PR is a great way for a small business to raise its profile and get noticed by customers and potential clients. For many small businesses, however, it’s a daunting and difficult area to crack without experience or contacts. Your first step is to understand the key ways in which you can get press and media coverage.

Shouting about the news that you have

This involves contacting journalists with your news. It often requires drafting and issuing a press release and talking to journalists by phone. It’s worth remembering that journalists bin the vast majority of press releases they receive so you need to ensure that your press release abides by certain rules and actually has some news in it. The other major grumble journalists have is that they are approached with stories that are not relevant to their audience. Doing a bit of research goes a long way – your aim is to build relations with journalists not annoy them.

When you don’t have any news to shout about then you can ‘create’ news

There are certain requirements of a news story that a journalist looks for. If you know what they are then you can ‘create’ a news story. That does not mean make it up but rather take advantage of what you know will interested journalists. For example, journalists like stories that present something ‘new’. They also like stories including the results of research. So, you could carry out, or commission, research relevant to your business sector and get some press and media coverage on the back of it. Likewise, announcements that are linked to anniversaries are popular with local publications. Stunts would also fall into this category. They type of news you ‘create’ will need to be tailored to the specific publications or programmes you want to target.

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