Our first press coverage

[Findermonkey]

We have started using a PR company to do a couple of stories on us each month, this was their first attempt and its in the Yorkshire Evening Post, which is pretty cool. Thought I would come on here and gloat!

http://www.yorkshireeveningpost.co....dermonkey_finding_your_lost_clients_1_3592509

Hopefully there should be plenty more stories and we've had lots of photos taken today as using a photo can increase exposure. For any new up and coming businesses I would recommend getting some professional PR.

 

[KateCB]

Out of interest - the cost for a couple of stories a month is roughly?
And can they guarantee to get you 'published' every other week?
Feel free to pm me if you don't want to quote £'s!

 

[Findermonkey]

No its no problem.

Our marketing guy spoke to lots of small PR firm in Yorkshire and we had many different prices. We went with a lady who a journo but has recently set up on her own. We get two press releases a month for £250 which is very reasonable. She makes no guarantees but the little piece in the Yorkshire Evening Post was the first effort so its great to see that she got us that exposure. Its down to the quality of the stories too, we have some really good ones coming up so we should make her job quite easy. Its the combination of good stories well spun along with using someone who has good contacts within the regional or national press.

 

[GeorgeStrait]

£250 a month for two, what appear to be small, pieces. And no guarantee's.

Have you had a look at what size ad's you could have in the paper for that? They would be guaranteed as well.

 

[Findermonkey]

£250 a month for two, what appear to be small, pieces. And no guarantee's.

Have you had a look at what size ad's you could have in the paper for that? They would be guaranteed as well.

Nope, very happy with this girl and have faith that over time she will deliver bigger and better quality coverage. Rome wasn't built in a day. The second piece she has done is a cracker and we'll see much better coverage. In any case an advert of that size in the YEP would be much more than £250. Final point is that press coverage is more to do with building a brand than advertising it.

 

[GeorgeStrait]

Not trying to put a downer on your press releases, but I really can't see a newspaper(s) running stories every other week, it'll dry up quiet soon.

Me personally I would run a 10cm x 2 column ad (which is bigger than your last release) monthly - that'll cost you about £330 in something the Yorkshire Evening Post, and if done regularly the cost will come down considerably and they will be more open to giving you additional editorial for free.

I'm sure your PR woman will get results for the first few weeks or months, but just be ready to ditch her when the month comes that shows no return on your £250.

That's only how I would do it, and I feel that advertising with you logo etc printed would create much more brand awareness than just print.

 

[Findermonkey]

Not trying to put a downer on your press releases, but I really can't see a newspaper(s) running stories every other week, it'll dry up quiet soon.

Me personally I would run a 10cm x 2 column ad (which is bigger than your last release) monthly - that'll cost you about £330 in something the Yorkshire Evening Post, and if done regularly the cost will come down considerably and they will be more open to giving you additional editorial for free.

I'm sure your PR woman will get results for the first few weeks or months, but just be ready to ditch her when the month comes that shows no return on your £250.

That's only how I would do it, and I feel that advertising with you logo etc printed would create much more brand awareness than just print.

The Yorkshire Evening Post would want at least ten times the £330 you suggested to run an advert.

I'm not sure I remember asking you how you would do it but I am confident with my opinion that PR is the way to go. Look at Alan Sugar and his close working relationship to Nick Hewer (a PR man) and Richard Branson and his involvement with the media. In terms of whether the coverage will increase or decrease over the coming weeks and months, as I said I think this is down to the quality of story we can come up with, the small one that was in the YEP was the tip of the ice berg, we have some stories that will be coming out that are bigger and better.

We do do advertising too but I do think PR is very important. Of course you are entitled to your own opinion and if you have your own business will be doing it your own way.

 

[GeorgeStrait]

The Yorkshire Evening Post would want at least ten times the £330 you suggested to run an advert.

All I'll say is your so wrong on the above point. And if someone (maybe your PR woman?) is telling you different they're having you on.

 

[Findermonkey]

All I'll say is your so wrong on the above point. And if someone (maybe your PR woman?) is telling you different they're having you on.

No the PR person just gets on with her job. We've got quotes regarding advertising so I'm pretty sure I'm right but if you think different then thats cool, it matters not, I guess you might be talking about the little adverts for plasterers and the like in the classified section but we're not really going to see much return on that type of advertising.

As I said we do lots of advertising, I wanted to talk about PR but people on forums tend to go off at tangents sometimes. All I was saying is that I see huge value in my PR, not that I see huge value in PR instead of advertising.

 

[GeorgeStrait]

I was talking about a 10cm x 2 column display ad in the main paper.

Just seems to me that if your under the illusion that the cost will be thousands rather than £330 then you may want to re-consider, that's all. As I'm sure you would agree a guaranteed ad of a decent size is better value than £250 on a maybe.

Just as a bit of food for thought the costs for this size ad would be approx'

£330 per ad for a run of three early week
£500 per ad for a run of three Thur or Fri (usually a local dailies biggest circulation)

If you committed to bigger runs then you should be able to negotiate down to your £250 mark relatively easily.

Not trying to tell you how or what you should be doing, it just seems to me that someone isn't being entirely honest with you.

And I wholly agree that doing PR and advertising is ideal, just really not to sure off the benefit of paying someone to hand over copy to a newspaper.

 

[Findermonkey]

I was talking about a 10cm x 2 column display ad in the main paper.

Just seems to me that if your under the illusion that the cost will be thousands rather than £330 then you may want to re-consider, that's all. As I'm sure you would agree a guaranteed ad of a decent size is better value than £250 on a maybe.

Just as a bit of food for thought the costs for this size ad would be approx'

£330 per ad for a run of three early week
£500 per ad for a run of three Thur or Fri (usually a local dailies biggest circulation)

If you committed to bigger runs then you should be able to negotiate down to your £250 mark relatively easily.

Not trying to tell you how or what you should be doing, it just seems to me that someone isn't being entirely honest with you.

And I wholly agree that doing PR and advertising is ideal, just really not to sure off the benefit of paying someone to hand over copy to a newspaper.

Not sure where you got these prices from, to end the debate I just phoned the YEP and got quoted these prices

£491 per ad per day early week
£691 per ad per day thurs, fri, sat

these were for 10cm x 3cm ads

The reason we use a PR person is to write the copy in a format that suits the newspaper and for the contacts she has. In our second press release our PR person has got some great quotes from Burnley Council about some work we are doing for them, she has turned this into a great story and it will get a lot of exposure around the Burnley area. Once the press releases have been used by the newspaper she reworks them and then distributes them again but online, then they end up on Google news and the like which is fantastic for link building as she also adds links. All for a tiny amount of £250 a month.

 

[thetime22]

We have started using a PR company to do a couple of stories on us each month, this was their first attempt and its in the Yorkshire Evening Post, which is pretty cool. Thought I would come on here and gloat!

http://www.yorkshireeveningpost.co....dermonkey_finding_your_lost_clients_1_3592509

Hopefully there should be plenty more stories and we've had lots of photos taken today as using a photo can increase exposure. For any new up and coming businesses I would recommend getting some professional PR.

Congrats! Awesome article.

 

[GeorgeStrait]

Not sure where you got these prices from, to end the debate I just phoned the YEP and got quoted these prices

£491 per ad per day early week
£691 per ad per day thurs, fri, sat

these were for 10cm x 3cm ads

The reason we use a PR person is to write the copy in a format that suits the newspaper and for the contacts she has. In our second press release our PR person has got some great quotes from Burnley Council about some work we are doing for them, she has turned this into a great story and it will get a lot of exposure around the Burnley area. Once the press releases have been used by the newspaper she reworks them and then distributes them again but online, then they end up on Google news and the like which is fantastic for link building as she also adds links. All for a tiny amount of £250 a month.

That's great then and if your unable to write a press release or don't have the contacts then I guess this could be seen as good value.

Now phone YEP and ask for the three run prices and you'll find the price drops to about what I quoted (plus vat obviously). At least if nothing else you now know that advertising in this paper cost hundreds rather than thousands

 

[Findermonkey]

Fair enough George, I think we both have made some good points and its great to debate with other passionate business people.

I've long since stopped doing everything myself and accept that other people know more than me. I now see myself as someone who just orchestrates other people to do things better than I do such as our PR person. The only thing I have that some of my employees don't was the balls to start my own business and the ability to spot people who are more talented than me.

 

[Findermonkey]

The second press release for this month is starting to get some coverage too

http://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.u..._housing_chiefs_call_in____bounty_hunters___/

 

[jakeylakey]

Congratulations, have always wanted to get into the press more, I know it isnt easy!

 

[Findermonkey]

Congratulations, have always wanted to get into the press more, I know it isnt easy!

Thank you, I would consider hiring a PR person if you can afford it but look around as our previous one was rubbish and didn't get our business. We looked around and found someone who is very good.

I have this afternoon tied this regional PR person in with a London agency so this is a massive move towards national coverage. The PR person will write the stories suggested by the London agency and then pass them over to the London agency to distribute to the national media. Should work really well but it comes down to the quality of the stories we can come up with on our business. This shouldn't be a problem for a People Tracing company called FinderMonkey though!

 

[GreatSEO]

Can you forward me your ladies details by PM please....

Many Thanks

Dave

 

[Findermonkey]

Can you forward me your ladies details by PM please....

Many Thanks

Dave

Sorry Dave she only covers the Yorkshire area, this is where her contacts are and where she will be most effective. I would recommend contacting all PR companies in Berkshire and comparing experience and cost. We were lucky as ours has only just left a paid job with a newspaper so was looking to build her clientbase and so we got a great deal from someone with lots of experience.

 

[Richard Glynn]

Not trying to put a downer on your press releases, but I really can't see a newspaper(s) running stories every other week, it'll dry up quiet soon.

Me personally I would run a 10cm x 2 column ad (which is bigger than your last release) monthly - that'll cost you about £330 in something the Yorkshire Evening Post, and if done regularly the cost will come down considerably and they will be more open to giving you additional editorial for free.

I'm sure your PR woman will get results for the first few weeks or months, but just be ready to ditch her when the month comes that shows no return on your £250.

That's only how I would do it, and I feel that advertising with you logo etc printed would create much more brand awareness than just print.

Well done Finder Monkey and well done your PR person.

I respect your opinion George, but I'm happy to explain why I think you're wrong (with an obvious personal vested interest)..

1. Advertising has no editorial endorsement. When you read/see advert you know you're being sold to. We are bombarded with selling messages every where we turn. We have learned to close off to adverts unless we are actively seeking the solution they offer at that moment in time. (NB Read 'Permission Marketing' by Seth Godin to take this a stage further)

2. When was the last time you bought a newspaper to read the adverts? PR puts your business message in the places people actually read.

3. Advertising only receives back what you pay for. A news release can run in more than one title, regional press, trade press, radio and TV. One of my news releases generated one million pounds-worth of coverage. The client paid a few hundred pounds for it. If they'd have bought a similar amount of advertising they would have had to pay .. one million pounds.

4. PR harnesses the power of stories and editorial referral to sell your business, products and services. It's the closest marketing discipline to word of mouth. And the power of word of mouth is never disputed. That's why it works.

To offer a little bit of perspective. Both advertising and PR should be considered in smart marketing activity. It depends on the business aims and objectives as to what the balance should be. And if advertising demonstrates results then do more of it.

There are no guarantees of coverage ever. If the coverage was guaranteed it would be advertising. We can however employ tricks of the trade to increase the chances of positive coverage.

Consistent PR support (two releases a month seems a good start) should always demonstrate a massively superior return on space achieved over advertising over a long enough period.

Finder Monkey, the challenge will be to reflect the news in your business and keep coming up with smart angles which will appeal to both your target audience (current and prospective customers), key journalists and their readers. They should also begin to directly drive sales where possible too. But that's what we get paid for.

Good luck,

Richard

 

[Findermonkey]

Richard,

Great to get an expert backing me up. I feel strongly that PR is a key part of how we are going to grow FinderMonkey over the next couple of years. I agree that the stories that we come up with will be key to staying in the news. I also don't believe it when people say "the same papers won't want the same stories over and over and so the stratergy is doomed to failure" what these people don't understand is that there are lots of regional newspapers in yorkshire, plus trade magazines, plus online distribution. We won't be going to the Yorkshire Evening Post with every single story.

I was lucky enough to go to a networking event and Ajaz Ahmed was talking, he started Freeserve, he felt PR was a key part of his success, like I said previously I don't think its a coincidence that Nick Hewer is still by Alan Sugars side after all these years!

 

[Richard Glynn]

Richard,

Great to get an expert backing me up. I feel strongly that PR is a key part of how we are going to grow FinderMonkey over the next couple of years. I agree that the stories that we come up with will be key to staying in the news. I also don't believe it when people say "the same papers won't want the same stories over and over and so the stratergy is doomed to failure" what these people don't understand is that there are lots of regional newspapers in yorkshire, plus trade magazines, plus online distribution. We won't be going to the Yorkshire Evening Post with every single story.

I was lucky enough to go to a networking event and Ajaz Ahmed was talking, he started Freeserve, he felt PR was a key part of his success, like I said previously I don't think its a coincidence that Nick Hewer is still by Alan Sugars side after all these years!

Couple of things.

It's a team effort with your PR person. Of course, you want them to be proactive, but the more you keep them in the loop and maintain two-way conversation, brief them and pick their brains etc. the more value you'll get from the relationship. (Not suggesting you were.)

Also, I'd copy the Yorkshire post in everything you do. Just make sure that it's a Yorkshire story, or where it isn't you tweak the story a little to give it a Yorkshire angle. Sometimes you can simply change the headline to achieve this.

The worst thing that will happen is that they don't use it. But send it and give them the option!