Creating a buzz about your business is all about doing activities that are rooted in a good plan – there’s no shortcut!

This blog piece by our colleague and PR Coach Debbie Leven provides practical steps on what you need to do to get your business buzz on.

Building a buzz for yourself, your business and your brand might, initially, feel overwhelming and out of reach.  How do you open that door to creating buzz?

The key is to break it down and take a step-by-step approach and ensure that your activities are firmly rooted in a plan – you need to think about it as a long term investment in your business.

Building that buzz starts, quite simply, with visibility.  So, here are 7 tried and tested techniques to set your brain cells working and help you on your way with building buzz for yourself and your business.

1. Capture your story

Every small business owner and entrepreneur has a story – it may be a personal story, the story behind the start of the your business, your journey in running your own business and the successes and failures along the way.  You can use those stories to share your knowledge, skills, expertise and experience.  Look for opportunities in your target press and media for case studies and profile pieces that would give you the opportunity to share your story and get noticed.

Need help planning your next marketing campaign? Contact us

2. A calendar of news announcements

You may not think that you have obvious news announcements but you do – new products or services, anniversaries, milestones your business has reached, your work with the local community, collaborations with other like-minded businesses.  You have news stories, it’s just a case of finding them and then packaging them appropriately.  Maybe you’ll need to dig a bit deeper to ‘create’ a news story by doing something unusual, saying something controversial, collaborating with other businesses.  You don’t need to make a news announcement every week but it is a good idea to capture your news announcements in a calendar so that you can promote effectively.  Remember, human interest is at the core of a good news story so think about the impact of your news has on people, the benefit it brings to them, and make that central to your story.

3. Follow your sector news

Follow the news, websites and publications relevant to your clients and potential clients  and then provide comment on the back of other people’s stories.  It’s a great way to start to build your profile and get noticed by key journalists and influencers.  A well thought out comment can help to make you stand out.  Over time you will establish a reputation as someone who has their finger on the pulse and shares insightful views.

4. Research, research, research

If you are serious about getting your business noticed then you have to do the research to identify the key journalists and influencers who will be relevant to you, your business, your clients, your potential customers and the other stakeholders you want to communicate with.  If you don’t have time to do the research then find someone to do it for you.  It’s a step you cannot miss out.  If you want to make your time and effort effective then you need to laser target the most relevant contacts.  There’ no point pitching yourself, or your news story, to a bunch of names on a list in the hope that someone will be interested – that’s just lazy, unprofessional and looks sloppy.  Do that and you’ll build buzz for having a bad reputation.

5. Engage and follow the right journalists and influencers

One you’ve found the right people you then need to do more research to find out where they hang out.  Ideally, you want to get on their radar quite some time before pitching them with an idea or news story.  It gives your pitch a much better chance of making it past first base and of at least being opened.  You still have work to do, of course, to make what you pitch interesting, relevant and timely but if the person receiving your pitch knows who you are then you are putting yourself one step ahead of many of your competitors.

Need help planning your next marketing campaign? Contact us

6. Pitch and showcase your expertise

Contacting the relevant journalists direct to pitch an idea for an article that you could contribute is a great way to showcase your knowledge, experience and expertise.  There are many opportunities for contributed articles and guest blogs and journalists and bloggers are always on the look out for quality content that their readers will appreciate and be interested in.

7. Make it known you are available

Yes, it sounds obvious but you need to make sure that it’s obvious you would be happy to speak to journalists.  So, if part of your Public Relations plan is to comment on the back of other people’s stories and establish yourself as an expert in your field then make sure the relevant journalists know about that.  You can check out media databases journalists use to source contacts, put a press kit on your website but don’t forget the tried and tested method of contacting them direct to outline your expertise and the subjects you could help them on.

In a  nutshell: Building a buzz for yourself, your brand and your business starts with visibility.  There are many ways to gain visibility but ensure your efforts are tied together as part of a plan.

What are your plans for building buzz for your business?

Source: http://www.prcoach.co.uk/