your last event, your goal should be to tell the public what happened, why your guests loved it, how it benefitted your clientele or (if you included a charity) others – in short – why they were crazy if they missed it. The natural next step is to tell them about the next event or any follow up or related promotions they can still get in on (if they hurry!) When writing up your new staff you should mention your current staff and their specialties (and how special a client has to be to get an appointment!) Make one of the goals of your articles to be to create demand for your services, your products, and interest in attending your next event.
Myth Number Six: Your PR Articles have to be About Your Business.
If all of your articles were about your services and products, we wouldn’t call them PR, we’d call them marketing and advertising. While there are a few people out there in the general public who live for the coupon section of the Sunday paper, most of us take our time getting there. We want to read about the local sports teams (good or bad). We take a few minutes to look through the northwest living, real estate, local news, events, and entertainment sections. We stop on headlines that catch our attention, and what gets the attention of people in your neighborhood – your prospective and current clients – are stories that touch their lives, that touch their hearts, that stimulate their minds and prompt them to action and emotion. That doesn’t usually happen in pure marketing or advertising. Step back with fresh eyes (and ears) and take a listen this week. Listen to your employees as they talk about their kids, their kids schools, or their own accomplishments. Listen to your clients as they talk about their lives, people they know who need help, people they know who help others. Make it a point to ask for those stories in your salon, become a hub of information. My guess is that you will quickly have a short – or long – list of anecdotes and contacts that will breathe life into your PR efforts.
Debunked: Forget objectivity! Write about what inspires and moves you to move and inspire others.
Bonus! Myth Number Seven: Stories Write Themselves. The stories we hear that touch, move and inspire us do write themselves, and sometimes indelibly so, on our hearts and minds. But the magic in your PR is in passing the story forward, consistently. Don’t treat PR as an afterthought – something to think about doing when everything else from your bookkeeping to services behind the chair to merchandising to inventory to marketing is all “caught up.” Don’t leave your PR for someday when you have time. Set aside a specific time each month or each week as a gift to yourself in order to write one or more public relations piece. Don’t write? Chances are someone on your staff or within your family or even within your clientele love to write and would leap at the chance to assist you formally or informally in your PR efforts. They are also great individuals to bounce your article ideas off of to test impact and to help in editing and polishing your stories – not to mention that their investment in the process also means they will be actively helping to expand your formal and informal – BUZZ! – outlets.
Elizabeth Brown, Be InPulse Branding, Marketing & Design
mail to designit at beinpulse dot com
