This week we’re joined by PR expert, Fiona Minett who’s sharing how growing her brand without relying on social media has been exciting, fun and amazing for business as well as her tips on how to get those sought after magazine features. If this sounds interesting – Fiona also joined us for a podcast episode you can listen to it here

But for now, let’s dive into the interview!

Hey Fiona, I’d love to know – from your point of view, what are the benefits to small business owners of exploring methods outside of social media to grow their brands?

Diversification and the safety and potential this brings is a key benefit of growing beyond social media. If you were to look at financial investments, you would want to spread the risk. If you are getting your business visible, you want to not only spread the risk but harness a breadth of opportunity. We’ve seen the issues with Instagram – platform outages, algorithm restrictions, the moves to ‘pay to play’ and we know that we don’t have security in this platform. It can be incredible and there is still power to harness there but we don’t own our presence there. If Instagram went down for a prolonged period how will you speak to your audience?  We’ve seen developments with TikTok recently; if the platform disappeared, how will you speak to your audience?

If we diversify the risk, not leaving all our eggs in the social media basket, we tap into incredible new ways of reaching our audience with impact and at scale. We also free up the time and resources to do this. Your social media content can become blog posts, guest articles, podcast episodes, the beginnings of keynotes for speaking opportunities. Leveraging your social media audience onto your mailing list gives you the data you need to sustain and grow your business. Taking time to work on pitching to the media can open up doors to hundreds of thousands of your ideal clients who could be looking for exactly what you’re offering but they just haven’t yet found you on social media!

Spread the risk and tap into abundant potential. 

You are a PR fan! What do you think is so great about PR for marketing a business?

Where do I start!?! I have been called ‘evangelical’ when it comes to PR. I am such a huge advocate of PR for small businesses *for any business really* for many, many reasons. There is no better way to reach your target audience at scale in a way that builds credibility and fosters the ‘know, like and trust’ factor; all of which works to shorten the sales cycle (the process of earning a lead and turning it into a customer).

PR is all about earned wins; as opposed to paid wins.  Much of PR is free. I think this has to make it one of the most appealing points for businesses. Not only is it free but it is high impact and far reaching.  PR wins could look like guesting on a podcast; featuring in a national lifestyle publication such as Stylist or Grazia; writing a guest article for a business title such as Real Business or featuring on Forbes; speaking on stage at a high profile event and more. None of which would cost you anything to secure.

Another beauty of PR is how the different visibility avenues in the PR Pick ’n’ Mix can speak to each other so well.  A blog post could become a guest article.  Any piece of content could give you expert comment to offer to journalists for features.  An appearance on a podcast can be great to share with your social media audience and mailing list to help your audience get to know you.  PR can do incredible things for small businesses; getting them punching above their weight and achieving results that are far beyond what could ever be budgeted for in other areas of marketing or advertising. 

What results and wins have you experienced from non-social media marketing strategies that you’re particularly proud of?

The key to effective activity beyond social media is to be strategic about what you want to achieve and what methods or routes are going to get you there.  I always love implementing strategies to drive expert positioning across both B2C and B2B.  For example, in my work with a fitness PT who was building her online audience and membership platform we did a lot of expert positioning across consumer media in the likes of Woman & Home, Good Housekeeping, Women’s Fitness, Women’s Health, Sheerluxe, The Telegraph and Top Sante. Alongside this we leveraged the impact the media coverage had on her social media following to grow her mailing list by over 3000% and increase membership sales by almost 200% in little over a year.

The strategic combination of expert positioning across the media, social media growth, mailing list conversion and email marketing nurturing led to a very real, tangible impact on the bottom line of the business. 

When PR works like this, it becomes a strategic consolidation of the amazing promotional routes that will work for your business. Your efforts become fruitful and your workload is lessened. Your focus is streamlined. Ultimately, it will grow your business and get you closer to whatever business success looks like for you. 

For small business owners who feel overwhelmed by PR, where’s the best place to start?

The best way to look at this is to understand the PR is essentially just communication.  PR is communication with any stakeholders in and around your business from collaborators to stockist and suppliers through to your ideal clients and customers; so actually, you’re already doing your own PR!  If you are on social media, communicating via email, networking with peers, attending events etc, you are doing your own PR.

So how can you go further?  Small steps. What can you do more of?  What can you experiment with?  How can you show up in new ways?

• Can you offer a guest blog post to a link minded collaborator?
• Do you know anyone with a podcast that you could offer to share value on as a guest?
• Could you join another networking group?
• Could you show up more in groups or memberships you’re already a part of?

Getting started with PR doesn’t have to be scary or overwhelming. You’ve already started but now stretch that comfort zone bit by bit.

What are the common mistakes entrepreneurs make when pitching their brand to magazines or journalists, and how can they avoid them?

One of the most common mistakes when pitching is making it all about what the magazine or journalist can do for them. You can’t approach a local magazine with an email that says ‘this is my local magazine, it would be great to have a column that will raise my profile, it would be the perfect fit for my PR’.  Value has to be at the heart of any approach. 

If you can offer value to a journalist and their readership, you exponentially increase your chances of success. It has to be about what you can do or offer for them, not how they should help you with coverage because your business will benefit.

Journalists are actively in need of your input, ideas, comment, expertise and offers, so offer up your value and make yourself available. 

Another error that I see being made is not being timely or relevant. Monthly magazines work 3-6 months in advance, so if you are planning a summer launch but don’t start reaching out to the media until your launch is imminent, then you have missed the boat. A journalist will not entertain anything that is not timely. They will also not entertain anything that is not relevant to them or their audience, so be objective with yourself about what you send and when you send it.

Once you hit on a pitch that is timely, relevant and delivers value, doors will open for you.   

Are there any specific tools or resources you’d recommend to help small business owners with PR?

There really isn’t much needed when it comes to getting started on your PR but arming yourself with insight and knowledge will stand you in good stead. 

Ask your audience on social media what they read, what platforms they follow, where they get their inspiration and information, what podcasts they listen to, what influencers they follow etc to give you a starting point for where you might want to start working on showing up. 

I always find a subscription to an online service like Readly to be handy to get familiar with previous issues of magazines you want to be targeting. Being aware of the topics they cover and the journalists that write the content is all part of making your pitches the most relevant and of value that they can be. 

There are spaces that can give you access to journalists and media opportunities when you are ready. There are FB groups including Lightbulb PR and Feature Me and there is the hashtag #journorequest on X which is always worth taking a look at.

Product businesses might also look to a platform like Press Loft which will enable them to upload their products for journalists to be able to access for use in their publications. 

There are so many resources and tools that could be useful but hopefully these give a little food for thought as a starting point. 

What are some unexpected ways small businesses can catch the attention of the media or journalists?

There are many ways to catch the attention of the media.  PR stunts have always been a great way to get noticed, however, there is always a risk of paralysis by analysis when you spend so much time and effort to stand out. It used to be the case that a strategic well planned gift could get your product in front of journalists but, whilst big brands still use this method because they can easily afford to, there has definitely been a move to a more stripped back approach that reverts back to the quality of the offer rather than the money and creative efforts spent to get it in front of the media.

What really works is the offer of a great product or valuable expertise and a great ‘does what it says on the tin’ email pitch as the vehicle to communicate the offer. 

Unless you are looking to create a ‘newsworthy’ splash for something truly notable, revolutionary or of impact, stick to communicating your value in the most streamlined, timely and relevant way.

If you could share just one golden rule for PR success, what would it be?

Oooooh this is a tough one. I think my golden rule would just be to send the email.  Make the approach. Ask the question. If you don’t, someone else will and they will get the result. What’s the worst that can happen?

If you believe in your offer, believe that doors will open for you if you are consistent, persistent and keeping value at the heart of every approach.