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Hi, welcome back to PR Made Simple. Now this is an episode that I've wanted to do for ages because it's something that I see people talking about, whether it's talking to me directly about it or whether it's on LinkedIn or just hearing kind of in general chats that they think PR doesn't work for their business. And it makes me feel really frustrated for them because often it's because they've spent...

lot of money with a PR agency or a consultant and they've not got what they think they should have got from that work or it could be time that if they've been doing it themselves they've invested lots of time into doing their PR and they haven't seen the results that they were hoping for and it also makes me feel frustrated for PR itself because these kind of discussions really gives it a bad rap and it puts people off doing it. Now

Usually when I deep dive into why PR hasn't worked for their business, it really does become clear quite quickly to me why it hasn't worked for them. So I thought it would be useful for me to talk through these with you to help you from making the same mistakes again. Or maybe you're doing your PR at the moment and you're finding it's not working and you're feeling really frustrated. So hopefully this will give you some clarity around those reasons why it's not working. So first off, you're not actually doing it.

So this probably applies more to the DIYers. Often you think you're doing it. You send an email every so often, you've signed up for a membership, you think about it a lot. In fact, you're probably overthinking it, if you're honest with yourself, and you're talking yourself out of it. But really, you're not doing it regularly and consistently and making it part of your monthly or your weekly focuses for your business. Now I'm gonna caveat this, I don't...

think you need to spend, I know you don't need to spend a huge amount of time on your business, on your PR for your business, but you do need to do it okay and with PR like most things in our business it's a case of what you put in you get out, so if you're putting nothing in even if you're thinking about it you're actually not going to get anything out of it, so I want you to be really honest with yourself and ask yourself are you actually giving it the time that it deserves?

And if not, then maybe it's a case of making time. So for example, in my DIY PR membership, we have an accountability session, which is an hour and a half session a month. And it really helps you to deep dive and focus and get cracking with your PR. So putting time in your diary, really setting it aside, prioritizing it is going to help you to get those results. One of the biggest things I see from people who are DIYing it and people who are working with PRs and agencies and freelancers

is that the PR outreach isn't strategic and that's why it's not working. So I know that the most effective PR is strategic. It needs to work to your business objectives and your target audience. And knowing those two things and putting them together gives you an effective PR strategy. So getting a bit of press coverage here and there or, you know, working with a freelancer who says, yeah, I'll get you some PR and they just go out willy nilly and get you a few bits of press coverage here and there.

it's not going to do much for your business. And I think this is a problem for people who've tried PR and they think it doesn't work because it's not been done in a way that's going to shift the dial for their business. Or maybe they've gone after those big kind of ego pieces where they can talk a lot about themselves, but it's not actually reaching their target audience or talking about their business in a way that's going to make a difference for them. I see it a lot with those kind of pieces in say like the Daily Mail.

where you can talk about yourself and something that happened to you when you were 14 or 22 and look at you now, but actually ask yourself, are they actually helping you to promote your business, to get your business talked about in the right places in front of the right audience? Probably not. It's really important when you're doing PR for your business, whether that's you doing it yourself or with an agency or a freelancer, that you know why you want to be doing that PR in the first place. So for example,

If you give me a brief that you want to establish your authority and build your reputation as the go-to in your industry, our strategy would be really different if you want to focus on driving Q4 Christmas sales, for example, or if you're focused on raising investment for your business. We'd have a really different strategy to somebody who's focused on driving Q4 Christmas sales.

So having a strategy with measurable targets that works to your business objectives and your target audience is key. And this leads me nicely on the fact that your PR is not going to work for you if it's not focused on reaching your target audience. Whatever the PR route, it needs to be right for your audience. There's no point in getting, say, a piece in the sun, for example, if you're a luxury jewelry brand with a very high price point.

It's just really misaligned there in terms of your audience and where your business is being featured. So my recommendation, and I know you've heard lots of people in marketing say this, and it's boring because we say it over and over again, but we say it over and over again because it is so important, is that you really need to understand your target audience. Who is it? Who are they? What media are they reading when it comes to PR? Where do they get their information from? Who are they influenced by? What logos?

are going to pull them in on your website, what is going to build that trust and that credibility for you? And yes, you might have more than one audience, that's totally fine. It might be broad, it might be very niche, but there are ways that you can focus in on who that audience is. I had this discussion once with a spice brand and they were like, well, we're just, our audience is really general because we are spices and everyone uses spices. And I challenged them on that. said, well,

You're quite a high price point, you're available in Waitrose. So your demographic there is already focused on the kind of Waitrose demographic. Not everybody uses spices, so you're then focused on people who do enjoy cooking, who enjoy the kind of foods that your spices go into. So you can start whittling it down, niching down to find who that audience is and trying to understand a bit more about who they are and...

what they're doing, what they're reading, what they're getting influenced by. Another reason I think people think PR hasn't worked for their business is because their expectations are different to the reality of what PR will do for their business. Or if you've worked with a PR agency or a freelance, then it might be that your expectations haven't been managed properly, that you've got unrealistic expectations about what it's gonna do. PR...

unfortunately is not going to transform your business overnight but spoiler alert nothing's going to. It's not necessarily going to drive big sales from one piece in the times for example and it's really important that you're working with someone who's doing your PR for you or if you're doing it yourself that you really understand why or what you think you can achieve with it.

You might think, for example, that you can just send a press release out, it'll get picked up by every national newspaper, or you'll be featured on the BBC Breakfast just because you've started doing PR for your business. But it just doesn't work like that. PR is a slow build. It's something that you do have to keep working on. You have to keep rolling that snowball down the hill to build the momentum to keep going. you know, understanding why you're doing the PR, what you think you can get out of it.

and what it's actually gonna do for your business will really help you to manage those expectations and to know whether it's actually being successful for you. Another thing that I see why people think PR doesn't work for them is that they expect quick wins from their PR. As a general rule of thumb, PR takes time to build and it's why when I'm working with clients, I kind of say there has to be a minimum of three month, a minimum three month project because...

people often think they press go on their PR and then it's all suddenly going to happen. But unfortunately it doesn't work like that. mean, Long Lead magazine, so that's your monthly glossy magazines, are working about four months in advance. So even if we started working together and I secured you an amazing feature, you know, very quickly, you're still not going to see that piece come out for four months. There's often a bit of an uncomfortable time, and I talk about this with some of my PR friends, that...

you start working with the client, kind of get all the press materials ready, you really kind of deep dive, you build a really great strategy and you can feel from that kind of outset of doing all of that upfront work and then starting the outreach. I can often feel a client getting a bit panicky about the fact that they're not seeing the results come in yet. And it's something that I really do try and walk my clients through because I know it's coming.

have really open and honest conversations with them. We know it's coming but it just might not feel like it is yet and that's the same if you're DIYing your PR. You need to give it time, you need to not give up just because you're not getting those results kind of straight away. There's obviously short lead times for you know online and your national newspapers and working to a much shorter lead time. There's other publications so you want to think strategically about

If you need some quick wins for your business or from a timeline perspective, or you want to focus on something that's happening in a shorter timeframe. So for example, I did a three month project with a client back in June this year and we've got 16 pieces of press coverage confirmed and we've had, I think probably 12 of those. So we're still waiting four months on for four of those features to come out.

But because of the nature of her strategy and what we wanted to do for the business, we really focused on some of those quick wins because we wanted to get things going. So again, it comes back to the strategy, it comes back to the timings, it comes back to thinking about what you want your PR to do for you and what you need it to do for you alongside your business. One of the key things as well is that PR shouldn't be an afterthought to what you're doing. So...

What I don't want you to do is to launch something in your business and then say, you know, one week into the launch, we should think about doing some PR around this. It happens more than I wish it did. It isn't going to get you the best results. You want to start thinking about your PR early whilst you're building the rest of your marketing activity, whilst you're starting to think about the launch of a product or a service, for example. That is the key to getting the best results.

and it leads me on to my next reason why you think your PR is not working for you is that you give up too soon. I see this time and time again. You send out a few pitches, they don't get picked up, so you assume you're not very good at it or you're not doing it right or that your business just isn't PR-able and I promise you that isn't true. People always ask me what the secret is for those businesses in my DIY PR membership, my one-to-one accelerators, the ones that are getting the really great results and the honest answer is that they're doing it.

They don't give up at the first hurdle because they've not heard back from a journalist. They tweak their pitch, they try different PR routes, they keep going. And that's really key. That's something that I do as a PR when I'm working with clients. If something isn't working, I will be really honest with the client. We talk about having kind of a layered approach, but we will keep adapting, keep moving, keep tweaking, keep changing, but keep going, not just giving up. You know, I want to talk now about having a layered PR approach.

because if you're just focusing on one specific PR route, such as press, for example, and ignoring all the other things that you can be doing, that might well be another reason why your PR's not working for you. So maybe you're focused just on one specific PR route, for example, such as Christmas gift guides. Actually, what I want you to be doing is thinking about all the other things that you can be doing to layer in your PR. So telling your story, collaborations, for example, Pip at Marlo Wine is brilliant at doing this, so.

Check out Marlo Wine, absolutely brilliant wine business and they do Christmas gift guides but they also do some really exciting collaborations, they will do some great blog content, they will do some really interesting social media content with other brands, they're looking at leveraging all the different PR routes and putting all their eggs you know into different baskets not just one traditional media basket.

I'd really encourage you to think about all the various different PR routes. We've got a whole other episode on this. So check back if you want to know more about what those PR routes are. But you know, start diversifying your PR efforts and use a mix of challenges to reach your target audiences. So another reason why your PR might not be working for you is that you are trying to get an advert for your business.

So it's just not gonna get picked up. I really want you to remember that PR isn't advertising. PR is about storytelling. It's about giving the audience, the reader, the listener, what they want to hear about. It's something that we do a lot in my DIY PR membership. It's really important that you're kind of removing your own agenda. You're not just focused on what you want to talk about.

It's really understanding that PR isn't really about you and your business. It's about that end reader, that end listener, that end viewer. It's not about you. It's about what they want to read about or watch or listen to. You know, no one wants to hear me read out an advert and why the PR set is so great. You know, if I was pitching that to startups magazine, it's just not going to be of interest to them. You don't want to read a magazine article about that. A journalist doesn't want to write about that.

but they might want to know, for example, about the different ways that they can get known for what they do or for example, eight common mistakes that small business owners make when it comes to their PR. See what I did there? A common thing that journalists are taught to ask, what they will ask themselves when they receive your pitch, they receive a press release, is to ask, what? Okay, it's a really important question that you can apply to your own business and your own emails when you send a pitch. So,

what, you know, so what, the PR set's launched, so what, you know, keep asking that question until you get to something that a reader or a listener or a viewer is going to be interested in. Another reason I see that PR might not be working for you is that you're not using it as hard as you can. So getting a bit of print coverage in the news and leaving it there, you're missing a massive trick. You really want to think about

all the different ways you can maximize that PR through all your different marketing channels. PR is at its most effective when it's integrated with the rest of your marketing. So how can you use it on your blog, on your socials, you've got a buy by the NLA and the CLA rules but you can use it on your socials to shout about, know, show your audience why they're there in the first place. Use it as you're in your as seen and seen ins on...

Another reason that I see PR not working in inverted commas for your business is that you're just not using it hard enough. So getting a bit of press coverage and leaving it there is not the way to do it. You're missing a massive trick. I want you to think about all the different ways that you can maximize that PR through your marketing channels. In fact, the most effective PR is when it's used effectively with your...

Another reason that I see PR not working in inverted commas for your business is that you're not using it as hard enough as you should be. So just getting a bit of print coverage in the news and leaving it there is leaving a massive...

Another reason that I see PR not working is that you're not using that PR as hard as you should be so you're just getting a bit of press coverage in the news or in the newspaper and you're leaving it there. You're missing out on a massive trick here. The most effective PR is when it's integrated with the rest of your marketing so I really want you to think about how you can make that PR work as hard as possible for you through all your different marketing channels. So it might be using it in your blog,

in your socials obviously abiding by NLA and CLA rules but you know shouting about it reminding your audience that they're in the right place using it in your as seen on on your website in your email marketing for example I know some of my DIY PR members if they get featured in a great publication they'll then give a flash 20 % off sale for you know a product to celebrate so they're reminding their email list about all the great things that they're doing.

or they use it in their nurture sequence, that can be a really powerful way of when you're bringing people into that top of your funnel within your marketing, it's cementing your authority, it's showing that trust and that credibility in your business. And also, it is an evergreen piece of content for you. You can talk about it more than once. You can talk about it in a year's time. A great way to remind people about why you're good at what you do is to...

use it as a reminder. know, and a great thing to do, for example, is to do a post on all the different places you've been interviewed on podcasts, for example. You know, you can do that a year on after you've been interviewed on those podcasts. It's great content for you to keep using to remind your audience about why they're there in the first place. And this last reason can be a difficult one to swallow, but you know, we're here for honest.

approach, no BS, but if there are fundamental issues within your business or within your website or within your branding then PR can only do so much for you. It is not a magic bullet. I've seen amazing businesses on the outside get incredible PR that you know really does wonders for driving traffic to their website or getting them known for what they do but actually they're ignoring key signals within the business that other things aren't working.

PR doesn't work as a sticking plaster. If those fundamentals aren't right within your business, then PR is only gonna do so much for you. But on a much happier note, when it's done properly, when it's done strategically, when it's working to your business objectives and it's reaching your target audience, it can be a total game changer for your business. I really want you to remember that.

It builds your brand, it builds your credibility, it builds trust in your business, it can drive sales, it helps your business to grow. So if you've tried PR, if you've dabbled in it and you think it doesn't work for you, then I'd really love you. I'm challenging you to rethink that and to give it another go because I promise you, I see it time and time again with the businesses that I work with. When it's done properly, when it's done effectively, it can be so magical and

Just brilliant things can happen. So if you think you want to do PR for your business, you aren't sure how to get started, or if you have done it before and you don't think it works, then please get in touch with me and we can see what we can do to unpick those reasons why, and we can make sure it bloody well does work for you in the future. You can find me at Pippa, the PR set on Instagram, Pippa Goulden on LinkedIn, and don't forget you can use the code.

pod50 to get 50 % off your first month in my DIY PR membership and I also have my one-to-one accelerator program too which is a super speedy action-taking results focused program that we really get the results for you working one-to-one with me and I do client delivery as well so check out everything at the prset.com and I will see you again very soon for another episode of PR Made Simple.