Achieving editorial coverage through PR is a great way to build brand awareness for your business, ultimately helping you increase sales. However, we understand PR can sometimes be frustrating. Read on to discover 3 reasons you may feel this and how to increase your chances of securing editorial coverage.
PR takes time and you’ll need patience
Unlike other marketing tools, PR takes a lot of time. To pitch your news 4 months ahead of when you would like to see coverage published, you’ll need to have all your assets ready 5 to 6 months before you launch your product or service. Plus, it may take time for journalists to recognise your business and for you to develop relationships with them. To increase your chances of achieving coverage, ensure you promptly share pertinent information with journalists ahead of their deadlines and spend time targeting your pitches to individual journalists and their readers.
You’re paying for time, not results
We understand that it can be frustrating to pay for a service and sometimes see fewer results than you would like. However, no PR company can legitimately guarantee your business editorial coverage. Instead of paying for results (advertising), when working with a PR company, you are paying for their time to pitch your news to journalists to secure editorial. Click here to read about paid, owned and earned content and the differences between them. To help your PR team secure as many results as possible for your business, provide them with relevant information and imagery as soon as possible so they are well-equipped to secure editorial coverage on your behalf. Plus they’re then not wasting pitching time following up with you to request what they need.
It’s a never-ending task: there’s always more you can do
PR can never be completed as there is always another editor you can pitch to or angle to come up with. However, it’s important to know when you have done enough and move on to other elements of the marketing mix. As a founder, you are responsible for all the different elements of your business so we understand that PR cannot be your all-consuming focus. However, it does need a time commitment for it to come to fruition. We recommend assessing how much time you can realistically commit to PR research and pitching every week but then locking it in your diary otherwise it will keep getting pushed. Start with four hours per week to see what you can achieve in that time. Given PR is 100% proactive it can often feel overwhelming so it is important to break it down. If you don’t pitch, it won’t happen.
We recommend using Toggl to track our time and see where it is really being spent.
If you would like to own your PR in-house for the long term, email us via hello@fallowfieldmason.com to find out how we can help you.