Cost-effective PR strategies that don’t have to break the bank

Hertfordshire’s PR guru Julia Girling of JGC explains…

Julia_Girling_PR_consultant I often meet directors of small or medium sized businesses who tell me they would love to employ a PR agency but could not afford the hefty fees. There is definitely a misconception that PR and marketing campaigns automatically equate to big bucks and this does not have to be the case.

There is also a myth that bringing a PR agency on board involves signing up to a long term commitment and again this is far from the truth, I have many clients that I work for on an ad hoc or project basis.

There are numerous ways that your business could benefit from PR expertise that does not have to break the bank. It is really dependent on your specific marketing objectives and who you need to reach and influence. Your target audience might be people living within the local area, in which case a media relations campaign aimed at local media will make a real difference; or maybe you need to communicate with professionals within a specific industry, in which case you can launch a trade press campaign.

Media relations can be reactive or proactive

I use one of two approaches when contacting the target media – reactive and proactive media relations. Reactive is when you are responding to the media’s agenda e.g. trade publications produce forward feature lists that chart their forthcoming scheduled features – if one of the features is relevant to your business to give comment and/or be interviewed for the feature; in some cases the journalist will let me draft the feature which they will go on to edit; or the media might be contacting you with regards to a story they are researching, again a PR will use this opportunity to generate maximum coverage for your company or brand.

The majority of my time is dedicated to proactive media relations – this is where I contact the journalist and ‘sell in’ a story that will generate positive coverage for my client e.g. a new contract win; a particularly successful case study; product or service launches and promotions; staff initiatives, such as, raising money for local charities…

A media relations campaign is budgeted on the hours incurred by the PR; and so can be as small or large as you wish.

Media promotions are a cost-effective PR tactic

Another cost effective PR tactic is media promotions. This might be in the form of a product competition or reader giveaway; a media sponsorship or advertorial. Many local newspapers and trade or consumer magazines regularly give their readers the chance to win product prizes and if you provide the prizes free of charge you are given substantial copy space to promote your business. The PR negotiates the competition with the publication; sources visuals and drafts the competition copy, which will promote your business and communicate your key brand messages.

A competition will take up a half or full page and costs you no more than the products you are giving away plus your PRs fee, considerably less than it would cost to buy the space at the advertising rate and doing an equally good job of promoting your products.

Cause-related campaigns offer value for money

Cause-related PR campaigns range from a specific regional ‘call to action’ by the brand to its local public, to a national awareness campaign which could involve a national newspaper partner – and the budgets will vary in accordance.

Local cause-related campaigns offer excellent value for money as they can have a huge impact by generating coverage and support from local papers, businesses and organisations, but can be organised on a limited budget.

Firstly the PR needs to find a cause that is relevant to your business and its culture e.g. a local car insurance company might run a ‘Driving towards a Safer City’ campaign.

Your PR will compile a case for the campaign by using research data e.g. statistics showing that road accidents are rising across the city; highlighting particular danger spots; listing the regions safest roads etc. The company then needs to be seen to do something to support the cause e.g. commissioning an expert to provide hints and tips on safe driving habits; sponsoring and providing free local road safety classes and producing ‘Be Safe’ branded stickers for car windows, motorbike helmets and bicycles. All this information would be compiled into a press release, which will launch the campaign to the media.

The campaign launch and its ongoing success provides news hooks for local coverage, plus an opportunity for your company representative to be interviewed by the regions’ print and broadcast media.

Bearing in mind that research has proved that the public are three times more likely to be influenced by editorial media coverage than they are to be influenced by advertisements, it is definitely worth investigating the different ways you could generate great publicity for your brand, without spending a fortune!