PR Piggy Back – The Story Must Go On
Piggy backing is not just the hobby of parents walking round theme parks with their kids, it is also a vital weapon in every good public relations (PR) persons armoury. I had this drummed into me at an early stage of my marketing and PR career courtesy of a fast-moving-consumer-goods (FMCG) brand I was working for and a PR story my boss ran and rant about a certain type of ice cream being more popular with the “pink-pound” (one of those stories that needs to be explained over a beer).
Piggy backing is quite simple to explain, and better still is really easy to carry out no matter what the size of your business is or if you have any PR experience. Basically piggy backing is the sacred art of jumping on an existing news story in order to get yourself and your business publicity. Every journalist I know is proud of the fact that they occasionally come up with a story that just runs and runs. Quite often journalists want the theme to last as long as possible as they can re-hash the existing story yet add new dimensions here and there to make it look fresh and keep it going.
Stories often develop as new comments are made by interested parties such as industry commentators, industry experts or the people involved in the story themselves. Many wannabe piggy backers have the misguided belief that this only really works with sporting (e.g. football) and political (e.g. Blunkett and his harem) stories in the national media… but travel with me my friends, this is no longer the case.
I n today’s 24-7 media frenzy many newspapers, magazines, radio and alike wish to be seen as having a cause, or be seen as a “consumer champion” for a specific area. This is even true of regional media where many titles now have some form of community related strap line (e.g. The Royston Vasey paper has the strap line; “a local paper for local people”).
I would recommend regional media as a good starting point for honing those picky back skills. Regional press always have a number of issues on the go, for example, if I look in my local papers the key recurring themes are; regeneration of the docks, stopping the close of a once prominent business area, supporting plans for a new train station that will help commutability into the city and lastly (but not least), a focus on grass roots sport at county level.
I would take a guess that similar issues are lead features in regional papers across the UK, meaning you do have an opportunity to get some form of coverage by voicing an opinion. As a business owner in your local community your opinion is more than valid and journalists looking to follow up on a story will welcome it. For example, say an area of your village, town, city or planet is being re-developed and the local paper is running a story on it, quite often an article will ask for readers views. This is so that the views of the people can be collected together for a potential follow up piece. You now have an opportunity to say your bit as “concerned” local business owner.
If the original article does not mention a way in which you could give your opinions then, not to worry, you can still make your point. Most articles will carry the journalist’s name, sometimes with an email address. If there is an email address, send over your comment and then follow it up with a phone call to try and convince the journalist in question.
Sometimes the journalist will pick up the phone and make some form of sound that resembles the word, “Newsdesk”. Fight past the urge to put the phone down and in your most friendly manner, ask for the journalist you are after. They are only grumpy as they get 5000 PR people every day asking them for 2 seconds of their time.
Whenever you send a quote to a journalist, or even talk to them in person, try to use short, snappy and sharp sound-bites that will get you noticed. This gives you a greater chance of sticking in the journalists mind for future stories where a quote is needed. As you would expect me to say; be careful what you say to journalists, don’t go over the top and don’t say anything you cannot back up. You also need to be careful in your selection of stories you wish to comment on and try not to go overboard by getting in touch every week. It is better if there is an obvious link between your business and the actual story.
Once you have had success with the regional media, why not have a go at local radio, trade magazines or even consumer magazines. Whilst national media is a good media to target, it is often much more difficult to get into but, if you have a really strong link to the industry in question then you stand a good chance. Of course, if you employ the services of a good PR person or company, they should be doing this for you!
And that brings me nicely back to 10 Yetis. We offer a range of affordable public relations and marketing services that can really help you increase your profile and therefore increase your sales. We specialise in helping small businesses, from one man bands, right through to the full orchestra that it medium sized businesses.
We are a friendly, creative and original bunch who pride ourselves on our personalised service. We have a free, no obligation, public relations and marketing consultation offer. This is so you can get some hints and tips from us on where your business is at and the suggestions we would make to help take it to the next level.
Well, that is enough from me.