Despite what you may have heard, not all publicity is good publicity! One of the many benefits of public relations (PR) is that you can help steer the narrative and shape how you want to be perceived as a company.
From Manchester restaurants and bars to UK-wide hotel brands and hospitality experiences, we have delivered PR for a diverse range of brands, securing national, regional, and trade coverage in publications such as The Times, Glamour Magazine, Esquire, OK! Magazine, The Metro, The Sun, Hotel Owner, The Caterer, Manchester Evening News, and The Manc, to name just a few.
There are many reasons why you should consider hiring a PR agency – expertise, experience, connections with journalists, and knowledge of the media circuit in various regions, to name just a few – not to mention the time saved (pitching can be very time-consuming)!
If you’re an ambitious brand looking to gain some local coverage with a tight budget, it may be possible to carry out some PR yourself. With that said, there are some common traps to avoid falling into. Here are the six top PR mistakes we tend to see and, more importantly, how to fix them.
1. Not knowing (or understanding) your audience
Most brands want to land coverage in the biggest media titles, but it’s important to be realistic. A good starting point for best results is understanding where your story is best placed. Not all stories, for example, are suited to a red top paper. In fact, better results can sometimes be found from securing coverage in smaller or more niche publications, in terms of both SEO and reaching your desired audience.
A new restaurant opening in Manchester may be best to target regional, Manchester titles, for example, whereas a new hotel opening may appeal to both local journalists and journalists writing travel pieces for national titles. On the other hand, a hotel management company may wish to target trade titles like Restaurant Online. Creating a clearly defined media list is always a great starting point. After all, you can’t target everyone! Once you know who you want to pitch to, it’s time to consider what makes them tick, which brings us to our next point.
2. Failing to tell a good story
When you think about the sheer amount of emails a typical journalist receives in a day, it’s no surprise that many pitches will be passed up on. Journalists don’t like to have their time wasted, so make sure your story is strong to give it the best shot of being picked up. Consider what angle you will go with when writing your press release and pitch email, and make sure it’s an interesting read. If you yourself would find it boring to read about, think again! This doesn’t mean ‘making stuff up’, we should add, but creating a grabbing headline that presents your story in the most interesting way. Whilst a press release needs to be clear and concise so that the journalist can establish the facts quickly, it should be interesting. A good technique can be to put yourself in the shoes of the journalist.
3. Not tailoring your pitch
This is one of the most common pitfalls of pitching. Whilst sending a mass email out to hundreds of journalists may be tempting in terms of the time saved, journalists tend to see right through this (somewhat lazy – sorry!) approach.
A good pitch should always be tailored to the journalist and the publication they write for – making the latter part clear is particularly important when emailing a freelance journalist. Before making contact, you should be clear on what type of story the journalist in question writes about. After all, there’s no point in sending a story about a new café opening to an e-commerce journalist. Always do your research! Also, remember journalists are super busy so persistence can pay off, as does continually tailoring and adapting your pitch. It can also be helpful to be aware of when you send a pitch; that means avoiding busy news days or emailing on a Friday at 5pm!
4. Writing an article as if you’re the journalist
Despite what we just said above, remember you are not the journalist. Your job is not to write an article for the end audience (e.g. consumers), but to present a clear summary of the facts to the journalist in question. Wires can easily get crossed here, as the lines can blur between PR and journalism, but some simple rules to keep in mind are not to use second person (‘you’) or overly descriptive (and presumptuous) words like ‘amazing’ in a press release.
5. Not setting clear objectives
Before you start creating media lists and press releases, it’s important to set clear objectives, as this is the foundation to any successful PR strategy. Without having goals in mind, your PR campaign risks becoming ineffective and taking on the dreaded ‘scattergun’ approach when it comes to pitching. Whether your aims are to increase brand awareness in Manchester, creating high-quality backlinks to improve SEO or increase bookings, objectives will give your PR strategy focus, direction and accountability. Once your goals are defined, you can create measurable key performance indicators like number of media mentions or an increase in web traffic, for example.
6. Not including images!
One of the most common PR oversights is sending out a press release without strong visuals. High quality images are especially important in today’s digital landscape, where visual content is king. Journalists are more likely to use stories that come with high resolution images, as it instantly brings a piece to life. However, they equally don’t appreciate huge files that clog up their inboxes, graphics, or badly sized images (for instance, portrait photos when the publication uses landscape). It can be a good idea to link to your images, to make sure your email file isn’t too big.
Hopefully you can see that there is so much more to PR than just writing and sending out a press release! By avoiding the common mistakes above, you will be giving yourself a better chance of success.
Feeling overwhelmed? If you’d like to discuss your PR goals and find out more about the benefits an agency can bring to your business, speak to us today. As a PR agency in Manchester, we’ve worked with various sized brands and can create a bespoke PR package that works within your budget and brief.
