No money? No problem. PR can help your B2B succeed!
With huge agency retainers, press-release distribution costs, printing fees, and more, you may think public relations is only for big businesses with big budgets. Well, if you haven’t thought about using public relations (PR) for your B2B, think again.
Public relations is simply a way of communicating your story, and even if you have a non-existent marketing budget this year, you can still take advantage of all the benefits PR offers.
PR On A Budget
Why consider public relations?
By reaching out to specific media members at the right time with the right message, you can get a feature story that focuses on your B2B… at no cost. This means that your targeted audience members see this, and you gain awareness and credibility. And note that this news is coming from an outside, respected party. It’s not advertising; it’s third-party credibility you can’t get any other way!
Plus, this publicity can give you a huge competitive advantage. For example, let’s say your potential customers open their local newspaper on a Sunday morning and see a big, feature story about your business. There is no mention of your competition whatsoever.
Do you think these readers are going to contact you or your competitors?
Where Do You Start?
If you want to boost sales right away in 2020, put PR in action for your business with these steps:
- Research.
Have an assistant, intern or freelancer conduct research online for the key media venues you want to reach. Then, look at each of the websites to find contact information for the appropriate reporters, editors, writers, producers, etc.Â
Who is going to care about your business and share your store with their audience?
It’s a good idea to start with smaller, local publications to test things out and then go from there. Then, once you have a good starter list of media members, move on to the next step…
- Create your pitch.
What interesting insights do you have to share with your targeted media members? Create a story idea for each particular person on your list. After all, the days of sending out a blanket press release to the masses and hoping for a response are over!
Learn about each media member, what topics they cover and what interests them. Then, develop a unique and newsworthy story about the benefits you offer, an upcoming charity event you are working on, something an employee is doing to help others, etc. Remember, it’s not about the features of your products and services. It’s all about the benefits you offer others.
- Practice.
Once you have your story ideas together, practice what you are going to say. Create easy talking-points you can refer to and review them until you feel comfortable saying them in a natural way. Next…
Go for It!
When you have completed these steps, contact each of the people on your list via phone. This way, you can introduce yourself, give your pitch and begin a relationship with the media members. With practice, you’ll figure out your pitching style, what works best for you and how the PR process works for your business.
Now, these are some very simple steps to begin your public relations activities, and they will take time and effort. However, it is well worth it as your hard work can reap many benefits.
After all, it only takes one well-placed media story to instantly boost awareness for your B2B (online and off), build credibility the competition can’t touch and help sales increase fast.
Are you ready to give public relations a chance in 2020? It’s available to all types of businesses, big and small. Why not claim your piece of the PR pie?
Melanie Rembrandt is an award-winning B2B content marketing strategist, international speaker, small business PR expert and published author (Simple Publicity, Secrets of Becoming a Publicist) who helps businesses boost sales, awareness, and credibility fast via Rembrandt Communications, LLC and The Small Business PR Academy at www.rembrandtwrites.com.
