As a professional or a businessperson, how do you stand out from the competition and explain to people why they should pick you above your competitors? I hear this question all the time from accountants, management consultants, HR experts, lawyers and coaches, and it applies equally to many other small business owners.

My clients often bemoan the fact that a competitor has a much higher profile than they do, often with much less experience. What are they doing wrong? Usually, they're missing the fact that their competitor has simply found a way to convey their uniqueness to their clients and create a compelling argument for why any client should sign up with them.

How can you get people to pick you?
Here are some questions you can ask yourself to get going:

What’s going on with my current clients?
It can pay to sell yourself as a specialist. For example, if you are a therapist with a large percentage of clients who have depression, perhaps it makes sense to use that as your uniquene selling point (U.S.P) -  that you specialise in working with depression.

If most of your clients are coming to you for a specific reason, even if you could be doing a wider variety of work, perhaps you should be sticking to what you already do well. Someone is sending you a message somewhere!

What do I have that is different from everyone else?
This is a difficult one and you may have to dig deep. But what do clients say about working with you? Do you have qualifications over and above your professional competitors? Celebrity clients? These don’t even have to be the Grazia and OK type of celebrities, even household business names come under celebrity status when it comes to PR. Name drop with impunity! What do you do for your clients beyond the call of duty? Really think about what it is you offer them.

 And if you can’t think of anything...then start doing something. Today.

Work a little differently, give them added extras. Just make a difference.

Is it time to Get Over Myself?
Shyness is acceptable in your first job. But that was then. Most clients would rather work with someone who is confident, unflustered and doesn't go to pieces at the thought of being in the spotlight, So, If you have any qualms about putting yourself forward, get over them.

 You can promote yourself in a way that doesn’t involve putting down others, resorting to bragging or lying or hot air. Be proud about what you have achieved, show people the professionalism you put into your work and the delight you get out of it.

Share success on social media platforms, at networking events, support your clients publicly and even create your own community of loyal clients and customers. You can do this virtually on places like Facebook or in real life by organising events (one of my successful marketing activities has been to organise occasional PR and networking evenings – for free).

How can I turn my competitors into compatriots?
Create a special interest or mastermind group where you can interact with other figures in your industry. Hunt out professional bodies and events when you will find them. Befriend them, create special projects and start working with rather than against them.

Find more PR ideas and advice from Paula at www.doyourownpr.com

PR expert Paula Gardner believes good PR is like learning a language. It takes a lot of work, but if you keep in mind why you're doing it, you can get great results. 

I'm learning Italian at the moment. I was inspired to start last year, when I was stranded in Rome for two weeks because of the Icelandic volcano eruption. But I also decided to do it because giving up languages is one of the two main things in my life that I regret. (The other is getting rid of a gorgeous pair of black thigh-high boots in a moment of madness. I've never been able to remedy the boot mistake, despite years of searching, but the language one I can do something about.)

But PR has its own language too, which can be just as much of a mystery to the beginner as when to use i and gli in Italian is to me.

You've probably heard the terms press release, tip sheets, product shots or digital PR, plus a whole host of other phrases that are bandied about. And you may well be using some of these already, but there is an art to knowing when to use each one, and how often.

It's all about communication. Just as one perfectly composed sentence is not going to fill a whole conversation with a native Italian-speaker, one press release is not going to make an on-going conversation with the press. You need to communicate regularly, persistently and, if it doesn't work one time, pick yourself up and try again.

Fluency will come over time. I have clients who previously baulked at the idea of picking up the phone and talking to the press, who now do it without a moment's angst. I have others who, in the beginning, just couldn't find the time, let alone the ideas, to create some create PR, who have now integrated it into their routine.

What makes The Difference?
 When I first started learning Italian I was a bit flaky, I have to admit. I bought a book and opened that once. My mother-in-law lovingly collected all the Michel Thomas CDs that came free with The Daily Express and handed them to me. I think that there were ten of them and I didn't get past CD two for a long while.

But what made the difference was finally deciding I either had to give up on the idea altogether (and remain stuck and extremely annoyed at myself for not even trying) or go for it.

I conjured up my vision on what learning Italian would mean to me (shopping in the Via Veneto, Rome!) and decided to go for it. I now have a one-to-one lesson each week with a native Italian-speaker, and have come on in leaps and bounds.

So, what exactly would getting some great PR mean for you? More people coming to your site? More newsletter sign-ups? More sales? Credibility? A morale boost for your team?

Are all those great things enough to get you to commit to doing some PR, or raising your PR game? What are you going to do first?

Paula Gardner is a PR expert who runs Do Your Own PR.

Award-winning entrepreneur, speaker and author of Create A Successful Website, Paula Wynne encourages all enterprising women to use a website as a progressive way into the corporate world or a stepping stone into a dot com venture.

 

Paula shares her Top Tips for creating a successful website:

1. Decide if you are going to start with a simple blog or possibly check out free websites and pay monthly sites as there as some fantastic resources available.

2. Research, brainstorm and plan your site to build your ‘brand’. Keep it stylish and consistent across all pages, avoiding cheap clip art and flashy animation.

3. Map your navigation menu with relevant tabs, aiming to have all your skills and talents featured as well as any other expertise and skills your audience may find interesting.

4. Create a dialogue with your visitors through good content and add value by uploading articles, snippets and images of your work.

5. Make your content ‘sticky’ so your audience keeps coming back – this means new, fresh and constant updates, which Google loves. Don’t throw up a few pages and then forget about it. Instead, use your site as the ‘window’ to your dot com potential.

6. Start building your ‘platform’ of fans and followers with keywords. Decide on your primary keywords to use in On Page Optimisation and make sure all your pages have these words in the title and the page description. To find out more about SEO, you may want to attend one of Paula’s workshops: http://www.paulawynne.com/workshops.html
 
7. Start a link building campaign to create back links by contacting community clubs or other cake decorators in the area and ask for links, also request link swaps with other relevant products or services.

 

Paula’s inspiring tale, her warm enthusiasm and her ‘breath of fresh air’ has resulted in endless invitations to speak at events and conferences as well as teaching workshops. See more details at www.paulawynne.com or take a peek at what Channel 4 Secret Millionaire Caroline Marsh says about Paula’s book: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spmaf6bt3YU

Been tweeting til you’re hoarse, find blogging a slog or fed up of Facebook? PR expert Paula Gardner takes a look at how to make social networking work for you.

PR used to be simple. You wrote a press release, maybe an article or two, kept on top of what was going on in the news and made sure you were poised to speak to radio stations if they called. But today, PR is changing fast. We’re expected to know how to tweet, blog, post, link, Digg and spend hours on Facebook ... it can seem like a full time job keeping up. But even if you’re signed up to all these sites, you might not be getting the coverage or results you were hoping for. Here’s my top five tips on making social networking work for you

Focus Be kind to yourself - chose one thing and commit to it. You can’t tweet all day, write a decent blog post three times a week and connect to every woman and her dog on Facebook. You’ll have a nervous breakdown trying. Also, you don’t want to look like you spend every waking hour online! So, pick something you think you’ll enjoy, and that you’re good at, and concentrate on that. If you like writing – quality as well as quantity – then try blogging. It’s a great way to connect with your readers and show the human side of your business. If you’re great at humour then have a go at Twitter – the limited word count means that you’ll need to get your message over succinctly. If you value person to person contact, concentrate on forums.

Branding Think of it as marketing a brand. It may be you, or it may be your business name, but be sure which one it is. I tweet using my PR name @doyourownpr and this ties in with my business name and my website address. I do have a Facebook account, but that’s mainly personal and I keep them separate. Decide on one name and use it in everything.

Research If you decide you’re going to blog, spend some time looking at other people’s blogs and work out what you do and don’t like. If Twitter is more your thing, join up and follow other people for a while to see what works. Look at the people with lots of followers. What is it that they tweet about that is so interesting? How can you offer the same value or entertainment?

Keep It Professional Whilst a little personal detail gives an impression of you as a real person, we really don’t want to know what you had for breakfast. Don’t get carried away. Likewise, if you are using a social networking tool for business then keep it business-like. Don’t be afraid to say no to a friend request from Jason Kennedy from primary school who used to wipe his nose on your skirt. You can keep it friendly, saying something like “I’m sorry but this is for work colleagues and you’d find it incredibly boring”.

Be generous Make it your priority to add value to wherever you spend your online time – this is what will make people come back to you. Use forums to offer advice, tweet your own expert opinions, make your blog posts really interesting. Don’t be afraid to show what you know – be generous with your knowledge and you’ll reap the rewards in readers and followers. Guarding your skills and knowledge for paying clients only is not going to attract new ones.

Above all. give it time. You are not going to build up 1000 Twitter followers in a day. Think of this as a 6 month experiment.

By Paula Gardner of doyourownpr.com.

The first step to running a PR campaign is to actually make time for it. Most of us have good intentions PR-wise, and maybe even some fantastic ideas, but somehow they don’t quite come to fruition. Journalists rarely call you up asking for stories – the momentum is all self-generated. You have to keep on top of PR to stop it falling to the bottom of your to-do list. PR expert Paula Gardner shares her secret for making time to do your own PR.

Ditch, Delegate or Do! When you're doing your own PR, time management is critical. You need the time and space to devote to publicity to make it work.

So, here are some steps you can take to free up time to build your own buzz.

Step 1: Work Time Make a list of everything you do on a regular basis for your business. Include all the tasks you do, and how much time you spend on them. This could be checking your emails, writing your newsletter, posting to syndication sites, carrying out your actual business, cleaning the office or making sales calls.

Step 2: Play Time Make a list of everything else that you do in your work time that isn't work orientated. This could include emailing friends, indulging in a bit of online retail therapy or chatting to colleagues about the latest episode of CSI. (For me it includes playing Spider Solitaire for a much needed five minutes of downtime. Those five minutes inevitably end up as twenty...)

And now the fun bit…

Step 3: Ditch What tasks or activities can or should you say goodbye to? Take a look at what results you've been getting - if you regularly write for a site that brings you in a grand total of five newsletter sign-ups each six months then can your time be put to better use? Can you turn your Outlook or email provider off and only check twice a day? Can you sack any clients - you know the pain in the proverbial ones that bring you in hardly any money but take three times more time and energy than all the others ones? Is there a pet project that you've been trying to get going but know, in your heart of hearts, just doesn't justify the time you'd need to spend on it? (Boy, do I have plenty of those.)

Step 4: Delegate Is there anything on your list that you can delegate? Perhaps you can get your assistant to write your PR tips (good experience for them too), get a virtual assistant to send articles to syndication sites, or an intern to upload your regular press releases to all the free press sites out there. This stuff might be small, but it all adds up to hours of time saved for you.

Step 5: Do! Now you’ve freed up some time, here comes the planning bit. Think of all the PR activities you could be doing with those hours. Here are some ideas…

* Writing Press Releases
* Writing tip sheets
* Keeping up a regular newsletter - or writing your current one twice as often
* Posting on forums and blogs with links back to your website
* Blogging
* Tweeting
* Writing articles and posting them on syndication sites
* Networking online
* Networking offline
* Arranging meetings with journalists
* Approaching features editors with ideas for articles you can write
* Posting press releases to newswire services

If you're already doing some of these, look at the results you are getting. Do they justify spending more time and ramping up the activity? Or perhaps you'd like to add something new to the mix.

What one thing from this list could you do that you know (gut instinct!) would raise your visibility? Or alternatively, what appeals and piques your interest? What do think you'd enjoy? Enjoying this stuff is a vital part of getting it done regularly.

You should now have some spare time in your diary as a result of the projects or actions you've got rid of or passed on. Fill that time with your new PR activity and make sure it is in your appointment book, just like any other important task.

Finally, make a date with yourself to do this exercise in another three months, and add another PR activity to your mix.

Get your own starter PR resource pack plus a free trial of our media request service by signing up for the Do You Own PR newsletter.

Women are now the most important target audience on earth. Figures published recently by The Economist suggest that women in the West are now responsible for almost 80% of purchase decisions. In sectors as traditionally masculine as automotive or consumer electronics, women are fast becoming the dominant purchase makers. And, in many developed markets and categories, the most substantial areas of growth are those driven by the increasingly affluent female consumer. Yet despite these figures - and the huge opportunity they represent - the female audience remains under-catered for by the marketing and communications communities. In a YouGov survey conducted at the end of 2006, over two thirds of women feel they can't identify with women featured in advertising, one in two say they feel people try to sell them things by making them feel bad about themselves, and over 70% say they think marketers believe they are only interested in household items and beauty products. So why is it that - despite the importance of women as an audience and the by now long established presence of women in the work-place - the female audience remains the short suit of Marketing? And, more importantly and constructively, what can be done to better understand female motivation and purchase decision making? The roots of the problem are actually quite straightforward but are frequently complicated and camouflaged by well-intended concerns about political correctness. The simple - but often contested - fact is that Marketing, like the majority of business, was constructed, and remains dominated, by men. Even in the most enlightened sectors and organisations, much of the thinking and most of the product, is produced by men. The most recent audit of the advertising industry for example (a survey conducted by the IPA in 2000) revealed that 85% of art-directors and 76% of copy-writers were men. Less unexpectedly - but as influentially - 84% of agency management was male. Given this bias it is hardly surprising that (despite often very good intentions to the contrary) much of the thinking and the work that agencies produce is constructed along masculine lines. And it's even less surprising that - as a result - women feel so under-whelmed by the majority of communication designed to appeal to them. WHAT CAN WE DO ABOUT IT? So far, so well-documented. Business is masculine, ergo masculine thinking is seeping into the approaches it employs to appeal to women. Not difficult. The really difficult - and long unanswered question - is what can be done about it? Fortunately, two significant developments have occurred over the last decade that mean we are now in a better position than ever before to come up with an answer. First, scientific understanding of the differences between men and women has been growing at a huge rate. Knowledge and understanding of sex and gender differences - particularly genetic and neurological differences - is now better developed and documented than ever before. Male and female mental preferences, stress responses, biological instincts, and strategies for surviving and flourishing are all now well-researched, mapped out, and substantiated. At the same time, a post-feminist political climate has emerged that questions the old tenet that equality has to mean ‘sameness'. Whereas in the recent past, any recognition of differences between the sexes was deemed to be sexist, we are now fortunate enough to be living in a part of the world and in a climate where things are less inflamed and defensive. Most people are ready to acknowledge that men and women aren't the same: in fact, they're profoundly, uniquely, interestingly, and helpfully different from each other. Together these scientific and political developments mean that it is possible, for the first time, to really acknowledge and tackle the problem of marketing to women: we have more knowledge than ever before and we have an emerging climate that allows that knowledge to be expressed and explored properly. WHAT WE CAN LEARN FROM SCIENCE So, what can science teach us about the differences between men and women and the way they approach the world, and what do those differences mean for Marketing? Masculine is analytical, linear and focussed.  Feminine is whole-brained. Recent developments in MRI and PET brain scanning techniques have meant that the brain - previously pretty much a mystery that was revealed only through trial and error and abhorrent illness - is beginning to be well understood. Whilst the science is still emerging (and thus is still quite controversial) it seems that there are hard-wired differences between the way male and female brains are constructed. A primary area of difference lies with the part of the brain that connects the two lobes of the neo-cortex, the most sophisticated part of the brain where thoughts are processed and understanding computed. Evidence suggests that women have a greater ability to connect between the two-parts of the neo-cortex; the left-hemisphere where the centres of logical, linear and analytical thinking reside and the right-hemisphere where more emotional and intuitive thinking takes place. This may mean that women are better able to access different parts of the brain, and different ‘thinking styles' when it comes to problem solving or assessing a situation. Whereas male thinking is likely to be focussed in the logical left-cortex, females may well use more emotional and intuitive parts of the brain alongside and in combination with more reasoned approaches. Masculine is action.  Feminine is feeling. A further area of difference appears to emerge in the less thinking and more primitive inner parts of the brain - the sub-conscious areas where automatic and instinctive responses take place. From scanning studies that examine levels of activity in these areas, it appears that male and female brains may well have different centres of gravity. When the male brain is at rest, most activity takes place in the most primitive area of the brain that deals with survival instincts and fight or flight responses; when the female brain is at rest, it appears that most activity takes place in the Limbic system - the area where ‘feeling' is centred. Furthermore, MRI and PET scans have shown that, when processing emotions, far more areas of the brain are activated in women than in men. Many more neural pathways, connecting different parts of the brain, also appear to be activated; in fact, the female brain appears to have 15% more blood flow than the male brain when processing emotion. Masculine is fight or flight.  Feminine is tend and befriend. Beyond brain structures and mental processing patterns, the other major influence on behaviour and response is, of course, hormonal - effectively the messaging system that catalyses and regulates the body's behaviour. Here again it appears that men and women have very different make-ups. A well-documented example is the hormone testosterone. Testosterone is, of course, the hormone that drives dominating, action-based, physical behaviour and men have twenty times more testosterone in their bodies than women. Less well-known, but equally impactful, is the hormone oxytocin: the hormone that encourages bonding, nurturing and affiliation in mammals. Women have significantly higher levels of oxytocin in their systems than men - in fact, male hormones appear to over-ride and cancel out the effects of oxytocin. Under stress, the differences in hormonal effects between the sexes become particularly pronounced. Whereas the male response to stress is the release of a cascade of hormones (testosterone, adrenalin et al) that encourage the well-known flight-or-fight response, in women stress responses induce the production of oxytocin. This starts a response dubbed by scientists, the ‘tend and befriend' response; whereas testosterone drives men to physical action, oxytocin induces an almost opposing response in women and encourages behaviour that is nurturing, calming and conciliatory. Masculine is interest in things.  Feminine is interest in people. These hard-wired, biological differences between the sexes appear to determine a number of differences in the areas of primary focus and interest between men and women. Chief among these is the tendency for women to be interested in people and the contrasting tendency for men to be interested in things. A number of different studies - mainly amongst babies and children who have not yet had been influenced by social stereotyping - have high-lighted this tendency. Female babies have been shown to respond with more interest to a picture of a face; female toddlers are less likely to engage in mechanical play and are more likely to initiate social interaction for fun; little boys are more interested in mobile and mechanical objects than they are in natural or people-based play things; little girls are much more likely to draw pictures containing people and natural motifs whereas little boys are much more likely to draw pictures without people but containing cars, buildings and other mechanical objects. Masculine is self-interest, hierarchy, power and competition.  Feminine is relationships, empathy and connections Further evidence than these tendencies run beyond stereotyping comes from anthropological studies in to the primitive survival strategies employed by men and women. In order to ensure the survival of their genes, male primates need to create mating opportunities. This means that they need to be seen as an attractive prospect within the pack. This leads males to focus on the hierarchy and their position within it; their behaviour is about asserting dominance within the group and gaining power and control through competition. By contrast, in order to ensure the survival of their genes, females focus on the survival of their off-spring. And to do this they employ three different strategies: first, they choose a mate very carefully to make sure they are getting good genes and that the male can protect them and their off-spring; second, they nurture their off-spring intensively; and third, they develop relationships with other people to provide further protection from external threats. All of which means, that women are motivated to achieve a peaceful, safe and harmonious environment and in employing strategies that deliver that - building bonds of shared interest and support, working for the greater, mutual good, seeking out order and avoiding risk. By contrast, men are motivated by much more self-interested strategies that are about asserting dominance and competing successfully in the hierarchy. Masculine is systemising.  Feminine is empathising. Finally - and to some extent cumulatively - all this results in men and women having fundamentally different mental preferences when it comes to viewing and understanding the world. At an essential and hard-wired level, it seems that men and women are programmed to approach the world in fundamentally different ways. To quote Simon Baron Cohen, the Cambridge scientist who has done most work in this field, "the female brain is predominantly hard-wired for empathy. The male brain is predominantly hard-wired for understanding and building systems". In other words, men understand the world by breaking things down in to their component parts and establishing principles that explain the underlying behaviour; women, by contrast, understand the world by putting themselves in other people's shoes and feeling the emotional atmosphere between people. SUMMARY OF THESE DIFFERENCES To summarise, then, we can now understand and map male and female differences under six key areas: We have developed these themes from studying various different authors who are attributed in the endnotes.  However, David Geary; Male, Female The Evolution of Human Sex Differences 2005; American Psychological Association; and Baron Cohen, S. (2003) The Essential Difference; Perseus Books Group were our two primary sources on the subject. THE IMPLICATIONS FOR MARKETING TO WOMEN: When looked at in this bald and comparative way, the problem and the opportunity for Marketing quickly becomes clear. Men and women are wired differently and therefore need to be approached differently. The differences are so profound in fact, that feminine thinking must infect all stages of development from the very beginning - the way the organization thinks and behaves - to the very end - the way the brand executes its ideas, products and services. Clearly, we don't have space in this article to discuss at length all these stages of development and the impact that an understanding of gender difference makes to them. However, it is possible to summarise the four key areas that we believe determine the success of a brand when it comes to targeting the female audience. By combining the study of sex and gender difference, with the study of those brands that have successfully appealed to the female consumer, we have arrived at Four Feminine Codes: the four areas of influence and activity that appeal to what we now know about female motivation and operation. The Altruism Code How and why women respond to altruistic motives and behaviour in brands This Code reflects the female tendency to focus on the group and the wellbeing of others rather than on their own individual success or achievement. It is borne out of the female ability to empathise - the ability to put oneself in another's shoes. The Body Shop, Fairtrade and Red are strong examples of brands built on overt altruistic positionings.  But there are others that are less overt but equally consonant with the positive, altruistic sentiment to which women respond. Among telecom networks, Orange stands out as the most developed and powerful brand.  It has an inspiring brand positioning, encapsulated in the endline ‘The Future's Bright, the Future's Orange'.  This thought resonates positively with the Altruism Code, because in the world of Telecom brands that feel technical, grey, drab and unwelcoming, there is a brand to choose not because you are afraid of being left behind but because you are excited about what is to come. The Aesthetic Code Why appearance matters to women and what that means for marketing The Aesthetic Code reflects the female desire to make the world a more attractive place.  It is borne out of a belief that a more attractive environment is a safer, more harmonious and more pleasant place to be for everyone.  The creators of imac understood the Aesthetic Code and responded wholeheartedly. Until the 1990s, computers were more or less all the same - cumbersome grey boxes, designed entirely for function, enlivened only by a cheery (i.e. exceptionally annoying) mouse mat or screen saver.  PCs represented the archetype of function over form. Apple and Jonathan Ive and iMac changed all that. There was an appreciation that the aesthetics of a computer were important: at a macro level, because it was something that you would live and work with all the time, and at a micro level because the way things looked and felt could help generate a sense of friendliness and approachability (and so encourage experimentation). The look and feel of the iMac suddenly, and literally, changed the face of computers. The Ordering Code The importance of enhanced order and elimination of risk to women This unglamorous Code, reflects the female belief that order offsets risk, and creates harmony.  The tendency to take on responsibilities like the running of the home and family matters, and the meticulous and detailed planning of events are proof of the Ordering Code. The way women have embraced the Internet is a reflection of ‘Ordering behaviour'.  Women now outnumber men online, and spend more money than men online.  The Internet allows women to execute their many responsibilities and duties (most of which are self appointed) with ease, and it provides information to give women confidence in their decision-making. Where once women had to trudge around car showrooms being ignored or patronised, they can now get online, get the information they need and execute the task of buying a car quickly and relatively painlessly. The Connecting Code How and why communities are important to women The Connecting Code is concerned with the female need to build relationships and communities, the need to draw people together and find common ground between them.  Businesses that recognise the power of female communities in building or destroying brands, and that use female networks to help provide momentum for the growth of their brands will benefit from ‘free' marketing and develop deeper more commercially rewarding relationships with the female audience. WANT TO FIND OUT MORE? For further info read Inside Her Pretty Little Head.  A new theory of female motivation and what it means to marketing (published by Cyan Publishing) The authors, Jane Cunningham and Philippa Roberts are former Directors of BMP DDB and Ogilvy and Mather.  They now run PrettyLittleHead, a consultancy that specialises in marketing to women. If you have any questions, or a point of view about what you have read please contact them at jane.cunningham@prettylittlehead.co.uk or philippa.roberts@prettylittlehead.co.uk

It doesn’t take an economist to work out that a recession can have a major effect on PR, from available budgets and deals to relevant angles and promotions. If you’re doing your own PR, while the only cost involved may be your time, there are certain rules to remember to make sure your PR campaign helps you weather the economic storm.

PR during a recession is not the same animal as it is during boom time. Competition for coverage in publications increases as media outlets close, and short-term survival tactics can push businesses to conduct their marketing in a way that might damage their reputation in the long term. Read on for Do Your Own PR’s guide to surviving PR during the credit crunch.

Don’ t be tempted to over-use the recession
As editor of www.chicklit.co.uk I get sent a lot of press releases, and at the moment every second release features the credit crunch or recession in one form or other. So just imagine what the big publications must be getting. Using the same old hook as everyone else (unless it really is your main story) means that your releases won’t stand out and you’ll look like just another copycat. Instead, think about trying to come up with a fresh and unusual approach that will make you stand out amongst all the others.

Beware price-cutting
Whilst more buying decisions are being made on a value for money basis, don’t think that slashing prices and running offers your customers can’t refuse is going to be the answer to all your problems. Consider your brand identity – if it starts to be associated with discounting, that will that have repercussions in the long term. Of course, we all want value – but what extras can you add that will make your offer so attractive that people will want to buy it regardless?

Position yourself as the market leader
Recessions do have causalities. Fact. And your competitors might well be amongst them. This is an ideal time to position yourself to move to the forefront. Check out your competitors’ weak points and move accordingly. If your competitors have a bad name in customer service, make that your strength and build a campaign around it. It may sound a lot of effort, but it’s this effort that will ensure you stay in for the long haul.

 

Your existing customers are your best ambassadors

How you can get your existing customers and clients to be become your very own sales force? Some ideas might be to set up a forum where they can interact and attract website traffic, create an affiliate scheme so they benefit financially from mentioning your products and services, or just encourage them to pass on your name to friends and colleagues.

 

They are also your best clients

We all know it’s more profitable to sell to existing clients rather than spending time and money trying to find new ones. On that premise, what can you offer your clients to strengthen that bond between you? Last year I brought in a newsletter just for clients. Called Building the Buzz, with the nitty-gritty of doing your own PR. It’s my thank you for being a client of Do Your Own PR. It’s worked extremely well and all I have to do is write it – which is enjoyable in itself. What can you do for your clients and customers? An open evening? A card saying thank you for working with us? Come on, use your imagination…

 

Don’t be tempted to go cheap
If running events is your thing, suddenly swapping champagne and canapés for tea and ham sarnies is not going engender confidence. Of course, now is not the time to be be flash, even if you’ve got the cash, but you do have to keep up the impression that you’re not about to fold any moment now. So, beware cost cutting exercises like swapping to poor quality stationery, flimsy business cards and cheap answering services. By all means, phone before sending out samples to check that they are wanted, and bring in a borrow and photo policy, rather than just giving them out for free, but consider every cost cutting exercise in terms of the impression it can give off.

 

Think about the press
There’s no doubt that, just like everyone else, journalists will be under pressure during a recession. They’ll be expected to do more in less time to keep their jobs, so presenting them with stories that are effectively already researched and written will be welcomed. The amount of freelancers out there will rise, so using time wisely to grow your list of freelancers is vital. Human-interest stories are always important in dark times, so pulling together your case stories is a priority. Target well – a morning on the phone talking to five journalists from publications you know are great for you might be more profitable than a morning spent sending one release out to 500 people you’ll never get to speak to.

 

Finally, don’t panic. Think things through and ask yourself, would I do this under other circumstances. If the answer is no, take a second look before taking any action.

 

Visit Paula's website at www.doyourownpr.com for more advice.

So, you’ve spent hours putting together the most fantastic press release, but how do you make sure that it gets you some coverage? If the wrong people see it, all that work was for nothing. Getting results from a press release is all about having the right press list.

A press list is just what it sounds like – a list of press contacts to whom you will be sending your release. Putting together a press list is something my clients struggle with because ... well ... it’s boring. But it has to be done, so here are some suggestions on how to make it easier.

Ask who your target market is
There’s no point sending a press release to The Telegraph if you’re promoting a local charity run. Ask youself what kind of publications you want to get covereage in – will they be local or national? Specialist or general? What kind of reader are you aiming at – parents? Schools? Potential customers?

Build a library
It’s always useful to know the publications you’re sending your release to, so it’s a good idea to collect and keep example copies of them. You can use your library to work out what sections of the publication might be suitable for your story, or what angle might get you noticed. Your library could consist of local or national newspapers, newsletters and magazines, radio stations and what’s on and listing websites.

If you’re stuck on titles, The Guardian Media Directory, available from the Guardian website, is a good investment at under £20.

Set up your list
It’s time to build your physical list. You could do this using a simple Excel spreadsheet, or use a newsletter service such as constantcontact.com. The advantage of the latter is that you can track clicks so that you know which releases get the most attention.

As well as the name of the publication, your list should show the name of your contact there. A press release is much more likely to get noticed if you send it to a named person – obviously you must do some research to find out who that person should be! You may have more than one target name for each publication. For example, in the case of a local newspaper you may have the News Editor, a family writer, women’s page editor and Features Ed. On a radio show you may be contacting the Assistant Producer, Forwarding Programming and Researcher. Get to know your publications

Good PR is not just a case of sending out press releases to anyone and everyone and hoping that one of them will stick. A press release which is not relevant to a publication will just end up in the bin, a waste of time and paper. Looking at publications or listening to radio show shows and coming up with ideas and angles that suit them is vital.

Boosting your press list - media requests
Media requests are shout-outs from journalists looking for quotes or case studies for stories they’re working on. Responding to these requests can be a great way to get coverage and make contacts. Media requests are sometimes posted on specialist internet forums, or sent out to networking groups.

My Divine Publicity Club is one such mail out - I gather media requests and email them to clients. One of my users has so far got coverage in Essentials, Prima, Leith FM, The Secretary, a number of trade hospitality publications and an over 60s publication in matter of months, simply by responding to requests on the list. She admits that it's been a bit of a learning curve. "I started off only approaching smaller titles, but I've learnt that you have to just pick up the courage and go for it."

What About Freelancers?
Freelance journalists can be hard to find, but they can be a great way of building a relationship with a specialist writer. Some groups of journalists, such as travel journalists, have their own association and you can buy a list of journalists or members, so that can be a good place to start.

It’s always worth doing some research on the author of an article that’s relevant to your press release. Freelance Journalists are business people and most of them have their own website, Facebook page or something similar, so you can try Googling their name. Some publications do print a freelancer’s email address at the bottom of an article. Often it’s a generic paula.gardner@telegraph.co.uk but it’s better than nothing.

I have another Divine Publicity Club member who hardly ever responds to requests but has been using the requests to gather a list of freelance journalists that she now communicates with via tips and press releases. She admits that it would have been hard and time-consuming to come by her list any other way.

Paula Gardner of doyourownpr.com is a PR coach and trainer. Her Divine Publicity Club sends media requests into your inbox twice a week. It will also update you on new publications, blogs and websites you can add to your press lists. It costs £19.99 a month, including 15 mins of PR coaching with Paula once a month during regular PR clinics.

Are you running a small business that desparately needs customers but can’t afford marketing? Expert Alison Davey has five top ideas for running a fantastic marketing campain on a budget.

As consumers, we are bombarded with marketing messages before we even get out of the front door in the morning! The world is full of marketing, but while large companies have enviable marketing budgets and access to multiple channels of communication, it can be difficult for smaller companies to make themselves heard. Let’s take a look at how us smaller companies can creatively market themselves in a difficult economic climate.

Review your marketing strategy on a monthly or even weekly basis to measure the return on budget and spend, and brainstorm new ideas. Be cautious of budget cuts that cut the quality of your marketing. If you cut costs on, for example, photography, you must ensure that the perception of your product or service is not cut too.

Communicate with your customers and keep potential customers warm with communications also. Be creative, witty and fun - memorable marketing means that even though someone may not buy your products or services, they remember your letter, email or video, and most importantly your brand.

Beef up your online presence. Make sure that the keywords used in your website have the most up to date phrases that your customers are looking for, and that your messaging is clear, concise and offers solutions. You can get great free advice on keyword optimisation online – just type it into Google. And Google have free tools you can use to analyse how people are finding your site, and which keywords are most searched for. Try Google Analytics and the Google Adwords Keyword Tool. Target social media and take your content to global online destinations instantly and increase the number of visitors to your website.

Think about your approach to social responsibility – many customers will buy a product or service over the competition if that company actively supports the environment, a local cause, charity or fair-trade. Getting press coverage for this kind of project is easier than simply trying to get your product featured for its own sake.

Look close to home – think about your car, and even yourself, as potential billboards for your product or service. You can buy inexpensive stick-on signage for cars and windows (search on the net for “vinyl signs”, and if you just make one person notice a brand on your tshirt that’s a start!

Remember, marketing is all about understanding that customers are highly intelligent, continuously marketed to and have a choice about what to buy from us. Don’t underestimate them, and they’ll repay you with their loyalty.

Alison Davey

Real Eyes Marketing