How to Get PR in 2021: Strategies for Small Businesses
Small businesses that want to know how to get PR in 2021, listen up. This is your year.
Getting your brand in the limelight can do tremendous things for your business. To name a few reasons you should go for it, PR can:
Elevate your brand status
Boost your credibility
Put you in front of new audiences
Increase sales
Open new opportunities
But before you can get PR, you need to know how to get PR. Let’s look at a few things you can do to make 2021 the year your business became a star.
1. Decide between DIY and hiring a PR firm
The first thing you need to do is choose your approach. You have two main options:
You can hire a PR firm
You can DIY a PR strategy
Hiring a PR firm is a great option for businesses that have the cash to commit to an ongoing retainer. If this is you, then the choice is simple, leave it to the professionals.
If you’re looking at your budget and not quite sure if you can spare the expense, then you can DIY a PR strategy for a lot cheaper.
Running your own PR campaign is a lot easier than it sounds. I see a lot of business owners say they can’t do PR, but they manage their business’ social media, email marketing, and all these other types of communication.
In my opinion, PR is way simpler than social media and setting up email funnels. It’s just that most of us aren’t used to dealing with the media in our day-to-day lives, so it seems more intimidating.
One way to remove that intimidation is just to learn more about how the media works and what a DIY PR campaign looks like. You can learn all of that in my Foundations Course.
2. Find your angle to get earned media
You can’t just go to a publication and tell them who you are and what your business does. That is a quick way to be connected to their advertising department.
What you want to do is find an angle. This makes it possible for the media to write a story about you...for free. In addition to it being a better bang for your buck, this kind of media will give you a boost of 3rd party credibility
When it comes to the New Year, one angle you can come in with is New Year’s Resolutions. Do you help people achieve a goal? If so, get started on a New Year’s Resolution pitch!
3. Look far and wide for media contacts
The vast majority of reporters are working from home and have subbed Zoom calls for in-person interviews. While I can’t wait for social distancing to be over, I also can’t help but see how many opportunities it has opened for my clients.
Before the world shut down, businesses were often limited to the publications in their area or need to travel to meet reporters. Since this isn’t the case, publications are opening up their geographic market for sourcing stories.
I see this the most with TV interviews. Now that so many interviews and segments are happening remotely, you can reach more shows all from the comfort of your home.
So when I say, “Look far and wide for media contacts,” I mean that there are more available now than ever before, so don’t limit yourself to the publications in your area.
4. How to get PR in 2021? Start Now.
This is the most important part. If you really want to get PR in 2021, you should start now.
First of all, the media works in advance, sometimes up to six months for some of the major national publications. This is called lead time.
So if you want to get your business in the media in time for a New Year’s Resolution story or even a Valentine’s Day story, this is the time to pitch it.
And more importantly, PR takes time. You can’t expect your first pitch to land a dozen placements. But you can expect results if you consistently pitch the media.
If you want to make the media a real goal for 2021, take the Foundations course to learn how the media works (which you can finish in just under an hour) and start working on your end-of-year pitches now.