Stephanie Donelson

I started my career in public relations and while it’s not my sole focus anymore, having PR skills is definitely important in my job as a content marketing manager. With today’s news being 24/7, anyone and any brand can essentially be a publisher and news outlet.

Knowing some basic PR strategies can definitely help with your digital marketing and brand reputation management. PR or public relations is basically using the media to convey your messages. It’s not an ad but it’s also not a channel you completely own. It’s earned media coverage. Reporters take your pitch and give their own take on it and then put you in front of the public.

PR can easily be its own full-time branding tactic, but if you’re just starting out or can’t afford the big bills of a PR firm, here are some PR tips and tricks for doing it yourself!

For my nine PR tips and tricks, let’s start with the three As:

1. Audience

Leverage your PR to reach the right audience on the right sites or through the right publications. This is where buyer personas come in! You need to know who you’re trying to target and understand why they care what you have to say.

Focus your PR efforts on the right audiences, those most likely to become customers of yours, instead of just going after press mentions wherever possible. I don’t believe the “any press is good press” line. I’d rather spend my time and effort on quality, relevant press mentions than just any old thing I can find.

Take a look at your buyer personas, Google Analytics demographic information, and the trade publications your target audience reads. What are they interested in? Where do they consume information about it? What sites are they visiting? What newspapers or magazines do they read? How can you get in with those publications, news outlets, or even bloggers?

2. Angles

Not MySpace angles but the dreaded PR “spin” you use to make your story interesting or compelling. You may love your brand and and can’t stop talking about it, but unfortunately most customers don’t love it as much as you do. They don’t care that you’re launching a new feature or service next month. They do care if you’re making their lives easier or better. Like I’ve mentioned in other content marketing blogs, it’s all about the WIIFM – What’s In It For Me?

You need to provide the angle that focuses on the customer and how your product or service transforms their lives.

3. Authority

You need to establish authority and expertise in your industry to be taken seriously. This is why so much of PR and content marketing strategies focuses on thought leadership pieces. You need to be active and providing quality commentary on your industry’s past, present, and future and being a part of shaping that future by influencing the industry with your products or services.

4. Relevancy and timeliness

Similar to the WIIFM, you need to be relevant, and timely. Nothing’s worse than announcing a new feature and then product pushes it back a few months. You’ve lost relevancy, credibility, and it’ll be that much harder to get press coverage next time around.

Your press release needs to be relevant to your business and industry. Having your own company-wide awards ceremony? Not newsworthy. Promoting an employee to CTO after years of proven leadership and company growth? That’s newsworthy.

5. Exclusivity

A great PR tactic to get your journalists’ attention is to embargo your news and giving them exclusive first access to the content. Limit how many reporters you pitch as journalists want exclusivity with their pieces.

If you send your press release to anyone and everyone, you’ll end up targeting no one. It’s like the saying, if everyone’s special, no one’s special. Make your reporters feel special by giving them first dibs on a piece before it hits the wire and letting them have exclusive access to your content.

6. The press release

Ah, the press release. This content is essentially a starting point for journalists to understand the who, what, when, where, and why of your news that they can build up off of. Press releases aren’t blog posts and typically follow a pretty standard template. Keep press releases to the point and brief, so journalists can build out an article from your release.

Structure of your press release

• Media contact info

• Headline

• Sub-headline

• Logo

• Location and release date

• Introduction/announcement

• Data/supporting facts

• Quote

• Facts

• Closing and CTA

• Boilerplate

Quick example:

Stephanie Donelson

Phone number | Email

EXCITING HEADLINE THAT TEASES WHAT THE CONTENT IS ABOUT

Sub-heading that provides a little bit more information

Logo or supporting photo

DENVER, COLO – JUNE 17, 2019 – Introduce the who, what, when, where, and why of your press release. Drop some stats or fun facts to paint the WIIFM.

Continue to tell the story and draw the reader or reporter into your story, or provide background information to why this announcement is newsworthy.

“Include a quality quote that summarizes what the announcement means to the company, its customers, or employees. Show some pride in the announcement and talk about what it means for the future of the company,” said Someone Important. “Close out the quote.”

Share any more important information or continue to discuss the why of the release.

Wrap up the announcement and tell the reader what to do next, like download the new app or upgrade what they have.

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Write a description of the company and its mission, vision, and values and include a link to the website to learn more about the company.

7. SEO + PR

Public relations and Search Engine Optimization have a wonderful, equally beneficial relationship. By getting press coverage and citations, you’re improving your off-site SEO, and by optimizing your press releases with keywords and your brand name, you’re optimizing your on-site SEO.

Most press release sites also allow you to add a link to your website, for even more authority and link building opportunities.

Post your press releases on your own site, share on social and in email, pitch it to the media and post on PR-specific websites to get the most SEO juice out of your news.

8. Build relationships with reporters

This step must be done before you have a press release in hand! Start following reporters in your niche online ahead of time and comment on and share their articles.

Introduce yourself and offer yourself up as a resource for any future articles. It’ll be much easier to get buy-in from a reporter when you do have something worthy as they’ll know you and know you know their target audience.

Remember that a reporter or blogger is always focused on providing quality and informative content to their followers or audience and that you need to frame your content in ways it’ll help their readership, not your business or brand.

9. Use HARO

Use Help a Reporter Out to be a resource for reporters to provide a stat, quote, or thought leadership piece. HARO connects you to reporters so you can get in front of the media and establish yourself as an authority figure in your industry.

Find HARO on Twitter at @helpareporterout to find urgent requests. Just be ready to move fast and have some media statements or facts and figures prepared for your industry or niche audience.

Like anything, PR takes time and dedication. I think PR goes tandem with social media marketing and content marketing. You’re creating the content and assets, now you just have to pitch them to the right person or right audience. Have your own PR tips for digital marketers? Share them in the comments below!