Public Relations
How to come up with PR stories for your business (3 examples)
By Adam Rothery, Business Development Director
31st October 2022
Without story telling, Public Relations wouldn't exist. What a lot of businesses don't realise is they've got plenty of stories to tell - which they'll uncover by taking a step back from the nitty gritty of your business.
When you’re in the day-to-day of your business, it’s easy to brush over stories that would fit perfectly into the pages of the local, industry and even national press. When you’re considering the stories to include in your PR activity, starting with a blank sheet of paper is intimidating, and identifying newsworthy stories can quickly result in writers block.
Here, I’m share a few thoughts that will help you start to fill that blank page and get your story out there.
Before you kick off - what's the point?
Before investing time, money or both in marketing activity like PR, understanding why you’re doing it is so important. Don’t rush into a new marketing channel purely because you’ve heard your competitors are doing it or someone down the pub said it’s the new craze.
Finding a purpose is quite straightforward. In my experience, it increases the chance of odds of success immensely.
It’s the first step we take when we work with a new client, and the purpose varies from industry to industry. Ask yourself, do you want to engage a local community? Do you want to build your reputation within a specific industry? Are you trying to build links to support your SEO efforts or is it something else?
The potential purposes behind your activity are endless, but identifying yours will guide the rest of your strategy and save you plenty of headaches along the way.
What are you proud of?
What are you good at?
What's new?
What's new?
Consider what you’re proud of
Put simply, data-driven marketing is the process of optimising marketing comms based on information and insight, to provide the maximum possible return on investment (ROI).
Why is data-driven marketing becoming the new norm?
Let’s face it, data-driven decisions beat gut instinct, which is why data-driven marketing is quickly becoming the new norm.
Here’s just a few benefits of a data-driven approach.
1. Understanding your audience
Every business exists to solve a problem, right? Using analytics and social listening tools can help you gain a laser-sharp understanding of your audience, their motivations, sentiments, needs and behaviours, which you can use to shape future products, services and communications.
2. Choosing the right channels
Social media, online advertising, influencer marketing, email, blog content – there’s an ever-growing number of marketing channels at your disposal, but you can’t rely on instinct to select which ones are best suited for a campaign. Use data to learn which channels are most suited to your audience. For instance, if you’re targeting the gen-z demographic, Instagram is a strong option, with 30% of users being 18-24.
3. Personalising your communications
Marketing data can be leveraged to create personalised marketing campaigns that help you reach the right customer with the right message at the right time. Take Spotify’s “Discover weekly” for example, which uses an algorithm to build a custom playlist for listeners based on their listening habits. This deep degree of personalisation has helped Spotify add real value to its service and foster loyalty amongst its users.
4. Analysing and refining your campaigns
One of the key benefits of digital marketing is that it’s easy to measure. Marketing analytics platforms provide a wealth of data to help you understand what works and what doesn’t – helping you to determine exactly where your time and budget is best spent. For example, if your Google Ads campaigns are generating a below-average click-through-rate (less than 2%), consider refining the ad copy, adding negative keywords, or introducing new ad extensions.