Let’s get this straight right now: PR stands for Public Relations.
Too many entrepreneurs think it is simply a different word for marketing. It’s not. Marketing is marketing. Public Relations is how you relate to the public.
Where marketing screams for the attention of people to buy your stuff, PR highlights the personality of your business and looks to connect with people. This is how you can do your own PR:
Know Thy Journalist
Before you start reaching out for PR opportunities, check the stories that have already been written by the journalist you are contacting. Make sure you have a story that is going to compliment their style.
Pick Up The Phone
Everyone and there mother faxes or emails their press release. If you do that, you are just part of the heap. Instead pick up the phone and call the journalist.
You Must Have An Interesting Angle
The fact that your company is selling a widget with a 5 year warranty is a sales pitch. The man who dove into ice water to save a drowning victim is a story, and if your widget was key to the saving of the victim is good PR.
Package It Easily
Journalists’ jobs are to write stories. Your job is to give them the angle and let them develop the story. You have another job though. Give them all the factual information (like your complete contact info) in a simple email so they can cut and paste.
Be An Access Point To Others
Offer to be a resource to the journalist for future articles. And offer to put the journalist in contact with other people you know, if you are not a fit for an article.
Follow Up
Persistence and pestering are two different things. Be persistent by presenting future PR ideas to the journalist. But before you start constantly calling them with new ideas, ask their permission to follow up. If they ask you to hold off, and you don’t, you are pestering.
