There is so much that goes into running a successful e-commerce operation. Building a sales team, establishing solid customer service, running an optimized and organized website and spending time on advertising and vendor relations are all very time-consuming activities that are vital to your bottom line.
However, there’s one area that is often overlooked in the day-to-day operations of an online store that can be just as valuable: public and media relations. We understand why PR can get lost in the shuffle. Most small and midsize retailers just don’t have experience in crafting or implementing a communications strategy, nor do they think they can fit such activities into an already busy schedule. But we’re here to tell you that you can. And that you should!
We talked to a New York-based communications specialist with more than a decade’s worth of experience in public and media relations to get his thoughts on what ecommerce entrepreneurs can do to bring PR into the mix and help spread the word about their brands. Here are three tips that don’t require too much time and effort but should produce results!
Build Press Kits: A press kit offers reporters and bloggers all the necessary background information on your company in one place. As such, they might just bethe most valuable PR tool one can have. And these days, it’s not just enough to have a paper version of a press kit. You need an electronic one that can be accessed via your website as well. A good press kit should include background pages on the company, executive biographies, links to or PDF versions of previous press ‘hits’, press releases on new features or other news, and even financial summaries in some cases. Electronic press kits can also include videos, audio clips and even podcasts.
Press kits should always provide reliable contact information should the reporter want to get in touch with you. Regardless, you should always have your press kits done and ready to go BEFORE you begin any big media or marketing push. You don’t want to make a press announcement and then have to scramble to pull together background information if a reporter calls to follow up. Members of the media operate on strict deadlines and if you can’t provide them with the information they need quickly, they will simply move on to someone else.
Make a Press List and Get to Know Who’s On It: When you do get around to making that press announcement, you’re going to need to let members of the media know about it.
Start small, especially if you operate in a small media market. Identify the relevant reporters at your local and major state newspapers and business journals, namely retail and small business reporters. If the newspaper is very small, you can look for the business editor instead. Give them a call or shoot them an email introducing yourself and offer to send over a press kit. Tell them that you will have some news announcements in the coming months and that you want to keep them in the loop. By putting getting your company’s name on their radars with a pleasant introduction, you’re increasing the chances of them running your story as opposed to cold calling them later on when they don’t know you from a hole in the wall. If you want to expand your targeted press lists even more, visit this Newslink.org which links to the websites of every single major newspaper, periodical, and radio/TV station in the country. Also track a blog search engine like IceRocket to find bloggers that might have an interest in what you’re doing.
Put your press lists in Excel format with the contact’s name, phone, fax, email and a ‘notes’ section detailing when you last spoke to them or what their preferences are for being contacted with news. When it’s time to send out that next press release, you have your list ready to go! Now, sure there are PR firms and media databases out there that will identify reporters that are relevant to your brand and geographical location and build you some press lists for a few hundred, if not thousand, dollars. But why spend all that money when you can do it yourself simply by following the steps outlined above?
Track the News: Along those same lines, it always helps to keep track of business and retail news on both the national and local levels. This not only helps you identify new reporters and bloggers to add to your press list, but it keeps you in the loop on things your competitors might be doing or trends emerging in your particular industry.
One simple way to do this is to set up news alerts through Google. Visit this page alerts to set up Google Alerts and Google will deliver every news item from around the world to your email inbox for each keyword that you enter. For instance, if you’re a sports memorabilia retailer, set up an alert with ‘baseball memorabilia’ or ‘sports collectibles’ as keywords to get specific news items on your industry. Also set up an alert for your company name and those of your competitors, as well as broad business terms like ‘retail spending’, ‘consumer sentiment’, and/or ‘online shopping’ to get a daily rundown of all the news that is important to you.
Staying informed is key and quickly browsing the morning paper isn’t enough anymore. You need to be “in the know” as much as possible, not only when dealing with members of the media, but when deciding how and where to spread your own news announcements when the time comes.
Thoughts, ideas, suggestions? Leave us a comment!
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