Doing your own PR? Work through these questions first
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There is plenty of PR advice from a journalists perspective telling you how to secure media coverage or pitch to the press. This is just one strand of PR which we called publicity or media relations.
The problem is if you are a time-poor small business owner and your particular business objective is to drive overnight sales then securing a mention in a listicle isn’t necessarily going to be the silver bullet for inbound revenue.
What you actually need is to start outlining your business objectives! It is nigh on impossible to hype yourself in an effective way without knowing these, so best to get them sorted from the beginning. Changing the goals halfway through the campaign means you may have to start from scratch, so it is essential that your business targets are outlined on one page. This could also mean that pitching to a journalist isn’t what you need and it's actually something else from your marketing wheelhouse.
BUSINESS OBJECTIVE QUESTIONS
Have a read of the following questions and answer the questions that feel relevant for your own business.
NB: You don’t have to have an answer for all of these pillars, I’ve just included some examples to get you thinking.
Turnover or business growth
– Do you want to get more bums on seats?
– Do you want to launch or sell more products?
– What are your revenue goals?
– How much website traffic are you looking to
attract?
– How many email sign-ups are you looking for?
– What’s your social media following target?
Internal goals
– Are you looking to find brilliant industry talent to come work with you?
– Do you want to empower existing employees to be industry experts?
– Which areas of your business do you need training or assistance with?
Operational
– Can you improve on any element of your supply chain to improve profitability?
– Are all logistical elements of your business up to scratch?
