5 easy ways to generate PR stories for your business
By Paul Green
Free publicity is a valuable credible way to promote your business. And the hardest thing about getting it is coming up with a great idea in the first place.
See, you won’t get publicity without a great story idea that catches the attention of journalists. They are the ones who control whether or not your story is passed on their readers, listeners and viewers.
A lot of business owners are so close to their business, they mistake something they’re interested in as something that other people care about! This is why lots of businesses send out press releases about dull things like their latest office move… they rarely get media coverage, because no-one outside of that business cares!
The good news is you’re not going to make that mistake. You can easily generate creative and lively publicity ideas for your business that will make journalists sit up and want more.
Here are five easy ways to create great ideas:
1) Understand journalists and their audience: Every newspaper, magazine and radio station has a target audience. Every decision a journalist makes will be driven by that audience and what it wants to read about. Appeal to the audience and you appeal to the journalist. To really understand the audience, go to their website and download the media pack. This is a load of information given to prospective advertisers, and will help you understand who they are aiming their content at.
2) Start an ideas book: Write down every single idea you have, no matter how bad you think it is. Occasionally 2 or 3 bad ideas combined can produce a good idea! And emptying your mind of ideas regularly leaves space for new ones to form. You should also brainstorm regularly: Businesses change so quickly that new ideas can arrive every day. Get into the habit of doing a quick brainstorm for ideas regularly, rather than a tortuous long brainstorm infrequently
3) Borrow ideas from businesses in other industries: Look through your target media - what stories do non-competing businesses in other industries seem to get regularly? How can those ideas be adapted to your business? You can also borrow ideas from other areas. Look at what stories competing businesses in other areas are getting, then adapt them for your area.
4) Ask people outside your business for ideas: Particularly people that know you well, such as people you trust in networking groups or online forums. This is a great way to get round the problem of “insider thinking” – focusing on ideas that only people in your business would find interesting.
5) Ring a journalist and ask: Catch the right journalist at the right time (not on their deadline) and they might spend a few minutes chatting with you about your business, and what story ideas there may be within it. Don’t make it sound like a sales pitch. Remember if you come up with good story ideas, it will actually make their job of finding stories easier. Everyone wins.
About the author
Paul Green is a PR expert, published author and former journalist.
He set up Publicity Heaven to help business owners get free publicity in the mainstream media, then turn it into leads, sales and profits.
Bytestart has 500 free copies of Paul’s new book “PR Success Made Easy” to give away free. This is a real book, not an ebook. To get your free copy posted to you, go to www.publicityheaven.com/bytestart.
