5 ways to get your business noticed (when you’ve no news to share)

Reviews

Depending on your product or service, there may be journalists and bloggers willing to try it out. Reach out to the right individual, explain how what you offer will improve the lives of their audience and ask if they’d be willing to try it for free.

Follow up with them to ensure they know how your product or service works. Iron out any problems quickly and help them experience it properly if required. Ensure your chosen influencers have an interest in your area, produce relevant content on a frequent basis and that they also interact with other businesses.

Make sure they have enough readers or followers to make it worth your while, and that people engage with the content they produce.

Insight

People are fascinated to find out more about themselves, other people like them and the challenges they face. The classic PR survey is a popular way of providing this kind of insight. Companies can also consider looking at their own data assets to find a compelling story.

Those commissioning research should take care to make sure they are looking at things that matter to the audience and that the insight doesn’t appear to be too self-serving. Consider adding the voice or an expert, independent third party to add weight to your research.

Thought leadership

Thought leadership is about providing a new and unique perspective on an issue that is challenging your audience. The best thought leaders have a deep understanding of their audience and the issues they face, demonstrate that first and foremost, and then hint at their ability to solve it in a compellingly better way.

A thought leadership position can be shared through blogs, contributed articles, white papers, videos and media interviews. Prove your approach is best by providing customer examples.

Features

Some media outlets, particularly trade publications, will publish forward features lists to let potential contributors and advertisers know what will be covering. This provides an opportunity to offer contributions such as media interviews, case studies and bylined articles. It is important to make contact with the publication well in advance of the editorial deadline and be prepared to demonstrate that you have sufficient expertise to be able to contribute.

When offering feature contributions to journalists make sure you use a solid pitch: tell them who you are, what you do and why you’d be ideal for their feature. Also, give them a quote to get started with – it shows you want to help

Awards

Awards are a good way of validating claims, proving superiority and rewarding clients and staff for a job well done. Industry associations and media organisations will run them on an annual basis, putting out calls for entries months in advance of the evening itself.

Entries should be well written, to the point and produced in line with the specific criteria of the adjudicating body. Back claims up with statistics, client examples and other evidence. Pay the entrance fee promptly, if there is one.

While entry criteria may differ slightly from one awards to another, one well written award entry can form the basis of several with just a little adaptation.