Any brand new company that’s serious about getting the attention of potential customers and other industry professionals will find PR extremely useful. However, not many business owners make public relations a priority – some due to the small budgets, and due to not realizing how important it really is. Fortunately, there are a small number of PR strategies that are extremely useful for new businesses that don’t ask for a big Public Relations budget.
Attention-grabbing Stories
Plenty of new businesses tend to feel a lot of pressure to come up with newsworthy announcements that warrant a press release for media outlets. However, coming up with a newsworthy announcement sometimes ends up with the company looking like it’s trying too hard, which means there’s a risk for the business to get a reputation for being irrelevant.
Instead of looking for worthy announcements, new businesses should use the customer-first approach and think about what the consumers are going to look forward to reading. The skill of creating an attention-grabbing story is a great PR asset, and it can start with how the company is solving a problem with its products or services. The story can center around how the business is a hero in people’s lives and its solutions are bringing great value to the consumers.
Media Relationships
Creating an effective media PR effort also means putting in plenty of effort in creating and nurturing relationships with media outlets, specifically, relevant journalists and reporters. In our digital world, most relationships tend to center around transactions and results that benefit both sides.
That means that companies should be communicating consistently and promptly to all press members. Otherwise, they risk losing potential connections that result in positive media coverage. Taking the time and effort to provide value to media outlets will frequently result in better media coverage over time.
Press Page
An incredibly useful tool that plenty of new businesses don’t utilize is the press page that can help the company in building its credibility and brand authority. The press page can include previous press releases, the company’s bio, the history of the brand, as well as relevant stats and facts about the business. It’s a useful page for maintaining and cultivating a professional brand image, as having a good press page means the website visitors are going to take the company a lot more seriously.
Influencer Relationships
Finally, one of the key things that plenty of new businesses overlook, which is a big advantage when used correctly, is cultivating relationships with industry influencers. When considering influencer marketing, the first thing that many business owners think about is the most popular influencers that have millions of followers and a big reach.
However, new businesses should be focusing on creating relationships with micro-influencers, who, although don’t have a large number of followers, the audience that’s already present is going to be a lot more interested in the brand, compared to the audience of a big influencer.
Ronn Torossian is CEO of 5WPR, one of America’s leading pr firms.