3 Powerful Ways to Use PR to Grow Your Business
CEO Amy Jackson of TaleSplash had the opportunity to sit down with Christine Mills, host of The Veranda Entrepreneur podcast, to discuss leveraging PR strategies for business growth. Keep reading to discover the main takeaways from the segment!
Listen to the podcast episode here.
1. It helps your product or service remain relevant
In a fast-paced, 24-hour news cycle, relevance and timeliness are key. Given the constantly shifting media landscape, PR experts can act as media "watchdogs" by identifying opportunities for you to contribute to critical conversations.
Every day, journalists are searching for products, services, and experts to feature in their stories. As PR experts, our job is to play “match-maker” by connecting you with the right journalists who are interested in telling your story to the right audience at the right time.
Given the oversaturation of the media landscape, journalists are always on the lookout for fresh angles to tell a compelling narrative.
Let’s take AI for example: in March 2023, the Pew Research center found that 58% of U.S. adults have heard of ChatGPT.
When ChatGPT broke through and became a mainstream news story, we helped the world understand how AI is changing our day-to-day life by connecting our tech clients with the right journalists.
However, as time went on, the topic of AI became more and more saturated, and as a result, we had to pivot and ask ourselves critical questions: What are the types of stories that are relevant to the topic of AI? What is the news that we can share that’s going to align with those AI-focused stories journalists are writing about?
Once we identified the answers to these questions, we worked with the news cycle and shifted our focus around regulation and ethics in AI.
This is a prime example of how PR can help you stay relevant, and ultimately win the trust of your target audience.
When people see that you can contribute timely and relevant expertise in your niche, naturally, their trust grows, and as a ripple effect, they’re more likely to purchase your product or service!
2. It can help your product or service gain third party validation
The benefits of third-party validation are endless. Securing media placements on third-party outlets not only helps enhance your brand’s exposure and visibility, but also grants you access to a wider audience, which in turn can increase your consumer base.
Although promoting your products and services on your personal channel is a great strategy, it should not be the only technique to grow your business. There’s a difference between being sold to and hearing genuine recommendations from others about a product or service. Think about the countless times you may have skipped an ad on YouTube or how uneasy you may have felt when repeatedly approached by someone to buy their product or service.
Consumers are more willing to pay for a product or service when family or friends recommend it, and when they do seek out a product, signals of third party validation increases their likelihood of making a purchasing decision. In fact, 74% of consumers learn about a product through ratings and reviews, and 93% say it helps influence their purchasing decision
This is what a strategic media placement in a third party outlet in your niche can do for your business: it can provide social proof and instill trust, ultimately positively influencing the consumer behavior of your target audience.
If you have a product or service available nationally and valuable advice to share, you are an excellent candidate for PR, especially if you are in a specific field such as financial advice, sleep expertise, lifestyle coaching, nutrition, interior design, or other areas highly sought after by journalists every day.
As mentioned before, as PR experts, our job is to identify journalists that are looking for experts in your niche to enrich a story. You can think of third party media validation as a symbiotic relationship: your expertise and insights help journalists propel a narrative forward, and in return, your contribution to the narrative helps establish trust and credibility within your target audience.
3. It enables you to optimize mixed media channels
Unlike the 90s, mixed media has evolved significantly – it's not what it used to be. Today, there's a multitude of avenues to reach your audience, whether through podcasts, billboards, feature stories, and more.
One of the most common mistakes founders make at the outset of their journey is solely focusing on social media. While it's undoubtedly a great avenue for building credibility, it's not the only method. Broadening your channels by incorporating targeted PR placements into your marketing efforts is an excellent approach to enhancing visibility and reaching a broader target audience.
If you already have a robust social media following, naturally, you can attract the attention of news outlets, making your business an excellent candidate for media placement opportunities. Followers on social media appreciate seeing news coverage, and once you gain more exposure, you can share your coverage across your social media channels.
When helping our clients identify the best channels to reach their audience, we prioritize understanding who their consumers are. We achieve this by asking questions such as: What podcasts does their audience listen to? Which news outlets do they spend the most time reading?
From there, we are able to identify journalists who can get them national media coverage in a matter of a few minutes a day.
In conclusion, every client has a different strategy. Our job is to identify your goal and target audience, and then tailor our approach to meet your audience where they’re at by placing your relevant expertise in a media outlet specifically in your niche to help amplify your voice and build market credibility.
