Tea & Tips for writing media/press releases from a PR Expert

Hello,

Welcome back to my Wednesday mini series filled with marketing tips from my PR expert friend , Rachel Burks.

If you missed Rachel's previous posts in this series, you can catch up by clicking the links here:

- The Importance of Blogging - 

- Getting your press release noticed - 

- Keeping your friends and fans happy on social media - 

- How to do product photography - 

- Getting the most from Instagram - 

Here's Rachel with today's subject...

Tips for writing media releases

Public Relations – what’s it all about?

You may have the best business idea ever, but that’s no good if people haven’t heard of you.

Public relations or PR offers a cost effective way to boost your profile in the local, national and trade media.  As a business or organisation, attracting customers who will buy your product or service is paramount.  PR returns some excellent results at relatively low costs when compared to buying paid for advertising space.

PR is how you publicise and build enthusiasm for your business in your market place and, in successfully doing so, creating widespread awareness and boost sales.

Media or press releases

We call them media releases because they can be sent to many different types of media – such as radio, TV and websites as well as newspapers and magazines.

How to write a media release

Your releases need to include the following information:                   

• Who is involved?
• Why are they involved?
• What are they doing?
• How are they doing it?
• When is it taking place?
• Where is it taking place?

The headline, which must not include too many large words or be difficult to understand, must grab the media’s attention and the first paragraph must provide the ‘hook’ to make them want to read more.

On average a typical newspaper will receive more than 100 media releases a day and in order to stand a chance at having yours printed it needs to stand out and be easy to understand.

Use simple and easy to understand words and short sentences. Do not use jargon or complex ideas.

If the journalist is interested in what you have written they will be able to see why their reader, listener or viewer will also be interested and then they will use your release.

Interview each other to find out what the who, why, what, how, when and where of the story is. Write these down and establish what the headline and the hook for your story should be and why – what’s different, what’s unusual, what would make people interested?

The media release should be no more than 300 words, cover no more than two pages and include quotes from named people complete with their titles or a description of who they are for example, the organiser, the member of staff involved, the Principal etc.

It may be a good idea to look at newspapers and see what stories you are interested in and identify why you read them and what made you look at them. Pull out the who, what, where, when, how and why.

There also needs to be contact details for someone who is happy to talk to the media should they call. You also need to consider photography and whether there is an opportunity for this – would it enhance your story, if you are trying to pre-publicise an event could you mock up a shot and if so what?

Thank you Rachel – next week she will be sharing some Tea and Tips with me about how to take news worthy photography, I hope you can join us.

Best wishes

Tea & Tips - Advice from a PR expert on how to write a PR plan for your business

Hello!

It’s Wednesday again, which means the next post in my mini-series of business and marketing tips from my PR expert friend, Rachel Burks.  If you missed the previous posts in the series you can catch up by clicking the links here:

- The Importance of Blogging - 

- Getting your press release noticed - 

- Keeping your friends and fans happy on social media - 

- How to do product photography - 

- Getting the most from Instagram - 

Here's Rachel with today's subject...

How to write a public relations (PR) plan for your business

When you started your business I am sure you had a business plan, a goal in mind, an idea of costs and set of values/ethos about how you want do things.

The reason you are reading this is no doubt because you need help working out how to drive your business forward and how to use all forms of communication to help.

What you need is a communication strategy to ensure you are clear on what to do when. We create these plans to help our clients secure the best in media coverage and to explore all opportunities.

A PR plan enables you to think about what you want to say about yourself, your company, service or product. It pinpoints the audience you wish to reach, the traditional and social media they read/listen to/watch and what techniques you can use to target them.

We collectively have more than 60 years’ experience in writing PR and social media plans and strategies. We only write plans for our clients, but here are the basics for you to use to have a go at writing your own too.

What should be in your plan?

• Objectives: What do you want to achieve? For example, increased sales, new clients/customers in a particular market or to raise awareness.
• Target audience: Try and break this down into very specific groups, for example, stay at home mums aged 30 plus.
• Key messages: Try and identify the three main things you need to say about your company or product/service. Make sure every media release includes these and remember them during interviews.
• Target media: The more specific your target audience, the easier it is to work out what media they enjoy. We have thousands of local, regional and national media contacts and we closely guard these, they take years to build up and we reserve access to them for our clients.
• Techniques: For example, media releases, media calls, giveaways and competitions, features in magazines, letters in newspapers and social media activities, the list can be fairly lengthy so try and keep focused.
• Schedule: Even if there are no particular launch dates or events, give yourself goals and deadlines as these will help you achieve more.
• Evaluate: Ask new clients/customers where/how they heard about you, check online for coverage, collect cuttings and keep a file. Check the Google Analytics for your website and have a footfall counter in your store if you are a retailer.

 Thank you Rachel – next week she will be sharing some Tea and Tips with me about how to draft a media/press release, I hope you can join us.

Best wishes

Tea & Tips - Advice from a PR Expert on getting the most out of Instagram...

Hello,

During the autumn months last year, I ran a mini series here on my blog every Wednesday called Tea & Tips.  I was lucky enough to have a PR expert friend of mine, Rachel Burks, Managing Director of local PR agency Porcupine PR, share some great advice on PR, marketing and handling media for small business.  I'm delighted to say that she's provided me with some more wonderful tips to share with you here each Wednesday for the next few weeks.

This week it's all about getting the most out of Instagram.

In the coming weeks she'll share some tips for:

- Writing a PR plan for your business - 28th January

- Tips for writing media/press releases - 4th February

- How to take newsworthy photography - 11th February

- The importance of a good headline  - 18th February

I'll hand you over to Rachel now to share some tea and tips with you about getting the most out of Instagram...

We’re all more visually orientated these days. It may not be relevant for every brand and business but we think Instagram is a great tool if you’re after a younger clientele. We’re encouraging a few of our clients to dip their toes into this highly visual virtual world and here’s why...

So what are the stats?

There are more than 150 million active Instagram users

Daily likes come in at around 1.2 billion

And on average 55 million photos are shared each day.

 

Who uses Instagram?

The young and the tech-savvy. So if you have a brand that fits this audience, then it’s an excellent tool in your PR armoury.

What are the benefits?

It’s free

It’s fun with a capital F and offers endless opportunities for creativity

It’s all about sharing experiences via images, video, photo tagging and re-posts

It’s the largest ad-free social network out there.

 

Want to give it a go – here are our top five tips:

1. Start with a clear plan of your objectives – what do you want to achieve? If your focus is on return on investment, then this platform is not the best for conversions and sales – although it is free to sign up for, it will take time and dedication to get the best from it
2. Post creative content that is current, newsworthy, that taps into the latest trends and is seasonal
3. Use hashtags consistently to drive awareness, particularly during specific PR campaigns but don’t over use them, that can really turn people off
4. Take care with your posts: Instagram is not an online catalogue. If you treat it as such and make it salesy you will lose followers
5. Unless you’re working on a specific campaign we wouldn’t recommend more than two to three posts a day. It’s best not to over-do it and saturate your audience. No one wants to be bombarded, especially the young and tech-savvy, they have no time for it!

Thanks for that advice Rachel.  Next week she will give some tips on a writing a PR plan for your business.

If you missed any of the posts from the series last year, you can catch up here:

- The Importance of Blogging-

- Getting Your Press Release Noticed -

- Keeping your Friends and Fans Happy on Social Media -

 - How to do Product Photography - 

Meet you back here for a cuppa and some more tips next Wednesday!

Best wishes

Getting Back in the Swing, Trying to Get My Act Together...

Hello!

I must confess, I've not had the best of starts to the new year.  Last week I was laid up for a couple of days with the flu bug that's been doing the rounds.  During those restful days between Christmas and New Year I was all ideas and had lots of plans on how to get stuck into new work and the new year.  Then BAM!...I was floored by winter bugs.

It happens.  I'm feeling much better now, but have found getting back into the flow of working a bit of an uphill struggle this week.  So instead of fighting it, I've gone with it and allowed myself to take things gently, one day at a time...

Thankfully, I was pretty organised at the end of last year with getting some new occasions card designs done, so one of the first things I did was place an order with the printers and got those in.

These cards are a fair bit larger than my usual occasion cards - they are A5 sized and I thought a Kraft envelope would set them off  nicely.

As part of my easing back into things, I set to work having a little play with photographing them. 

This year I want to make things easier on myself and find a way of simplifying the way I go about a lot of the day to day stuff.  For me, this year it's all about carving out more creative time without eating into chunks of family time (which I have been very guilty of in the past).  The more streamlined I can make my processes, the better...

So I had a play with a different background for my product shots - mainly to capture the colours on my designs, but to also limit the amount of photo editing time I've had to do in the past with white backgrounds.  

For card images, this set up seems to do the trick and has halved my 'faffing about with images' time (to give it my technical term!) which is a huge bonus - but what do you think? does it work?...

It's certainly helped get my Valentines and Mother's Day products ready to be listed and some of my online shops are already sporting them. 

Next on my list is to get on top of current jobs to carve out some time to develop some new ranges in the next few weeks.  Which is easier said than done as there never seems to be enough hours in the day.   However, I do feel it is getting better and slowly but surely I am finding better ways to manage my time. 

That's mainly thanks to regularly reading the Etsy  & Folksy sellers blogs and a fab book called Creative, Inc by Meg Mateo Ilasco & Joy Deangdeelert Cho  . I have had this book for some time, but have recently made time to go back, revisit it and pay full attention - especially the chapter about balancing your business and personal lives as it certainly stuck a chord with me.  I thoroughly recommend it as a reference book for freelance designers.

Next week I am hoping to begin to run some more of my mid week blog mini series, Tea and Tips. 

I have some more handy advice from my PR expert friend to share with you.  I also want to bring back my Friday 'Something Pinteresting for the weekend' posts, just to share some inspiration around and let you have a peep at what has caught my eye that week.

Most of all, I am hoping that over the next few weeks, I'll be able to share lots of new work in progress snippets as I get stuck into some new collections for my portfolio and introduce some new products to my online shops.

Best wishes