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We're going to jump straight into this today. One of the questions I get asked a lot is what are the secrets for those businesses that are really nailing their PR and getting great results? And today, dear listener, I am going to tell you the key. And honestly, my answer is really simple. It's that they are doing it. And here ends the podcast. That was quick, wasn't it? No, I'm joking. But seriously, the ones who are getting the results are the ones taking action.
They're not giving up when they don't get a reply from the first journalist that they contact. They keep going. They know that it's a long game. They also generally have stopped worrying what other people think about them or they know that no one's actually going to think anything negative about them in the first place. They're not going to laugh at your pitch or think that you're too big for your boots. I mean, we really don't have that much time to think about anyone else's businesses in that way, do we?
So taking action is the number one reason why people get great PR, but I'm also gonna talk you through some other things that I think help. Number one, they understand their audience, and I know I've touched on this in a previous episode, and to be honest, I'll probably mention it many more episodes to come, because it's so important for doing PR that works for your business. If you know your audience, not only do you know which PR routes are right for you,
You know what they want to know about, you know what they're interested in, and that can really help you to sharpen your pitch. You also know that you are pitching to the right places because you know that your audience is reading or listening or engaging or attending that event, whatever that PR route is. The next secret is that they forget their own agenda. Okay, this is a bit of a complicated thing to think about and I know it can be quite a difficult thing to do, but hear me out.
So rather than making it about you, I want you to flip it round. What does that audience want to read about or listen to? What are they interested in learning or finding out about? And therefore, what does the journalist or podcaster or event planner or whoever it is, why would they be interested in what you've got to say or your new product or whatever it is that you're pitching to them? Because it's not really about what you want to tell them.
but about how it's going to be of interest for their audience. Journalists often use the so what test. It's a great way to determine whether your news is interesting to your target audience. So I want you to say, so what? It's likely to be the first question that a journalist reading your pitch ask themselves. You want to make sure that they can answer that. So for example, if I'm sending them a press release saying, I've launched a new course to teach small businesses PR, I mean, so what?
it's not really of interest from a wider media perspective. If however, I pitched for example, say five struggles that business owners face when it comes to building their personal profile and how to get over them. I mean, that doesn't really roll off the tongue. I would probably make it a bit more catchier, but for the point of this, I think it demonstrates that that is going to be much more of interest to the journalist. It's talking to their audience. It's looking at the struggles that their audience face.
rather than me directly promoting what I want to say about my own business. The next thing that I think people who are really nailing their PR do well is that they understand the power of storytelling and they understand how to use that within their brand and specifically within their PR. Now I just want to clear up what I mean by storytelling because I'm not expecting you to write a Shakespeare play
and I'm also not expecting you to tell stories that aren't relevant to your business, say something that happened to you when you were 21 as a way of getting in the paper, that is press coverage that really doesn't work for your business and I see small business owners doing this time and time again saying, yeah, look, I've been featured here when actually they've been featured for something that's totally irrelevant to their business. And I know small business owners often sit there thinking, you you might be thinking, hearing this, I don't have any stories to tell.
but it's not true. I think you want to think about storytelling in PR as allowing you to humanize your business. Stories help to create connection and there's lots of opportunities for you to tell stories, whether you're a product or a service brand and whatever audience you're serving. It could be your founder story, for example, Priya at PreePree, one of my DIY PR members, her business was inspired by her grandmother teaching her to sew.
and she's since set up a collective in India who work with her to produce her products. She's had lots of press coverage around that. Pip from Marlowe Wines, another great example, she started her business with her husband as the kind of antidote to all the wine chat in the wine industry. And it makes a great founder story for her. Other members look at the human inspiration behind their products or their services, there's so many different ways.
that you can tell different stories within your business. The next thing that I think they do is that they learn how to pitch. So this is one of the key elements to successful PR. It's nailing that pitch. It doesn't matter who you're pitching to. This is something that we spend a lot of time on in my DIY PR membership and with my one-to-one accelerator clients, really looking at the pitch that they're sending to people. And I will be doing an episode just on pitching very soon.
But if we kind of look at it now, it's really about pulling the relevant bits out of your business. You know, they don't need a 50 page essay on everything that's ever happened to you since you launched your business six years ago. You want to pull out the key bits that you're pitching. You want to keep your pitch short and to the point. You want to make it bespoke to them. If there's one thing that I learned when I was editing a parenting magazine a few years ago was
how quickly you delete generic emails that are sent out BCC to a kind of general media list. If you can make it bespoke to them and why their title or podcast is relevant for you or event or whatever it is, that is really key. know, do your research, look at what they write about, look at the pages where you could fit on. It's really great way of making sure that you kind of get that connection with the person that you're pitching to.
It's also about putting the right energy into that pitch. I know this sounds a bit weird, but when I was editing the magazine, I could really tell the pitches from small business owners who massively believed in what they were doing, who really knew their why, who were proud of what they were achieving versus the ones who might land in my inbox kind of apologizing for taking up space and maybe being a bit meek in their approach and, you know, I've got this little side business, you know.
As a journalist, have a think, like which email do you think you're going to be more compelled to? The person who is like, wow, look at my business, this is what I'm doing, or the person who's kind of apologizing for taking up space. So your pitch is really important. And again, this is something that we do a lot of work on in my DIY PR membership because it is such a key element when it comes to nailing your PR. Another thing that I think they do really well is that they build relationships.
Now, I just want to caveat this because you don't have to have relationships with journalists or event planners or podcast hosts, etc. to secure PR opportunities. You can do that without those relationships. But starting to build relationships can be a great way of getting on their radar. Kat Sims, who I do lots of work with, I've got a course on how to work with influencers with, and she will be a guest very soon on this podcast.
she says, you know, she's much more likely to notice somebody who drops into her inbox, who has commented or shared or liked something or just, you know, built a relationship up with her. Now, obviously we can't do that with everybody and there is a certain, you know, we only have a certain amount of time, but think of it in terms of any human relationship. You're much more likely to respond to somebody who you recognize.
who you have on your radar, who you've had some sort of interaction with. A great example I find of this is kind of on LinkedIn, know, those people who connect with you and immediately then land in your inbox trying to sell you something. It just doesn't cut it for me anyway. You know, I'm much more likely to want to have a call with you if we've established some sort of relationship, if you've kind of commented on my posts and we've started to build up, you know, a relationship. The next thing,
and this is really important, is that they don't give up. They follow up, they message that influencer on Instagram, they follow up with the journalist they've pitched to, they follow up with the podcast host that they've pitched to. They keep going until they get a no, and sometimes, you know, it's just about reminding them that you've sent them an email, and I want to balance that out. I don't want you to become a stalker, but, you know,
Following up with people a week or two after you've sent them an initial email, I think is a really good thing to do. You don't just give up at the first hurdle. Another thing that they do really well is that they're looking for opportunities. They're proactively going after things rather than just sitting there waiting for them to happen to them. I think that's really key with the people I see who get lots of PR opportunities for their business. They are hustling somewhat.
They are putting themselves forward. They are not just kind of sitting back and saying, well, that person knows what I do. They'd ask me to collaborate if they wanted to. It's not about that. It's about you proactively putting yourself forward for opportunities and seeing what happens as a result of that. Another thing that they do is that they adopt kind of a multi-channel approach. So they're not just relying on one PR route. So it's not, they're not just putting all their,
eggs in a press basket for example, you know they're looking at all the different ways that work for their audience, all those different PR routes that I have talked about on a previous PR episode and if you've missed that it's worth going back and having a listen to that because there are so many PR routes for your business out there and it's about looking at all the different ones that work to connect you to your audience. You know from my perspective
I do press, I do podcasts, do talks in memberships and on panels and that kind of thing. And I find by doing several different things, it really helps me to connect to my audience in different ways and reach new people in ways that I might not have done if I'd only been focusing on kind of one route. The next point is that they are doing their PR strategically. I really believe that having a PR strategy is important.
You know, they have some semblance of a plan and I'm not talking about a 64 page PowerPoint document. You know, it's just maybe an A4 page or a thought through plan about where you want to be featured, how you want to be featured, the things that you want to talk about rather than doing it willy nilly and getting a bit of press coverage here and there. They will often have set goals and broken it down into bite sized chunks. So for example,
it might be, you know, three podcasts a quarter. So rather than just staring at a big long media list and feeling quite overwhelmed by that, you're breaking it down. You're making it realistically achievable for you and you're much more likely to do it, I think, than if you, you know, just have a big long list and it all feels a bit overwhelming. Another thing I think they do is that they are keeping their eye on the ball. They're listening.
They're listening to what's going on. They're spotting industry trends. They know what's coming up in terms of the news agenda or relevant seasonal happenings. They're identifying kind of trends that they could piggyback on and they're seeing where their business fits. And I think it's really important to, you know, be reading magazines and papers and spending some time seeing what's going on out there. Another way of doing this is listening to what your customers or your clients are saying to you.
What trends are you spotting within your business? I've had some DIY members get some great coverage on things that they identified within their industry and they've been able to kind of turn that into articles, whether it's in consumer press or trade press. So have a listen, listen, open up those ears and see what's going on or hear what's going on. And the last point is that they put themselves forward for things even when they don't feel ready.
And I think that's a key thing, isn't it? Even when they don't feel ready. So Gemma, who was one of my accelerator clients, was a great example of this. She said during our work together that she realized she could comment on way more things than she'd originally thought. You know, she was really looking for different ways to put herself forward for things and different stories and trends and insights to be connected to. So, you know, even if you are feeling nervous about things,
It's a case often of just putting on your big girl pants or your big boy pants and putting yourself out there. Have a look at all the different routes that you could be kind of going out to for your business. It's people that aren't afraid of being known for what they do. They want to build their profile to get featured. They're running right towards those opportunities rather than away from them. And they have the courage of their conviction or at least they look like they do from the outside. Internally, they probably just have as much imposter syndrome as the rest of us.
but they aren't going to let them hold that, but they aren't going to let them, but they aren't going to let that hold them back. And that I think is key. So there we have it. The secrets behind those businesses that I believe are nailing their PR, they're taking action, they know their audience, they forget their own agenda. They know how powerful storytelling is.
They're building relationships, they don't give up, they're looking for opportunities and they are putting themselves forward even if they don't quite feel ready for it. So, I wanna ask you a question. It's your turn now, right?
they're putting themselves forward even if they don't quite feel ready for it. So having listened to all of those hopefully you feel inspired to be doing that for yourself because I would love you to believe that it is your turn now. And if this has inspired you to get cracking then come on over to the prset.com, book a call, let's chat about how we can work together and how I can help you to nail your PR.
Pod 50 gets you 50 % off your first month in my DIY PR membership and I also work one-to-one with my amazing accelerator clients and I have a done for you service as well too. So let's chat, I would love to help you nail your PR and I will see you again very soon for another episode of PR Made Simple.
