Elevate your marketing with PR
As an entrepreneur myself and working in marketing roles, I have some good experience with launching PR campaigns and working with a PR agency. I’m here to go over how you can effectively use a PR strategy to help get more eyes on your brand.
PR – Public Relations, will help identify the policies and procedures of your brand with the public interest and then use this information to execute a campaign in the public space that will help earn understanding and acceptance of your brand. Typically, PR functions are outsourced by firms although they can be expensive. As a small business owner, I recommend learning and understanding the different PR approaches you can take yourself, and trying to execute your own PR campaigns for as long as you see manageable. If it becomes too much work for you and your team, that is when I would look at hiring a PR agency to help you expand your reach.
Some key functions of PR can include:
Influencer relations
Influencer contests/giveaways
Media
Press releases for broadcast
Ambassador programs
Managing key partnerships/sponsorships.
One of the more widely known functions of PR is influencer relations. There are many strategies that you can take from doing an influencer campaign such as taking a micro and macro approach. My personal favourite that is gaining in popularity is the micro-influencer strategy. Micro-influencers generally have between 1-100k followers. These types of people generally are or are closely connected to your exact target market. They will likely not charge you anything for doing promotional posts all you have to do is send them your product. Often I have found that you can get a huge ROI out of micro-influencers even though they have a smaller following. This is because they are normally super excited and genuine about receiving your product for free and they will tend to share and post more than once about your product.
With my other business Toques From The Heart we launched a micro-influencer campaign in 2020 that was targeting the hockey community. We ended up tapping into an amazing community of people that would constantly post about us and also continue to engage with our content. This lead to a ton of new opportunities that arose because of the level of involvement from these people. They ended up reaching out and asking about more ways they could support us and this lead to connecting with some higher-level macro influencers that would have cost a decent amount of money to obtain. Although there are several accounts that are above 10k followers that are considered Macro influencers who will still do posts in exchange for product only. I have found that oftentimes even though they have a larger following it doesn’t always mean that their followers are super engaged. Also, depending on the influencer, they may already get a lot of PR packages from companies, and the story or post that they make may not have the level of creativity or thought put into it and it could drive much less traffic in comparison to a micro-level influencer.
One other level of influencer that I like to separate from macro-level influencers is celebrities. These people generally have very loyal followings and their followers are super engaged with their posts. They can be very expensive and from experience can cost upwards of $10k for a single post. At Toques From The Heart we connected deeply with micro-level influencers who ended up knowing a celebrity who had 2M followers! This shows the power and opportunity that can come from a micro-influencer campaign.
If you end up having very engaged influencers, this is when you will want to consider beginning an ambassador program for your company. Ambassadors can be amazing for your brand because these are people who will consistently promote your products/services to their followers, engage with your content, and ultimately spread the word about your company. Depending on the level of influencer, they may ask for payment to be an ambassador although many will accept product only. Make sure you’re providing them with the proper assets to help them in their role as an ambassador for your brand.
Generating positive media online is something that is a part of PR. This includes getting spots in places such as blogs, magazines, and podcasts. This will help drive traffic directly to your website as there will be a direct link over to your business's page for them to check you out. Blogs and magazines can help your website SEO because of the backlinks tied to your page. You can also gain a ton of impressions and eyes on your products especially if you’re in key media spots such as gift guides during the holiday season. Podcasts work as a great form of long-form media that allows the brand to get to know your business and what you offer.
The last form of PR content that I want to discuss is broadcast media. This form of media includes segments from news channels, radio stations, tv segments, etc. Broadcast can be obtained through a well put together broadcast pitch with a media kit that includes additional information and assets about your business. News channels, in particular, can be gained quickly for specific events by doing a press release. Broadcast in general is amazing for your brand to get eyes on it by a large audience quickly! News segments sometimes air multiple times thorough the day bringing traffic to your business each time. A segment may include a live interview about you and your company or even a pre-recorded story.
One thing that I want to note about PR marketing is that PR alone does not always influencer the consumer decision-making process. It is both PR combined with advertising that reinforces each other. PR alone is not meant to match the purchase and consumption behaviour. It is meant to elevate your brand and make your brand more socially creditable. It also helps get more eyes on your brand. Unless it is a celebrity who you got to shout you out, it is quite difficult to lead a customer to a direct purchase their first time hearing about your brand from an influencer. You need to make sure your advertising on owned and paid channels is effective to help lead your customer down the purchase funnel.
What is your favourite type of PR strategy? Let me know in the comment section below!
Micro influencers vs macro Influencers, what's best for your business? Socialbakers.com. (n.d.). Retrieved November 4, 2021, from https://www.socialbakers.com/blog/micro-influencers-vs-macro-influencers.
