Tag: public relations for small businesses

New Year new plans – 5 tips for staying on track with your resolutions and 2016 goals

Leave a comment

Happy New Year all, 2016 is here already and the festive season is well and truly over and I’m sure many of you can tell by the extra people at the gym, working on their 2016 fitness resolutions following an indulgent end to 2015.

The New Year gives us all a chance to refresh, start again or start anew. We can do this any day of the year but the start of the year just feels right.

Now I don’t want to rain on anyone’s parade, but psychologists do say that only one in 10 of us will actually reach our resolution goals and this could be down to fact that we set so many!

So with that in mind whether you’ve set goals for business or personal, I want you to stay on track and reach them so here are some helpful tips.

  1. Forward Plan – whether you are planning to improve business or yourself it’s crucial to plan, write down your plans and how you plan to achieve your goals –like the saying goes.. if you fail to plan you plan to fail.
  1. Manage your objectives – don’t try and do everything at once, break down you objectives so that you can deal with them in a timely and measurable way, remember less is more overwhelming yourself will just leave you stressed.
  1. Keep track of your plans – by creating a checklist, spreadsheet or journal and as you achieve your objectives you can tick them off – soon enough it will be filled with ticks and you’ll be feeling accomplished.
  1. Reward yourself for the goals you’ve reached – this will help you stay motivated.
  1. Tell others about your goals – this can help give you accountability and support for your goals. If nobody knows you plan to lose weight or take over the world with your business then it’s easy to slip back into old habits or the lets do it later attitude. If you let others know it will spur you on to met your goals.

 

Good luck and stay focused!

Content marketing – five top tips

Leave a comment

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again content is king, no doubt this is not the first time you’ve heard this saying. I do believe it is true. Content marketing is not about the hard sell, lets face it who likes the hard sell? Not me that’s for sure.

Content marketing is more about the brand story and engaging with your target audience. You may want to sell a product but someone talking about their experience of the product can be more compelling. We are living in a digital age, where we can seek out the content of interest to us and ignore the rest, with that in mind you want to peak interest.

Here are my top five tips for content marketing:

Plan ahead

The saying, if you fail to plan, you plan to fail springs to mind. To be effective and really reap results you need to plan your content and be consistent with it. It may be unrealistic for you to produce thought-provoking content on a daily basis, but if you plan to produce weekly or bi-weekly content for your business make sure that you issue it via social media channels and email consistently. If you issue your content on a Tuesday at 10am each week stick to it.

Focus

With everyone going on about the need for content, it can be easy to lose focus in the rush to just get stuff out. But before you do this you should be thinking about the reason you are producing the content, and remember who you are writing it for. Putting yourself in the shoes of the audience you want to connect with is always helpful.

Visual benefits

Now when you scroll through your twitter timeline what catches your eyes or sparks interest? Images and videos are usually the top answer and they go a long way in helping to tell a story. Marketers use video, images and info-graphics to help tell stories about brands regularly. The main reason for this is because over 90 percent of content with visuals images get more views than ones without….so get busy incorporating visuals into your content!

Recycle your content

Don’t be afraid to reuse your content.  It does take time to produce quality content so you should find ways to re use it. An example of this is, if you have recently written a blog about a new product or service, you could tweet out  key points from said blog over the course of a week.

Share you content more than once

Be sure to use all the social media platforms at your disposal and share it more than once. I do this myself, it’s helpful in building web traffic and helpful to those in different time zones across the world. I often make small changes to the text so I’m not repeating myself and to appeal to different audiences. I also like to use hash tags (click here to see my blog on social media and use of hash tags).

Feel free to comment below and share any tips you have!

 

Branding..whats your story

Leave a comment

There are many definitions for Branding, simply put, branding is essential, it’s what differentiates your product or service from the rest. It’s not only about packaging, and logo’s it’s about your company story, your company promise to your consumers of what they can expect from you. It is what separates you from your competitors. The way you communicate to your consumers, the marketing and PR you undertake all help in delivering and defining your brand.

There are plenty of resources online that offer great advice, so rather than reinvent the wheel here are some helpful links.

Here is a helpful article that gives you an overview of branding from Marketing Donut.

http://www.marketingdonut.co.uk/marketing/marketing-strategy/branding

Another helpful article from Virgin on brand mistakes entrepreneurs must avoid.

http://www.virgin.com/entrepreneur/brand-mistakes-entrepreneurs-must-avoid

 

For the more visual here is a help video on YouTube

PR what is it & do you really need it?

1 Comment

What is Public Relations?

Public relations (PR) is a tactic used to help promote you or your business in the media (both traditional and online) and to the public. It involves managing image and reputation, including the information you give out about your business. It also includes dealing with crisis and handling negative PR coverage.

My professional body, The Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR) defines PR as:

  • Public Relations is about reputation – the result of what you do, what you say and what others say about you.

PR is great for building brand credibility, it is different from advertising as PR will use the media such as magazines, newspapers, radio, online outlets etc to promote and communicate your business messages.

For example if you have a new product or service, PR is the service that would organise a press launch, send out a press release or write an article to promote it in the media, so that your product or service is visible to your key target audience.

PR is vital for informing, engaging and building a relationship with your target audience, be it customers, suppliers, other businesses with an interest in yours. PR is also very important to your brand messaging which you want to be positive, and is the service you would turn to for help with a media crisis or negative media mentions.

PR is targeted, it tailors information to appeal to your target customers/audience rather than working on a one size fits all strategy.

Do you need PR?

PR is important to your business and if you have a product or service that you want to promote to the public, it is something you should seriously consider investing in. PR is about raising your business profile, using the media  to do this can significantly increase your profile, whilst raising awareness of what you do, educating your target audiences and positioning you or your business as an expert in your field or the go to business for XYZ product.  As a result this can generate more enquiries, sales and awareness.

Understandably if you’re a small business, the word budget will be ringing in your ears, that’s where using freelancers like myself, can really help. Freelancers are cheaper than PR agencies and can be more flexible. Alternatively, you can also manage some of your PR yourself, there’s lots of information online about how to do this. There are platforms that you can use to help write and issue a press release, for example www.Journolink.com helps to bridge the gap between entrepreneurs and the media.

We’re living in a 24/7 media society and there are lots of opportunities to take advantage of to promote and big up your business. If you don’t do it, then who will?

PR is a cost effective tactic, positive media coverage in a journal aimed at your key customer audience, or in your local newspaper is taken more seriously than a paid for advert.

As a freelance communications consultant, specialising in PR & digital marketing I advise clients on strategy ad media handling. I develop and maintain relationships with the relevant media for your business. I also write press releases, articles and other content to help get press coverage among other things!