What's the story?

Ask yourself a question:

On balance, would positive stories in the media about your business be good or bad for trade? If the answer is ‘no’, then you need spend no more time here, and now might be a good time to flick to the motoring review.

However, if you do see benefit in good things being said about your business in media that your customers absorb, then stick with me. I’d like to think that most of you will still be reading. At least, that’s the way it should be – rare are the industries that shun positive publicity.

And the reason is simple – customers respond well to regular and positive messages. They start to like you. And once they like you, they’re more likely to buy from you.

So what’s stopping you telling the world about what you do? I’ll hazard a guess – you don’t think you’ve any stories to tell. In our experience, this is the single biggest barrier to launching a PR campaign; harder to hurdle even than considerations of finance and resources.

What you perhaps don’t realise is that just ‘doing what you do’ is newsworthy and, presented in the right way, will grab plenty of column inches.

Time for another question:

Which of the following have applied to your business in the last six months?
• You’ve taken on a new member of staff
• A staff member achieved a qualification
• You’ve landed a new client
• You’ve launched a new product or service
• You’ve moved premises
• You’ve been involved in a charity event
• You’ve launched a new website, brochure or logo
• You’ve an opinion on your industry or business in general
• You’ve achieved a record sales figure, if only for a day
• You’ve a client or supplier case study

The simple truth is this – each can be a news story that can be sent to the local press, business magazines, your trade press and the trade press read by your customers. You can also Twitter the story, add it to your website, convert it to a direct mail item...

Trainee journalists are always told this – “there’s a story behind every door.”

For business, it’s slightly better – there are dozens of stories behind every roller-shutter, loading bay, office
reception, factory gate and trade counter.

All you need to do is tell those stories.

Richard Slater, managing director, Slater PR.