Following our ‘How to go from PR virgin to pro’ guide, published in June, here are some more hints and hacks to help you nurture relationships with journalists and get yourself in the press. Read on to learn how to get your messages and timing right, and how to measure your success…
How to write a good (enough) press release
If you can write a blog post or product description, you can write a press release. Don’t worry about beautifully crafting your language to make it sound like magazine copy – that’s the job of the journalist. You just need to give them the relevant information about your product.
The subject of your email should be punchy and to the point – and should be the same as the title of your press release. Definitely use the word ‘new’ if what you’re pitching is new – journalists always want to know about the latest things.
If your product or brand relates to a current trend, put that in the title, for example, ‘eco-friendly’. Mention any upcoming key dates or holidays and include your launch date.
Your intro paragraph should embellish your heading a bit more. What’s the trend? What’s new, different or topical about your product? Is it vegan? Is it sustainable? Where was it made? Go into more detail and include any interesting facts to flesh out your story. Include your business name in the intro (this isn’t critical in your heading).
Include high-res images and cut-outs of your products – and some lifestyle images if they’re available. Label all your images clearly so journalists can easily pick them out and then ask you for the original files.
Write a further couple of paragraphs expanding on your product. Share a bit about your personal story – how did your product come about? Highlight what makes it stand out. At the end, include a company summary and contact details (your website, email and phone number).
Gifting free samples of your products
In certain industries (e.g. fashion, beauty, tech or music) you’re expected to send journalists your products so they can review them. How many editors should you send gifts to? This depends on your budget and the cost of producing your product etc, but a general rule is: one product to one editor, per magazine.
Don’t gift more than you can afford. And don’t randomly send out gifts to every editor you can find – this is expensive, time-consuming and not very effective. Reach out first and ask if they’re interested in trying your product (and be sure to get the right address to send it to).
Note: it’s not legal in the UK to gift very high-value products to the press (furniture, jewellery, electronics).
Getting the timings right
Organise your time wisely noting all the key dates that are relevant to your brand. Plan your PR calendar around lead times and count backwards from the relevant dates and holidays. For example, if you want to promote your product in January with a New Year’s message, schedule your pitch for around September and have your gift samples ready in the autumn (for publications that require a long lead time). Be guided by the fashion seasons and focus on any trends in your sector, adapting your pitch accordingly.
Measuring your success
An important part of PR is studying the results so you can gauge what works and build on your learnings. Use Google Analytics to collect data on your website. The ‘Acquisition’ tab tells you where your website’s visitors are coming from.
If you have online PR coverage, this will refer traffic from other websites to yours. So if you see high numbers of referred acquisition, this is likely to be linked to any online coverage you’ve received.
The benefit of online coverage is that it can continue to generate sales and conversions long after the original publication date (unlike print coverage which has a much shorter lifespan). Keep an eye on which posts and products are continuing to bring you visitors.
Success generated by printed coverage is notoriously difficult to track. However, acquisition by direct traffic often indicates a successful piece of print coverage. Why? Because when customers see something in a magazine that they like, they often type the website address directly into their browser. So look for spikes in your direct acquisition and try to marry these to the dates when you had print coverage.
Promote your coverage and thank journalists
Promoting your coverage improves conversion rate optimisation – so take every opportunity to use quotations from the journalists.
A word of warning: you CAN NOT scan coverage and post it online. You risk facing huge fines from the NLA and CLA if you do this, no matter how small your business is, so be careful. You have rights to your own image (the one you supplied to the journalist) but not rights to reproduce the article. So a good way around it is to design a template to contain your original image, and post that. In your comments section, you can mention the magazine title, edition and journalist and thank them for featuring the photo.
This how-to guide was inspired by one of our Zoom Dives with Nicola Snell, Director at digital PR and marketing network, Press Loft Ltd.
Our Zoom Dive events are deep-delving discussions between our founder, Carolyn Dailey and a handpicked creative business expert. You can listen to Carolyn and Nicola’s full discussion here.
Fancy catching our next Zoom Dive, live? See our Events calendar and sign up for free.
Meanwhile, feel free to plunder our Knowledge bank for more advice on promoting and marketing your creative business.