Women in businessYour PR and image toolkit

Menzies Carlton Hotel

19 May 2010

Your PR Toolkit

• Meet Julie Ratcliffe

Your PR Toolkit

• The Value of PR

• Media and Digital PR

• Hints and Tips for Stories that Travel

• Press Releases – Mini Master Class

The Value of PR

• PR defined

• Reputation and image

• The place of PR in your marketing strategy

• Does it work?

•How can you put price on it?

• Isn’t it very expensive?

Reputation and Image

Media and Digital PR

• The challenge to the press

• New opportunities in print

• The digital age of PR

• Online news

• Your website! Plus; Blogs,Facebook, Twitter – do or die?

• Broadcast media

• Video – the next thing

Hints & Tips for Stories that Travel

• Get to know your target

• People love people

•Every picture tells a story

•KISS

•Ditch that Jargon

•Keep to format

•Think outside the box

Press releases

Mini Master Class

Have a go

• Your business has just won an award for being environmentally friendly.

• Write to let the local media know about it

• 15 minutes

Let’s read the paper

• Headline / front-page news

• Page leads

• NIBs

• Letters Page

• Feature pages

• Special Supplements

• Other bits

The basics of a press release

• Headline

• That first all-important first paragraph

• Quote Me!

•Contacts and other details

•After ‘The End’

If I only had a NIB

•News in Brief and that first paragraph

•Who, What, Why, When, Where

•OR

•Play Cluedo for simple stories!

NIBs

• PR consultant Julie Ratcliffe is giving a free talk on PR for the small business on Wednesday 19 May at the Carlton Hotel, Bournemouth, starting at 10.15am. Contact Business Link on 0845 0707 747

•Your first paragraph – Have another go!

Other formalities

• Your contacts for further information – They MUST be available!

• Pictures

• Is there a picture opportunity?• Do you have a picture?

• Notes to editors – what’s that all about?

• Headlines –

• a word of caution ...

Ooops!

Where & when to send a press release

• Target publications and sources

•Don’t forget Deadlines

•Work backwards when planning PR

• Contacts-use specific where known

Ready to go!

• Email is the way today

• Don’t put ‘Press Release’ in subject line!

• Be brief

•Attach the file AND copy it into the body text

•Attach a photo

•Hit SEND!

Will it or won’t it?

• Deadlines – did you keep to this?

• Is it newsworthy?

•Is it the kind of story this publication uses (Golf mags will only take knitting patterns if it’s a gold club cosy!)

•If it’s not time-limiting, it can appear weeks later.

•Luck of the draw – who got there first?

If at first you don’t succeed ...

• Don’t Panic!

• Follow up if you’ve made a contact

• Keep sending stories

• Good luck!

Any questions?