28 Apr Will PR increase sales?
If I had a pound for every time somebody asks ‘Will PR increase my sales?’, I’d be somewhere in the Bahamas admiring my baby pink toe nails as I float in a warm ocean happy in the knowledge that I never have to go to another 6am networking breakfast again. The answer is, I don’t know. My team and I can give you the best ever shot of getting your business featured in newspapers and magazines both in print and online, but we can never guarantee that it will increase sales.
One of my clients was an author. I managed to get her a double-page spread in a national newspaper, on the cover and across three pages of a weekly magazine, in her local paper and on the radio. As PR campaigns go, it was a resounding success, yet she sold just two books off the back of it.
That’s not to say it was a disaster. Her profile has definitely been raised – only the other week, the Daily Mail sought her out for a feature they were doing and she’s since appeared on several more radio shows. Sales are steadily increasing. There is no quick fix and one thing I always stress, is that you need to be looking at marketing across the board. It’s no good being in a national magazine if your branding is dodgy, your website is clunky and you last posted on Twitter during the X Factor final back in 2015.
There is still a place for PR, but the landscape is changing and this is why I’m now working with a team of brainy tech types who can work wizardry with SEO, design slick and responsive websites, create sales funnels that will boost your database and sales and have the ability to make sense of analytics and algorithms. This means, we can offer an extensive PR and digital marketing service that will give you the best possible chance of increasing sales.
I pity SMEs who are doing all their own PR and marketing as I know how much time, effort and expertise it takes. I also appreciate that when you are starting a new business, there isn’t a great deal of cash sloshing around for PR. For this reason, I’m offering some new packages aimed at start ups. We will write a killer press release for £160 and for £450 we will send it out to a targeted media list. You can either ask us to chase it up for you for a specified day rate or you can nudge and badger the recipients yourself. That way, you don’t have to worry about your PR budget spiralling out of control.
If you do feel you have what it takes to do your own PR and marketing, but just want a little guidance, get in touch because if there is enough of a demand, I am thinking of doing some workshops in London. I want to make them competitively priced and I intend to invite my digital partners along. You’ll learn a lot and I promise it will be fun too.