Which DIY PR options is best for your business

In this week’s newsletter, we reviewed the pros and cons of the different options small businesses have for DIY tools and services. It’s easy to get confused and end up doing the wrong thing for your brand or product.

When we talk about DIY PR, we are usually referring to the HYOPR way of running a campaign. We believe that sending personalised communications to journalists and then following up is the most effective way for businesses to run their own publicity campaigns. The longterm benefits of a business establishing direct contact with journalists can be seen in both the quality and quantity of the coverage achieved over time for very little money or time invested.

The reason we sell inexpensive, media opt-in, curated contact lists by category is so that you can start to form your won relationships with the right journalists without wasting hours sorting through rows of irrelevant, costly contacts or doing online/phone research.

However, there are other ways that you can get help with your DIY PR so we’ve listed the best of the bunch below.

Large Scale Media Database Subscriptions

Pros: These databases contain the details of almost every single media outlet and journalist or producer in Australia

Cons: High cost, often has out of date contact details and lack of ‘new’ media represented. What’s more, a search for ‘Fashion Editors’ will provide you with hundreds of names but many of them will be completely irrelevant for your product or worse, not interested in being approached by non-professionals with publicity ideas.

Media Release Distribution Services

Pros: Your media release can be sent to thousands of journalists with the push of a button. Mass distribution might be an option if your product has a broad appeal but it still needs a unique hook to make the email stand out from the others that are all being sent at the same time.

Cons: Most services do not provide any details of the journalists that received the release so you do not have the ability to follow up to increase your chance of receiving coverage and begin your relationship. Also, you may be unaware if you do receive coverage as the journalist may use your product in a feature without contacting you. This makes it hard to use your clippings for further publicity without spending hours tracking them down.

Media Release Posting Sites

Pros: Your media release might be seen by many interested journalists for only the cost of the posting and the time involved putting the listing up. This is a good option for products that are innovative, first to market or unusual because they should stand out when a journalist searches in that category for new releases.

Cons: As with distribution services, using posting sites can make it very difficult to form a relationship with a journalist or to track any coverage that may occur. Using this method means that the money spent is a ‘loss leader’ – you may get coverage but it’s not going to provide any information that can form the basis of your next campaign.

Journalist Call Outs

Pros: This is a fantastic way for businesses to get in touch with journalists that are actively looking for input for no cost!

Cons: There are very few downsides to subscribing to journalist call outs but it does require scanning two emails a day and you are limited to answering the journalist’s need, not telling your own story. As there is no cost involved and the response to a call out only takes minutes, it’s something every business should be doing regularly.
So, now that you know your options, it’s time to get going on your next DIY PR campaign. The great thing is, once you have your campaign materials ready, you can use a combination of DIY PR options to maximise the number of journalists that are introduced to your business. Remember though that success in publicity comes from building relationships over time, not collecting lots of useless contact details and managing multiple postings.

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