how transformative promoting myself has been for my own business as well as that of my clients.
Hyping myself landed me a book deal, national newspaper coverage, paid-for speaking gigs, teaching opportunities, invitations to appear on podcasts and allowed me to increase my consultancy fees.
But don’t just take my word for it, have a read through of the multiple expert tips, client examples and journalist hacks that I’ve collated to give you as many tangible takeaways as possible to promote your business.
What is PR?
PR is more than just telling your story to journalists. It is anything you do that is in the public eye and, I believe, is the best free tool that should be part of your marketing mix. Unlike advertising, where you are visible for as long as you pay to be, publicity has no shelf life.
Any time you are responding in the public eye, you have an opportunity to hype yourself. This might look like:
– Talking to new connections at an event
– How you respond in a crisis
– What you post on Instagram
– How you launch a product
– The tactics you use to drive email sign-ups
– Your mechanics to encourage positive mentions and awareness around your business
– Your company blog
– An industry report or whitepaper
– Speaking engagements.
And a great publicist will work with you to help you strategically steer all of this as well as generate creative campaigns to get your message out there. They may even push back on what you think you know about your business, and believe me, that is OK because sometimes what we think is the most interesting thing about our business is not what others think.
What PR is not
One of the biggest mistakes I see is people thinking that PR is writing a press release and issuing it to a contacts list, what is known in the industry as ‘spray and pray’. This is absolutely the worst thing that any PR practitioner or business owner could do; whilst we are clearing up myths, PR is not:
– An opportunity for you to tell a journalist what to write – e.g., a whole one-page feature on your business saying how great/different/new/unique it is
– A paid-for promotional or marketing piece of copy (this is an advert)
– All about the contacts in your address book (obviously, this helps, but some of the best pieces of coverage I have secured were through bespoke and tailored emails and doing my research)
– An excuse to take a journalist out for a long lunch and get them drunk enough to write about you (we are not living in a Wolf of Wall Street era, my friends).
And the grey area in between
– Social media/influencer engagement is argued by some to be part of the PR mix, some people see it as a specialist skill and others think it is the job of digital marketing agencies. Whatever your view, it needs to be part of your PR toolkit so we will spend some time learning the ropes on this.
– Search engine optimisation (SEO)/website design/branding – again there are specialist agencies that focus on each of these elements and some PR agencies also offer this service. And again, what I will say is that if you have not considered these, then with the best PR in your world you will struggle to get as much traction. If someone can’t understand what you are about just from your branding and website, then consider investing in this before hyping yourself.
Why do I need a self-hype book?
It is totally commonplace to spend time on self-love, but your business doesn’t need a self-help book; if your budgets are tight and you need help with sales, awareness, opportunities, connections or are struggling to put your face at the front of your work, then you need some self-hype.
Put simply, people buy people. The Hype Yourself mission is to make sure that you are doing everything you can to showcase who you are, so that you can build that emotional connection with your audience.
We are inundated by branding, advertising and companies pushing us to purchase. If Brexit or Donald Trump taught us anything, it’s that consumers make decisions based on emotions not statistics.
Consumers engage with the people behind brands because it helps them understand how the brand fits with their own identity. When you share who you are and what you are about you don’t even need to sell to your audience anymore because they have bought into you.
We are seeing even larger companies shifting towards this trend, but entrepreneurs are lucky in that they have the agility and personality to become their own content creators easily.
I want you to be one of the first people to take advantage of this shifting trend.
If you can learn to treat yourself with as much time and respect as one of your own clients and you follow just some of the suggestions in this book, you will have a free tap that you can turn on at any point for new opportunities, and unlike advertising or marketing, this can be executed at no cost to your business.
I’m not just a huge fan of publicity because I work in it – I’m a living case study of someone who PRs herself every day. I have successfully built a six-figure lifestyle business based entirely on using the art to Hype Myself. Below are just some of the ways that publicity could help you:
– When you Google your business/name, what comes up? If you are not easily searchable it can affect your sales as people can’t find you. But an effective PR campaign will drive up your search engine optimisation (SEO) and make you more visible without having to spend on Google AdWords.
– One of the most expensive costs to any business is acquiring new customers. Publicity can help you reach a larger audience in a more authentic and engaging way and it doesn’t disappear when the budget runs out. Your media mentions will live online.
– With millions of businesses out there you need to keep front of mind; the successful businesses we remember have founders who understand (or understood) the importance of publicity – think Richard Branson, Steve Jobs, Brené Brown.
– PR-ing yourself means you are forced to constantly evolve, which is the foundation of all business success. By staying on the metaphorical shop floor and creating new content to promote your business, you keep yourself informed and your ideas fresh.
– We are in an era of whoever shouts the loudest wins, whether that is shouting about your brilliant work or your innovative thinking. If you are not part of the conversation, then no one will see what you are doing.
– It is cheaper to retain customers than to find new ones; hyping yourself will arm you with resources to keep your current audience engaged and receptive, assisting with repeat business.
OK, so how is this book specifically going to help me with my PR?
I’m going to hand-hold you through the same PR process I use for myself and my clients. I start off every PR talk
