If you are running a small business, one of your aims for 2009 is likely to be to raise your business profile and reach more customers. PR is a great way to do this, and with budgets being tight this year you may want to do your own PR.

Writing a press release is straightforward: you can find a template to download at www.prbasics.co.uk. If you need an expert edit on what you have written, I offer a press release health check for £30. But, how do you get it to the journalists who can give you the coverage you need?

There are lots of press release distribution services, and journalism.co.uk have put together a summary of the cost of each of them, plus where they reach. Of course, they are doing this because they think you should use their service: I can’t tell you if it is better than the other services. I’ve tended to use Response Source myself which always gets me some coverage, usually from a publication I would not have expected to cover the release. I have also been trialling Beauty4Media for a client which has got sample requests from a range of publications. You should check out each site and see where they distribute to: Sourcewire, for example, is mainly for tech topics.

Use the ACPR media contacts database: the quickest way to get in touch with editors and journalists on national and local parenting magazines. Up to the minute data for contactcs at 20 national parenting magazines, 90+ local parenting magazines and 50+ parenting websites, plus journalists with an interest in parenting from other media. Don’t miss out on the best way to promote your baby or child business and generate valuable free coverage.

Antonia Chitty struggled with post natal depression after the birth of her daughter. She thought returning to work might make her feel back in control, but she found she didn’t see enough of Daisy. After 9 months and a chat with a life coach she took the plunge and set up her own business, ACPR, helping mumpreneurs learn to promote their business. Antonia has now written a book which makes it even easier for every businessmum to get the word out about their enterprise.

A guide to Promoting Your Business is created with busy business parents in mind, and can be worked through in short sections when you have a few minutes - perfect if you are running a business round the kids. Clear explanations, examples and exercises make it easy to pick up the essentials skills to boost your business. (more…)

Have you signed up to friendfeed yet? It is a good way of linking up all your online activities and will integrate and show up on your facebook too.You can subscribe to my friendfeed at http://friendfeed.com/antoniachitty.
Ed Dale of the 30 Day Challenge says this is the next big thing after twitter. If you haven’t yet got to grips with twitter, sign up here and link to me at http://twitter.com/antonianell

Anne Dhir runs Calin Bleu, a Scottish company selling stylish and comfortable baby slings. In this useful article she explains why online businesses need to think about local promotion.

With the internet bringing the entire world on your desk, it’s tempting to focus on big leads, national campaigns, being first on search engines… It’s a big world out there but there is one lesson I have learned over the last four years, it’s always nurture your local market.

I enjoy the challenge of promoting Calin Bleu and baby wearing in general locally, getting out there, talking to parents, sometimes you spend several hours talking to one customer for one item or for none! Other times, after one shopping appointment or dropping off leaflets in a café, I see a cluster of orders over the following months, all from the same area or even the same street. It is also a cost effective way of increasing sales. People love shopping from a local company and are happy to refer their friends and families to us. (more…)

Visit My Baby Radio to hear me talk about A Guide to Promoting Your Business.

If you want the fastest way to get to the people who can provide editorial coverage, get the ACPR parenting media contacts database. Up-to-date, this is the same database I use every week to promote my PR clients. With contacts at national parenting magazines in the UK and Ireland, plus details of local parenting magazines, parenting websites and journalists with an interest in parenting in the national media, this database can make your PR far more effective. Just £125, you will save hours of your time: the cost is far less than buying all the magazines and laboriously ploughing through to find contacts too. Pay electronically using our secure payment provider and the database can be with you on the same day so you can start promoting your business to the right editors right away.

I spend much of my time coaching small business owners to help them promote their own business. Here are some tips from my talks:

• Start by being clear about what is unique and different about your business: it is hard to stand out from all the other businesses, especially if you want to use press releases to get free editorial coverage.
• Make a plan: write down all the ideas you can think of for promoting your business - using sticky notes can make this easy to sort out. You might want to do it with a friend to help stimulate ideas.
• Draw up a month by month activity plan: have a look at the promotional plan and action plans at PRBasics in the Free Download section to get more of an idea of how I’d lay out a plan and some promotional ideas.  Have a column for advertising, public relations, online marketing, events, and perhaps include leafleting and direct mailing and any other marketing strategies you will use. Note down when new lines will be coming on board, especially ones exclusive to you, when you will have sales, and seasonal events like Mothers Day with which you could tie in promotional activities. If ideas and planning don’t come easily to you, I can help with a telephone consultation which will really get your brain going, or even write your plan for you after chatting through all the issues.
• Spread your promotional ideas out throughout the year, so you have something going on every month and week. Some people do PR every Monday, or the first week of every month, say.
• Once you have your ideas, look at the fixed costs for e.g. attending events, getting flyers printed. Set aside a small amount for ads each month.
• Think about your strengths and where you would need to get help in. If you like writing, you might want to write your own press releases: again there is a template at PRBasics.
• If you can’t imagine how to start writing a press release, I can write one for you to get you started, and you could then adapt it to cover ‘new news’ the following month. Press releases cost £40 per hundred words and are usually around 350 words long.
• If you have written your own press release and want a professional edit, I offer a press release ‘health check’ service.
• To make it easier to get in touch with the people who can give you coverage I offer an extensive and up-to-date database of media contacts at parenting magazines (national and local), websites, and journos with an interest in parenting at womens mags and newspapers (£125). You can then email and phone with your news as often as suits you.
• Finally, I have a limited number of slots to do PR for people: a single press release costs in the region of £600 with a reduction if you book regular work.

Miranda Levy, formerly of Grazia, is the new editor of Mother and Baby Magazine. Kyrsty Hazell joins Junior as Editorial Assistant, always a good person to start with for your PR efforts.

To find out more emails and addresses for contacts at pregnancy and parenting magazines and websites, buy the Parenting Media Contact database. It is bigger and better than ever, putting you in touch with the people who can write about your products and services.

When you are writing your own press release it can be hard to be sure that you have hit the mark. Here are 12 quick checks you can do to make sure you are writing a press release that will get coverage for your news:

1. Have you read the publication before writing the release? Make sure you are writing in a similar style to what is on the pages of the magazine or newspaper that you are targeting.

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