Publicity can come in many forms, TV, print and press, radio, online and social media…It’s a powerful, far-reaching awareness tool which gets your business into the hearts and minds of people who need what you’ve got most (your target audience).
Publicity is the single most cost-effective thing a business can do to build their awareness, reputation and credibility.
Good publicity assists with good public relations. It’s not everything; there’s a lot of important PR tactics that can be put in play that are far more important depending on the ideal business outcomes, but in many cases it is the crown in the jewel of a PR campaign. The cherry on the cake so to speak.
Ok so you’ve got some basic PR foundations in place… and now you’re ready to either outsource or DIY PR with publicity in mind.
Here is a list of things you can do to generate publicity for your business.
01: Conduct a survey
There’s a saying in PR; ‘when there’s no news conduct a survey’. It’s a great tactic to generate news that wasn’t otherwise there. A survey if it asks the right questions with the right group of people will unearth facts, figures, insights, trends and consumer behaviours in your category that will help to build a story.
02: Manage a special event
Producing a beautiful event can help bring a key brand message to life or support a lead business initiative. Events create meaningful interactions for media, key stakeholders and influencers who align with your brand. Special events are a great way to spread positive word-or-mouth, drive awareness and generate social media content. Choose guests and target media carefully and make sure the event is executed professionally. It doesn’t have to be a big event to be a great PR experience for those who attend.
03: Create viral content
Use social media to create content that could potentially go viral. The most sharable things are not overly produced and rarely if ever sales driven. Going viral is easier said than done. It’s about trial and error and having a crack. But it is low to no cost. And magic when it happens. If you’re not brave and mighty or able to let-go, then the best way to go viral is to create incredibly helpful information to a niche category.
04: Write and syndicate a press release
Press releases help to seed valuable information to media. They need to be specific and significant. There are industry expectations on the formatting of a press release. For the DIY PR folk, you can grab our media release templates here.
05: Get philanthropic
Philanthropic efforts that give-back, add value to the lives of others and have goodwill at the heart can sometimes result in publicity. Due the deluge of them, media don’t generally like charity stories; but if you can go beyond a charity message and just ‘do good’ then it can result in share-ability and media take-up organically.
06: Create a stunt
PR stunts can be large scale or small scale. Some of the most powerful stunts have been all about creativity, timing and location. A well-thought out PR stunt can increase brand recognition, generate media attention and coverage as well as impact sales. But choose your stunt carefully, and make sure that it aligns with your brand positioning and advances your brand messages in a positive way.
07: Collaborate
What’s that collaboration saying ‘1+1 = 11’. The point being that when you collaborate you strengthen your resources, audience pool and PR power. Consider teaming up with influencers, celebrities or businesses who by doing so would strengthen your communications messages, cause and potentially generate publicity.
Words by Jade Roberts
raraPR Founder and Creative Director
raraPR is above all the sum of people who together help build brands and share stories. We are present in our determination to make a positive difference to the world by representing individuals and businesses that are doing good. We are an extension of the personal stories within us, those that we exist for and those within you that need to be heard.
Be sure to check into our shop for more DIY PR tools to help you on your merry-PR-way, or reach out if you’d like us to manage it all for you.
