Three key ways to extend your PR strategy beyond YOU
The prospect of having to personally feature in your company’s PR strategy can be daunting.
You didn’t start your business because you were looking to promote your expertise and develop your public profile. You probably didn’t envisage seeing yourself splashed across news articles, with regular TV appearances, podcast interviews or speaking gigs. Likewise, the time required to produce and post consistent, quality content to LinkedIn was probably not on your mind, either.
Fortunately, a winning PR and communications strategy isn’t just about spruiking your thought leadership or founder story (although you’ll never be off the hook entirely if you want to truly stand out). There are other people in your orbit – co-founders, senior management, team members or even customers – who also have an important part to play in developing awareness, credibility and trust for your business.
Following are three key ways to extend your PR strategy beyond you, to make sure you’re staying consistent, fresh, and in demand with your audience.
Identify and leverage your company’s subject matter experts
I’ve touched on empowering key staff to become your brand champions previously. As a founder or business owner, you started the business and have a vision for what problem the business is trying to solve and your longer term purpose. But do you always have the technical expertise, personal story or specific industry knowledge that the media (on behalf of their audiences) is seeking to better understand your competitive edge and tell your company’s story?
Look around. You’re not alone! Whether it’s a co-founder or other key team members, identifying their areas of expertise and leveraging their potential as subject matter experts should form part of your strategy.
One of our clients, eo, is a sports tech company focused on world first wearables to enhance global sport. They have three co-founders and a number of leading industry execs on board, each one of them highly credible experts in their respective fields. Since eo launched earlier this year, they’ve successfully secured placement in a range of media by capitalising on individual team members’ subject matter expertise, and diversifying their PR strategy accordingly.
You may have ‘go to’ internal spokespeople, but championing others in the team who may be a natural fit for x or y outlet or audience is a great way to grow your reputation and expand your reach.
Share your customer success stories
At The PR Hub, some of our best PR results have come from sharing customer success stories.
Of course, the best – and simplest – place to start is with you and your story. But as your business grows, you can start to lean into those people whose lives you’re making a difference to, by sharing their stories.
So don’t be afraid to ask your customers if they are open to sharing their stories. Most will be happy to support you, especially if your product or service has had a positive impact on them or their business. It’s a great way to demonstrate real life examples of your business offer in action, which supports other activities you may be doing on the PR and marketing front.
If your business is B2B, sharing customer success stories has the added benefit of putting eyeballs on both your business and theirs.
Business awards bring their own rewards
No matter what stage you’re at in business or what industry you’re in, there is an award that you should be seizing the opportunity to enter.
Like customer success stories, being an award finalist (or winner!) provides an independent source of credibility and validation for your business that you can leverage for further exposure.
It’s worth mentioning that awards often require lengthy written entries, supporting documentation and even video submissions, so they can be time-consuming to enter. But don’t be put off; by planning ahead and approaching the task as you would any other important challenge or deadline, there won’t be any hidden surprises.
If you’re announced as a finalist or winner, incorporate your achievements into PR, marketing, newsletters to customers, even your email signatures. It’s a great way to reinforce your business’ strengths instead of having to rely solely on your founder story.
If I had a dollar for every time I met with a spotlight-shy founder to discuss the importance of personal branding in PR, I’d no doubt have quite the mountain of coins! Fortunately for them – and you – while personal brand is what sets you apart and gives you a competitive edge, harnessing the expertise and experiences of others in and around the business is an easy and effective way to transform a solo act into a symphony.