Advertising and public relations

Jul 7 2005 By the Evening Gazette

Your marketing strategy is a vital part of your business plan and is crucial to ensure you promote your business effectively.

Most businesses rely on a combination of promotional tactics. Advertising and PR are popular and useful for raising awareness and building understanding of your business as each performs a different promotional function.

Advertising

Advertising is a fast and simple way for you to let a large number of people know about your products and services and can pay off if your product appeals to a large number of potential buyers.

What are your aims?

Begin by establishing who your target customers are and before advertising decide on specific goals. For example:

- Create awareness of your business.
- Tell people about a special offer.
- Compile lists of leads for direct mail or sales calls.

Plan your advertising in terms of results:

- Who are you trying to influence?
- How can you reach these people?
- How quickly do you need results?

What is the one thing you want people to remember most from your ad?

Print Media

You need to consider which media will reach the right people? What do your potential customers read? Also it's worth looking at where your competitors advertise, and where they don't.

National newspapers - often a good choice for high volume consumer sales and direct response selling.

Local papers - freesheets and community magazines can be ideal for local advertising.

Trade and technical journals - appropriate if you want to supply to businesses or other specialist groups.

Lifestyle magazines - including hobby magazines, are suitable for advertising consumer goods, especially for mail order.

Business phone directories - such as Yellow Pages and trade directories work well where customers naturally turn to this kind of reference source.

Non-print media

Transport and poster adverts (e.g. on buses, bus stops, trains, stations and roadside hoarding) can be good at reaching shoppers and commuters.

Local radio and cinema advertising may be useful if you are selling to the public in a particular locality.

The internet allows you to advertise via your own website or, for suitable products, buying banner advertising space on other companies' web pages can be highly effective.

Public Relations

Good public relations (PR) can be crucial to the success of your business.

In its broadest sense, PR is a way of effectively and accurately communicating with your audience to make sure they understand your company and can enable you to develop a positive and credible image in your customers minds.

One great advantage of PR is that, unlike advertising, you can usually get it free of charge.

Effective PR

You need to be clear about what you wish to achieve, your immediate objective is to gain positive publicity that will help your business become well known and profitable.

In order for a press release to be effective it should be tailored to be appropriate for each publication and target audience.

Local papers will be interested, for example, in new jobs being created in the area, or a local business success, but specialist journals may focus on technical aspects of your product or service.

If you want a newspaper to run your story, it must be newsworthy and should also be, for example:

- Quirky or unusual.
- Topical.
- Have a strong human interest.
- Relevant to its readers.

You will also increase the likelihood of your story being used if you:

Find out the deadline for each of the publications and submit your press release well in advance, unless it is a "hot" news item.

Find out how the editors prefer to receive releases eg. by email, fax or post.

Editors are often happy to discuss ideas over the telephone. It can save them time and ensures you hit their deadlines.

Routine PR opportunities

To get into the national press, a story about your business success has to be highly newsworthy.

To get into a local paper, or the trade press, it may just need to save the editor work and be interesting to local people or those working in the industry.

The subject of your press release could be:

- The launch of a new product.
- The opening of new premises.
- Large or interesting, eg. overseas orders.
- Staff appointments.

Issuing a press release

Use your headed paper, but write PRESS RELEASE across the top of the page.

Use double-spaced lines with wide margins, to leave room for editing and make the journalist's job easier.

Write an attention grabbing headline.

The headline should indicate what the press release is about.

The opening paragraph must summarise the story and highlight the key points of interest to the people the editor is aiming at.

Next, give some details, including the most interesting information first, as the editor may not read the whole press release.

Limit your press release to about 300 words, with no more than 60 words per paragraph.

Put additional background and technical information in a "Note to Editors" at the end. Use short sentences and short words.

Give them a photograph

An interesting picture will draw the journalist's attention to your press release even if your story is not particularly strong.

The photograph must be relevant, so you should consider how can you make it interesting.

Watch your back

PR can backfire. Journalists will write what they think makes a good story.

They will often look for controversy, and the first person they contact may be someone with the opposite view to you. Be careful what you say.

Make it clear which of your employees are allowed to answer journalists' questions.

Will PR work for you?

The best form of PR is a satisfied customer who recommends your business to other people.

Ask yourself whether your time would be better spent building up your business and nurturing your reputation with customers than putting effort into PR activities.

Look again at what your customers read, could you be there, in the publications they choose? If the answer is yes, you may be missing a good opportunity if you are not using PR.