PR Tips that will Help Grow your Business in 2020

Fiona Scott is the business journalist for Total Guide and she also runs her own media agency based in Swindon yet working with clients throughout the UK.

She’s also an accomplished television director and offers animation and video services to her clients. She’s recently launched her first online PR course for business owners who want to do their own PR or want to become educated around what good PR looks like. The course is here - https://courses.fionascottmediaconsultancy.co.uk

It’s January and the year has turned and so has the decade – are you considering upping your game when it comes to PR? Do you even know what it means?

One common mantra I hear from well-established companies is this – ‘we don’t need to do any marketing or advertising or PR as our business all comes from word of mouth’.

I always respond with ‘that’s great, it’s the best form of marketing’. However when you dig a little deeper these companies do engage with PR, they just don’t realise it. Sitting silently in a room doing your ‘thing’ will not grow any business. Every business has to be visible. The key is knowing how to do this – and changing it over time.

For 2020, please grasp this concept ‘word of mouth’ isn’t the same as it once was. It’s not just one human being meeting another, talking and then recommending your company.

In a digital world, that kind of marketing will still exist however it will become less and less relevant. Why you may ask? Well the younger generation, the Millennials, do ‘word of mouth’ differently.

They will often consider word of mouth to be online – through social media, through internet searches, through personal recommendation online. The first sign that this is impacting your business is when you are realise you are losing clients to more visible competitors or your sales are bottoming out and slowly falling.

Another key indicator is when you hear again and again ‘really, that successful, I’ve never heard of you or your company’. If that’s being said now – what will be said in five years’ time?

Here are some PR activities you could consider for 2020 to grow your business through being more visible:

1. Plan your stories and where you are going to tell them – on social media, website or blog or through talks, on brochures, leaflets or by pigeon post – if you are struggling with this I can help.

2. Ditch the fear - some sectors fear being more visible particularly in the financial and legal sectors where there are sensitive issues being dealt with regularly. Also, very introverted souls can find this fearful and they, therefore, avoid marketing. You control your marketing – are you going to expose sensitive issues publicly? No, of course not. Telling your own stories is not about sharing secrets or breaking rules or changing our personality, it’s about evidencing what you do. Worrying about what could happen and therefore doing nothing will eventually be the death of the business. Be visible in a mindful manner.

3. Invest in making sure ‘marketing assets’ are up to date and functional reflecting your business today. Those leaflets which have sat in your office for five years are no good. That website which looks dated and looks like an A4 page online is damaging your reputation. That Facebook page which you posted on six months ago will actually have a detrimental effect on your business.

4. Do stuff – to become visible in a business community get out and about. Network with other business owners, or if you are a B2C business, take space or take part in a few events relevant to your business this year. Do it with visibility in mind and not sales. Remember a first meeting is a chance to build a relationship not a hard sale opportunity.

5. Charity – give back. Choose a charity or social enterprise that you feel passionately about and help them, then gently share those stories. Increasingly caring companies will be successful companies. Not convinced? Look at all of the big names in Swindon and see what they do for charity. Do you know better than them?

6. Regular newsletters – keep in touch online with your former, existing and potential clients. Let them know what you are doing and when. Create an interested crowd and make them feel special. I’d suggest at least quarterly, monthly if you can, all online.

7. Run your own event – consider running one event this year where you or your company are the organiser. This could be a charity event, a business networking event, a ‘client meet up’ event. Evidence it through a news release to local media and social media, encourage attendees to do so too.

8. If 2020 is a milestone year for you – you started your business 20 years ago, or you employ your 20th person, that’s a story worth telling. This is what we call a ‘media hook’.

9. Use far more good imagery and videography – set aside a budget for doing this, as your brand develops and your income starts to build, keep up that energy by offering as high a quality as you can afford. Pictures can tell a story instantly and videos are hugely powerful to tell the story of a product or an event. Social media influencers and famous v-loggers exist now for a reason. They are building their own audience.

10. Say please and thank you – this is one area where I recommend you go ‘old school’. When someone has helped you such as a team member, a client, a supplier, a charity – say thank you and send them a branded thank- you post card or a bouquet of flowers or branded cupcakes. Why? People go online to share them to thank you back. It’s called the new ‘word of mouth’ and it’s disruptive.