Which one strategy should small business owners adopt to maximize PR exposure without spending a fortune?
These answers are provided by Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC), an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. YEChas also launched BusinessCollective, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses.
1. Find the Right Influencers
Utilizing social influencers and bloggers can be a cost-effective PR solution. Influencers can be found for nearly any industry. The key is finding the right influencer with a following that aligns with your target market at the best price. Don’t forget to negotiate payment options. Some influencers will even work with you in exchange for some merchandise. – Duran Inci, Optimum7
2. Subscribe to HARO
Sign up for Help a Reporter (HARO), a free service where journalists and bloggers source ideas and quotes for upcoming stories. You can respond to inquiries relevant to your business, and it’s also a great way to get a handle on what themes and topics are interesting to the media. – Emily Bernard, PlacePass
3. Cultivate Thought Leadership Through Your Personal Brand
Small businesses live and die by their owners and their reputation. By amplifying the personal brand of the business owner, they can capture more valuable leads by higher-ranking people in the industry. This grants them opportunities for speaking engagements and draws eyeballs back to their business’s website. It’s an inexpensive strategy to augment other PR efforts. – Kristopher Jones, LSEO.com
4. Create Engagement and Distribute Value at Events
Use events to engage with all audiences in your community: employees, recruits, clients, press etc. Creating an event that people want to attend, where they will organically learn about your business, is an authentic and fun way to bring in interest. Relationships progress from there, and getting PR is all about connecting with journalists and showing them that there is a story to share. – Baruch Labunski, Rank Secure
5. Collaborate with Like-Minded Brands
Your business can partner with non-competing brands in your category to form an alliance in which you share PR contacts and resources. That way, you leverage the connections they’ve developed with journalists and bloggers for free. The only cost is reciprocation whenever you find media opportunities they can benefit from, too. – Firas Kittaneh, Amerisleep
6. Donate To or Volunteer In a Space Relevant to Your Market
Whether it’s pro-bono work, volunteering or donations, take a look at your target market and identify organizations or groups of people that could use a helping hand. You’ll already have some relevant knowledge and experience, so your contribution will go even further, and you’ll get some authentic exposure in a way that feels natural and is low-cost. – Roger Lee, Captain401
7. Focus on Campaigns That Generate an Emotional Response
When I look at how to create a PR campaign that has any chance of going viral, I make sure it creates a strong emotional response, even if that emotion is negative. Somebody hating your pitch distributes your message just as well as if they loved it. – Liam Martin, TimeDoctor.com
8. Become an Authority in Your Industry
Become the ultimate reference for your industry. Scour the industry statistics and trends specific to your business and publish those in a way that beats anything else available. Make the content useful to others in the industry and your customers. The cost is the time spent to research and put the content together, but in addition to building great references, you become more knowledgeable. – Shawn Schulze, AffAction
9. Pitch Freelance Writers Instead of Staff Journalists
Instead of pitching staff writers, try seeking out freelance writers. Often times, freelancers don’t have as many deadlines and stories to meet as staff writers, so it’s easier to get a story to run. You can find freelancers in your industry on LinkedIn or the contributor section of a website or magazine. – Kristin Marquet, Creative Development Agency, LLC
10. Take Advantage of LinkedIn
LinkedIn is the hottest social media network right now, and for good reason. If you make a habit of pushing quality, mobile-optimized content on LinkedIn on a consistent basis, you can build a brand for yourself and your company that gets noticed. From that foundation, it’s easier to get press coverage because the outlets see you on LinkedIn, which makes them feel safe writing about you. – Ben Lee, Neon Roots
11. Write Guest Posts
Find other companies in your industry that compliment your business and guest post on each other’s blogs. You can also self-publish on platforms such as Medium and LinkedIn, and apply to contribute to others like HuffingtonPost and Entrepreneur. – Syed Balkhi, OptinMonster
12. Promote Others First
It’s amazing how willing people and companies are to help you when you’re helping them. Rather than focusing on maximizing your own PR first, figure out ways that you can promote others that get them excited to promote you along the way. Reviewing other platforms, writing how-to articles of other tech products, and interviewing other founders are all great ways to create co-promotional content. – Ross Beyeler, Growth Spark
13. Join Facebook Groups
Facebook groups are incredible resources to spread your message. Find ones that relate to your business and join them. Then become a regular contributor. Once you have gained credibility, you can start posting your business material, as long as it’s not a straight sales pitch. You will get more traffic from Facebook than any other platform out there, so start using it now. – Scott Kacmarski, Reps Direct
