Being featured in the press boosts awareness and builds credibility. Discover five ways that can help increase your chances of being noticed by the UK press and gaining coverage for your business.
Put yourself at the forefront of your business
An interesting angle for profile press might centre on an accomplishment, a unique story, the expertise of a founder or a new development in the business. By leading with people, whether it’s a solopreneur or someone key to a larger company, real-life experiences, stories or opinions open up for great profile press opportunities.- Position yourself as an expert
Positioning yourself as an expert in your field can help you establish credibility, build your reputation, and increase your influence within your industry. We often get asked how to do this, and the best way is by creating content on your own channels. Share your expertise by creating valuable content such as blog posts, videos, podcasts, or social media posts. Make sure the content you create is high quality, informative, and relevant to your target audience.You can then monitor industry trends, look for ways to position the brand as a leader in relevant conversations, whether it be sitting on a panel or giving an expert opinion. 
Support pitches with fantastic imagery
Whether you are a service or product, great imagery leads to great press. Product-businesses should have great product shots – and service businesses should have images that represent what you offer.
You can build an imagery bank over time with 1-2 shoots a year to update brand, team or founder images. People love to get a peek behind the scenes. If you’re pitching a workspace, invest in imagery and go for authentic rather than Instagram perfection. A professional image will always have the edge, but a behind-the-brand shot on an iPhone is much better than nothing at all. Work with what you’ve got and build what you need over time.- Be proactive
The press won’t come to you – so be proactive and reach out to the press with great product suggestions and profile angles. If the press can’t find what they need in their inbox, they’ll go out looking for it. Reactive requests are often more niche, which can be a great opportunity, but it’s down to the brand to react quickly for the chance to be featured. Around 90% of a brand’s PR outreach is proactive and 10% is reactive. - Block out time
PR is an important but non-urgent task and therefore will always go to the bottom of your to do list. However, the results from PR are crucial for driving any business forwards. PR is to be done consistently for the lifetime of your business, therefore we recommend blocking out time for PR each week. If you have access to a press database you can reach out to 10 press in as little as 60-minutes each week.
PR leads to a range of benefits, and the key one being greater visibility. A higher profile can translate into more opportunities for business partnerships, investment and media coverage as people start to know about the brand.
Located in Kingsbridge, Devon, Rosie Davies-Smith is the founder of PR Dispatch which supports over 380 product-businesses to affordably do their PR in-house in just 60 minutes each week by giving them access to PR insights, pitch templates support and a press database. Their members have been seen in The Guardian, The Telegraph, Stylist and hundreds of other UK publications.
Join their next PR membership tour here and access a free monthly press calendar here.
