6 Pr Strategies Guaranteed To Increase Business Visibility

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Marketing activation is the execution of the marketing mix as part of the marketing process. The activation phase typically comes after the planning phase during which managers plan their marketing activities and is followed by a feedback phase in which results are evaluated with marketing analytics. But digital PR can drive so much more than just links, even though SEOs often turn to the tactic as a way to achieve this. 6 Benefits of Earning Links With Digital PR. Here are six reasons why digital PR should be part of your link building strategy: 1. Earn Authority Links From Top-Tier Publications.

Whenever a company runs a PR campaign, it invests considerable money and efforts in it. It, therefore, becomes necessary to measure the success of that PR campaign. Besides, measuring the effectiveness and the impact of a campaign will also help you identify the loopholes in it, which can be studied for improving future campaigns.

Unfortunately, measuring the success of a campaign is a highly-debated issue as there isn’t a single dedicated method to calculate its impact. Instead, digital marketers have started using different marketing metrics for proper assessment of a campaign.

So, how do you measure the success of a PR campaign?

Here is the list of metrics that you need to consider while measuring the impact and success of a PR campaign. Brother drivers mac download mfc 7840wjamesrenew.

1. Sales Stats

2. Social Media Reach

3. Engagement on Social Media

4. Media Impressions

5. Brand Mentions

6. Social Shares

7. Website Traffic

8. Number of Backlinks

9. Keyword Rankings

10. Lead Generation

Also, the data of the above-listed metrics needs to be collected initially before the campaign starts and compared with the end results to measure the correct impact of the digital PR campaign.

Here are different ways to track the impact of your campaign, using these metrics.

For a product-based or B2C company, sales is the most important factor. While PR may not give an instant boost to sales, it will certainly show some change. In fact, a well-executed digital PR campaign can generate significant sales over time. If there is no change in sales, you need to audit your PR strategy again.

Factors to Consider When Measuring Sales

There may be several socio-economic factors which affect sales. Factors specifically related to your sales must be considered in your campaign review.

Location or Territory

  • Calculating the change in sales volume by location or territory allows you to identify new sales opportunities.
  • Revise your PR strategy in the areas where sales figures haven’t shown a positive change.
  • Focus marketing and sales efforts on lucrative locations or territories.
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Age Group

  • Age group is also an important factor to measure your sales, especially if your target audience belongs to a particular age group.
  • It enables you to verify if your digital PR campaign has successfully connected with your target audience.

Time Frame

  • Find out how much sales was generated by your PR campaign in a given time frame. For example, you can calculate the sales after a few days, weeks, or months after the commencement of your digital PR campaign.
  • Identify the issues that are hampering sales performance.

Type of Sales Channel

  • One of the key factors to be considered when measuring sales is the type of sales channel, particularly for B2C companies.
  • Make sure to break down your sales data by types of channel. For example, you can check if your consumers preferred using the online store or buy from your retail partners after the camping was launched.

2. Social Media Reach

In the modern technology-driven world, social media influence is growing rapidly. According to Pew Research, 79% of Internet users (68% of all U.S. adults) were active Facebook subscribers in 2016, while 32% of Internet users were on Instagram and 24% were using Twitter last year.

If you want to know how many of them have seen your post or message, social media reach is your best bet. It refers to the number of followers you acquire on various social media channels. People will follow your social media profile and pages only if it is entertaining and shares valuable content with the target audience.

Benefits of Calculating Social Media Reach

  • It enables a digital PR agency to understand the context of its content and how far it can circulate on social media.
  • It also enables you to measure the audience growth rate.
  • It can help a PR agency understand the latest algorithm of a social media platform and design the campaign accordingly for maximum effect.

How to Measure This

The easiest ways to measure social media reach is to compare the number of followers on various social media channels before the start of the campaign to the number at the end of the campaign. However, most leading social media platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube now offer inbuilt tools to calculate your reach.

How to Calculate Social Media Reach on Facebook

  • Go to your company’s Facebook Page, select Insights > Posts, click on Reach: Organic/Paid.
  • To calculate the total organic reach for your digital PR campaign, add the organic reach for each post published in last 30 days.
  • To calculate average monthly reach for the posts, divide this sum by the number of posts published during the same timeframe.
  • Divide the average monthly reach by the number of Facebook fans your page has to calculate the % average monthly organic reach for the page.

Though social media reach metrics can tell you how big the audience for your PR campaign is, it can’t tell you everything. It is also important to know whether or not people are engaging with your social media posts and updates. Engagement is measured by the actions taken by users on the posts.

Key Indicators of Engagement

  • A positive or a negative mention on social media
  • If a consumer opens or reads an email or a newsletter
  • Retweets, likes, and shares on a social media channel
  • If a consumer clicks on an online advertisement
  • If a consumer sees an online advertisement

Benefits of Using Engagement Metrics

  • It helps a digital PR agency to identify if their message or post is resonating with the target audience. If not, you need to recreate your content.
  • It also gives you a glimpse into how your brand, product or service is perceived by potential users.

How to Measure Engagement

Using Meltwater to measure audience engagement

Connect your Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Google+ accounts to Meltwater Engage and you get an overview of your entire social community across channels from a single platform. Apart from analysing the effectiveness of your social communication, you can also identify influential people by topic and location, measure the efficiency of your social media team.

Every social network offers different engagement touch points, which is why you may have to calculate engagement differently for each social media channel. Fortunately, several social media management tools can be used to calculate engagement metrics for multiple social media accounts. Hootsuite is one such a tool that offers a host of features at affordable prices.

  • Hootsuite lets you manage your Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Instagram, YouTube, and LinkedIn profiles.
  • It also has support for FourSquare, Pinterest, StumbleUpon, Vimeo, and several other platforms via third-party apps.

Using Hootsuite to measure audience engagement

  • Head over to the Hootsuite website and create your account. You can sign up using your social media account (Twitter, Facebook, and Google+) or your email.
  • Fill out the details and choose a service plan. The limited free plan for individuals allows you to add only three social media accounts.
  • After successful registration, it will give you the option to either add more of your profiles or go straight to the dashboard. Go to the blank dashboard and select I Want to Explore on My Own Option.
  • The wise guide on the right-hand side showcases useful links that you can explore anytime. On the left-side, you will see the main Menu.
  • Click on your profile picture to add your social media accounts. Just click on the Add a Social Network button to add an account.
  • You can connect your Twitter, Google+, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn, and WordPress accounts. Select the account you want to connect. Once you have added all social media accounts, you can start monitoring them.
  • Hootsuite lets you send messages across all your social media accounts. To compose a message, click on the bar at the top. On the left-hand side click on Add Social Network button, you can select the account to which you want to send the message; and you can enter your message in dialog box on the right-hand side of this button. You can also upload images, add links, and set the time of posting.
  • You can set up completely customized streams to stay on top of important things on your social media accounts. Click on the chat box icon in the sidebar. Next, select the social media account that you want to monitor.
  • Click on the Analytics button in the main menu to generate analysis and reports. You can use basic Twitter profile overview, Facebook Page overview, and LinkedIn insights report formats, which are available for free. Alternatively, you can create a customized report at an extra cost.
  • Hootsuite offers a handy tool called Publisher that can pull content from the Internet, based on keywords. You can enter up to three keywords and share the collected content links on your social media accounts at a designated time.
  • The app directory is a unique feature that lets you add various apps to your Hootsuite dashboard. You can add Google Drive, YouTube, Dropbox, OneDrive, Tumblr, DailyMotion, MailCimp, Gmail, and SoundCloud apps among others.

4. Media Impressions

Media impression is one of the most common metrics often used by companies providing digital PR services. It is the number of times the audience (people to whom your content/advertisement has reached) may have seen your content. For example, if you receive a news feed twice on your Facebook page, it will be counted as two impressions. In simple words, it is the total number of clippings multiplied by the total number of circulations.

Benefits of Calculating Media Impressions

Though both, Social Media Reach and Impressions measure the visibility of content, the latter can help you understand how frequently users can view your posts, messages or advertisement on a social media platform.

How to measure the impact of a PR campaign by monitoring media impressions?

Whether or not impressions count for anything is a matter of debate. Most marketers believe that media impressions can’t be used to calculate the impact of a PR campaign. However, when used in combination with other metrics such as social media reach and engagement, this metric can prove instrumental in determining the impact of your campaign.

A well-managed PR campaign can easily result in an increase in the number of brand mentions on other blogs as well as social media. However, 96% of the people that discuss brands online do not follow those brands’ owned profiles. Therefore, companies need to monitor those unbranded channels to know what people are saying about their brand online.

Benefits of Monitoring Online Brand Mentions

  • Listening to social conversations can help you connect with your most active target audience.
  • If they are satisfied with your products or services, you can connect with them to increase brand awareness.
  • On the other hand, if they are criticizing your brand, you can take appropriate action to minimize the negative publicity.

Tools for Monitoring Brand Mentions:

Meltwater

Meltwater offers comprehensive media and social media monitoring.

  • Type in the keyword of the brand or topic you would like to monitor in the search box and hit enter.
  • You can choose results based on a particular region or country, time frame, and source.
  • The results will show you articles from social sources such as Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Product Reviews, Forums, Comments, Blogs and YouTube.
  • Right within the platform, you can also get real-time insight on social share counts below each article.

Social Mention

Social Mention is a free online social media monitoring tool.

  • Just type the name of your brand in the search box and hit enter.
  • You can choose results from a particular location, time frame, and source for better results.
  • The result will show top keywords, users, hash tags, strength, sentiment, passion, reach and sources.

Mention

Mention monitors the Web, including the major social media channels, and sends alert whenever a target keyword or a brand name shows up in an online conversation.

  • You can receive alerts via email or view them directly in the application.
  • You can also share them with your team members as PDF or CVS documents and assign tasks to them to deal with the alert.
  • After a free 14-day trial period, you can choose from a variety of paid plans.

Hootsuite

The add stream feature in Hootsuite can be used to monitor conversations on leading social media platforms.

  • Add a stream
  • Select a target keyword
  • Select the social media account
  • Add the keyword and you are all set

Talkwalker

Talkwalker is also a free tool just like Mention.

  • You can get alerts for conversations mentioned on all resources, including blogs and social media platforms.
  • You can filter the results by result type, language, frequency, and quantity.

6. Social Shares

Though a digital PR agency gets coverage on a famous online publication, their efforts are useless if the content published on that site isn’t getting enough shares and likes. It shows that either the audience did not like it or you probably missed your target audience. By measuring the social share metrics of your article, you can get an idea of the popularity of your content. It can also help you devise a better PR strategy in the future.

So, how do you measure social share metrics of your campaign? Tools such as Meltwater and ShareCount can be used to calculate the number of times your article is shared.

How to use Meltwater Impact Reports

Copy and paste the URL of press releases, blog posts, or any content to instantly view pickup results, which publications generated the most audience engagement, trends and relevant key phrases.

You can also track the web traffic generated by your content with Google Analytics integration.

How to Use Share Count

Just copy-paste the URL of your content into the search box and hit enter. You can see the number of likes, shares, and comments for five major social media platforms including Facebook, Google+1, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and StumbleUpon. The free plan includes 10,000 daily queries and paid plans start at $40/mo with 200,000 URL daily queries.

For any PR agency, the biggest task is measuring the increase in Web traffic for their client’s site. In fact, it’s an important factor that determines the success of a PR campaign. Besides, it enables you to verify if your digital PR services are reaching your target audience by evaluating various demographics of traffic such as location, device, and age group, among others.

Whether or not your website attracts more traffic depends largely upon the quality of content. Various stats and studies have time and again proved that a content that is actionable in nature tends to generate higher engagement and attract more traffic compared to simple content.

Actionable content is the demand for modern PR campaigns.

So, how to measure the success of a PR campaign by calculating the website traffic? Thanks to Google analytics, tracking the change in Web traffic has become much easier.

Using Google Analytics to calculate website traffic

6 Pr Strategies Guaranteed To Increase Business Visibility Examples

  • The first thing you need to do is identify which social media sites send the most traffic to your website. Go to Acquisition -> All Traffic -> Source/Medium menu. Here, you will be able to see a list of all websites that send traffic to your site.
  • You can check this data from the last thirty days. Collect this data at regular intervals to determine if there is an increase in website traffic.
  • Next, go to Audience > Behavior > Frequency and Recency menu. Here, you can see the total number of visitors on your website in one month. It shows the number of people that visited your site once, twice, thrice or more in the last 30 days.
  • Go to Audience > Behavior > Engagement menu. Here, you can see how long people have stayed on your site, i.e. rate of engagement. If the number of people staying longer on your site is higher, it means they like your content.

8. Number of Backlinks

Though associated with SEO, backlinks do matter. Measuring the number of backlinks generated during a PR campaign can help you determine the popularity of your content. The increase in the number of backlinks indicates that people consider your content valuable, useful, and relevant.

Using Ahrefs to calculate the backlinks data

  • Ahrefs is one of the best backlink analysis tools out there. It started off as a backlink-checker tool, but now you can also review your keyword ranking positions, and perform keyword research and content analysis using this tool.
  • Head over to the Ahrefs website and sign up for a free trial for two weeks. For personal users, plans start from $79 per month. Add a new domain name or website URL to the dashboard for continuous monitoring.
  • After successfully adding the domain name, go to the site explorer tool. It will show you a detailed report for a domain name.
  • The Backlinks and Referring Domains data show any gains or losses in backlinks or referring domains over the last four weeks.
  • You can set up email alerts for new and lost backlinks, Web mentions, and keywords rankings.
  • The link-intersect tool enables you find out who is linking with your competitors, but not with you. Just add the domain name of the target competitors in the tool bar and click the Show Link Opportunities button.

Did you know that keyword ranking also plays a crucial role in determining the outcome of your PR campaign? Improved keyword rankings can lead to better organic search results, which in turn, can help you retain more customers for a longer time.

So, how do you measure the success of a PR campaign using this metric?

Though there are several keyword ranking tools, Advanced Web Ranking is my personal favorite.

Key Features of Advanced Web Ranking

  • You can download a trial version of the software for 30 days.
  • Trial version includes all the features of a paid version.
  • It offers a great variety of features at a modest price. In fact, you can pay a one-time fee and use it for an unlimited period of time.

Using Advanced Web Ranking to Measure Keyword Ranking

  • Once you have successfully logged in, go to the keywords menu in the settings and click the Add button. Now click Type Keyword button and enter the target keywords for a project.
  • Next, add the search engines by selecting the ones in the list. AWR currently supports the top-three search engines, including Google, Yahoo, and Bing.
  • You can also perform a variety of keyword functions in this menu including set priority, set a color, organize in categories, translate your keywords, check their spelling or research new ideas.
  • Use the Import/Export button in the keyword menu to import keywords from other programs. You can import keywords from Google Analytics, a file or a website.
  • If you wish to view the rankings of a specific website for all the keywords it is optimized for, go to the Keyword Rankings tool in the Reports menu.
  • You can set up daily, weekly, biweekly, monthly, and on-demand updates for your projects. It shows the position of your website for each keyword.

10. Lead Generation

The importance of lead generation can’t be overemphasized, especially for B2B businesses. Leads refer to the people showing clear-cut interest in your services. If there is an increase in the number of inquiries, it means your campaign was successful. The potential leads may interact with your sales team through phone calls, emails or even social media.

Make sure to maintain a separate sheet for leads generated from each resource to get a detailed report of the overall improvement in lead generation.
Compare the data collected before the start of your campaign with that collected after its conclusion.

However, merely measuring the volume of leads generated will not be enough for proper assessment of your lead generation efforts. You also need to track and monitor other important metrics to gauge the success of your campaign.

A. Click-Through Rate (CTR)

This is the ratio of people who clicked on a specific link to the total number of recipients of that particular link. High CTR indicates improvement in lead generation. Low CTR indicates that either you are targeting the wrong audience or your content is not engaging enough. Below is a simple formula to calculate click-through rate for a campaign.

CTR = Number of clicks/Number of media impressions

B. Conversion Rate

This is the ratio of people who have completed sales transaction to the total number of website visitors. It is an important lead generation metric. In fact, almost 57% of B2B marketers believe conversion rate is the most useful metric for analyzing landing page performance, i.e. efficiency of lead generation.

Conversion Rate = Number of customers who have completed a transaction or made a purchase/Total number of website or URL visitors

Conclusion

The importance of strong public relations can’t be stressed enough in the presence of burgeoning social media influence. Companies have to come up with innovative ideas to acquire new consumers and retain the existing ones. But, running PR campaigns frequently is not enough. Considering the significant investment of resources and efforts involved in running a PR campaign, it becomes necessary to evaluate its effect and impact on the target audience. With the emergence of digital marketing, however, measuring the success of a PR campaign has become more challenging. Hopefully, the above ten ideas can help you evaluate how successful your campaign was.

How to Measure…

I may earn a commission from the companies mentioned in this post. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will add value to my readers.

Whether you’re a PR pro or just starting to think about pitching yourself, there’s always more you can be doing to get attention for your brand and products.

You don’t need an expensive PR firm to help you get visibility for your brand. There are a lot of things you can do yourself to get your name and product out there and in the press.

Today on Rebel Boss Ladies episode 013 I’m joined by Katherine McDermott, creator of Slightly Savvy and the podcast Swipe Up, and she’s going to share all of her tips and tricks for DIY-ing your PR.

Katherine has been working professionally and online in PR for years and she’s got a TON of strategies and suggestions to help you get your name and digital product more visibility.

How She Got Started in PR and the Online Business World

Katherine says she was introduced to PR during college, when she got elected as the VP of PR for her sorority. It ended up being a life-changing year.

“It ended up being a really crazy year at Florida State… We won a national championship, we had a school shooting, and we had a big football scandal so we constantly had ESPN knocking at sorority house doors for comments and things like that.” All of these events meant Katherine had a lot of exposure to the world of PR, and she pursue it after graduation.

Two days after she graduated, Katherine started a job working professionally in PR and she quickly worked her way up. Within 6 months she was managing the department and getting some great experience, “we were doing tons of press and media and publicity in really large places.”

In July of this year, Katherine realized that she was tired of building other people’s brands for them, and it was time for her to build something for herself. She decided to build up her blog Slightly Savvy, which focuses on PR and working with brands and influencers, and turn it into her full-time job.

Katherine’s Transition to Self-Employment and Her Online Business

Katherine made this transition carefully and deliberately. “I didn’t just jump and fingers crossed hope I make money from having my blog and then having clients and having and influencer clients and brand clients on my own. I had already built it up basically where I had people waiting on deck, I had programs that I had built that were still bringing in revenue so I knew it would be profitable.”

While she wasn’t nervous about the profitability of her brand, she was a bit nervous about running a business. “It was scary… finally running your own business and there is no one to depend on for a paycheck.”

What did Katherine Learn from Working in PR

While building her online business, Katherine drew on her experiences working in PR. “I stepped back and looked at my own business and I was like, ‘if I was a client what would I do to myself? What would I say to myself and how would I grow it?’”

After seeing the power of publicity and media mentions, she knew that her PR strategy could be the game changer to help her grow her business quickly. She focused on it early, and started getting a lot of attention after a few guest appearances and mentions.

Katherine says that there’s a common misconception about when business owners should start focusing on PR. “I think a lot of people, especially entrepreneurs, look at PR and say “I need to wait 5 years before I do something like this.” She disagrees, and stresses that it’s never too early for business owners to start working on their PR.

The Best PR Strategies for Business Owners and Digital Product Sellers

Katherine emphasizes that getting visibility for your brand is a lot simpler than most people think. She recommends that everyone, whether you’re a new business just starting out or a million dollar tech startup, think about 3 important categories to develop a PR strategy.

First, think about the goal of your press. Do you want to drive more sales or get your name out there? Think carefully about what you want your outcome to be, and design your strategy around that.

Next, focus on your timeline. A lot of things in the PR world can be very time constrained. “There are events and deadlines and we work with the seasons differently in some way.”

If you want to pitch your product, think about when you want your press to be released and plan accordingly. Don’t save your pitches for too late, or you may miss the key times for your launch.

“If you have a big launch coming up and maybe you want some personal press for yourself or your business in March, that pitching should start in a week or two and just work backwords from the date where you want to be mentioned and figure out when you need to start pitching yourself.”

Finally, don’t forget to think about your dream media placements. Where is most valuable for you to be seen the few weeks before your launch?

Katherine recommends that there are a lot of great places for online entrepreneurs to create press. Writeups in places like Forbes, the Fast Company, Inc., or other small- and medium- tiered publications, an interview in a podcast, and even making connections with other people in your niche can generate a lot of attention for your launch.

6 Pr Strategies Guaranteed To Increase Business Visibility Using

“It’s as simple as making a list, finding some emails, finding contact info for them, reaching out and just pitching yourself.” DIY-ing your own press can be pretty easy, and you certainly don’t have to hire an expensive firm to bring attention to your launch.

What is Press for Digital Product Sellers, and How Do You Incorporate It Into A PR Strategy?

Katherine explains that the definition of press depends on who you are and what your business is. For digital product sellers, press can include media mentions, podcasts, and writeups in publications and blogs. She emphasizes that you should look at what your goals are, and how different press outlets can help you achieve your goals.

Guest posts are another great way to get press for you or your product. “You’re posting or writing something for someone else's audience, you’re getting front of them, you’re getting mentioned by them.”

Katherine generally defines press as “getting in front of another audience that’s not your own.” The important part about press is exposure. It doesn’t necessarily matter how you do it, as long as it’s promoting and exposing you to a larger group of people.

If you’re ever worried or feel like you don’t know what you’re doing, Katherine says you’re not alone. “A lot of people are more confused and in the dark about PR/press than you think so I wouldn’t worry if you feel confused too.”

Pitching 101: How to Pitch Yourself as a Digital Product Seller to Get Press and Publicity

Katherine says that the basis for getting any press is that you have to ask.

It’s easy to be worried about what you’re going to say, how you’re going to say it and the possibility of getting rejected. “When I was kind of starting out as a publicist pitching to reporters and journalists I was definitely worried about that too.”

The most important part of pitching, though, is just sending the email. “You have to get it out there and come at it from the best place you can of A) offering value and B) trying to solve a problem for them first and then asking for that publicity for yourself is kind off a secondary point.”

Receiving a ton of nos can be overwhelming at first. Katherine recommends to not be too attached to your pitches, because nos are a regular part of this process.

“Someone once told me… if everyone is telling you that they love the idea and it’s amazing then you’re on the wrong path, if people are telling you that they hate the idea and it’s crazy and it’ll never work, you’re on the right path.”

How Much Time Should You Spend on PR When You’re Launching a Digital Product?

PR can definitely be time consuming, especially during a product launch. Katherine recommends, “when you’re DIY-ing your PR, you have to make it as simple and streamlined as you possibly can.”

Katherine suggests creating a running list of brands, places, and people that you want to connect with throughout the year and recording their contact information whenever you come across it. This is a great way to “make it easy on yourself by keeping track so you’re not sitting there four weeks before launch and you’re like ‘OK I need to be in all these places, how do I even start?’”

Process monitor remote machine. She also recommends that you carve time into your schedule to focus on PR, especially right before a product launch. “It’s as simple as an hour every Tuesday you sit down and fire off 30 emails or 20 emails just kind of copy and pasting your pitch, it can go a really long way.”

Press is also about momentum, Katherine adds. Just getting a few placements can lead to a lot of other opportunities organically.

How Many Pitches Should You Send to Promote Your Digital Product?

Katherine says that the number of pitches you send depends on how well you craft your pitch. You want to balance the time spent with the quality of the pitch, and not cross the line where “the quality of your pitch goes down where the number of yeses you’re going to get is going to go down as well0”.

Katherine’s personal strategy is to find 15 to 20 key places to pitch. “Really write a strong pitch that A) addresses their pain and B) offers them kind of some value for their own work in return.”

How to Stay Organized with Your PR and Keep Track of Your Pitches

Organization is key in planning a PR strategy, and Katherine recommends a couple different tools and apps to keep your PR plan on track.

First, how do you monitor your brand online? “In terms of true PR media monitoring, if you’re really looking for mentions of your brand there is a software called Mention.” This tool can help you keep track of where you or your brand is being mentioned, and help you find where you’re being talked about.

There are also resources online to help you reach out to media sources and find contact information. “If you’re truly going that journalist, reporter route, Muck Rack is really good.” LinkedIn can also be a great way to find the emails of people you want to reach out to.

To keep track of pitching and planning, there are a number of organizational tools. “I personally use Trello and Google Sheets to track literally everything I do,” says Katherine.

A great way to stay organized is to hire some extra help. Finding an intern who can do time-consuming work, like searching online for contact information, can help you use your time more efficiently.

Katherine likes to find interns to help with her list building, so she can focus her efforts on the more important things like crafting specific pitches and communicating with brands. It’s easy to find a college student or an intern on Upwork to help you organize your PR.

“You're spending where anyone can find an email address that doesn't take a lot of expertise, but you’re honing in on what that person that you're pitching to needs and also you honing in on the own messaging behind your product. You spending time on that is so much more valuable than you trying to piece together someone's email and find their contact info.”

When and How Should You Follow Up on Your Pitches?

Katherine recommends that if you don’t hear a response from a pitch you’ve sent, you should wait a week to follow up. Your follow up should also depend on when and what you’ve pitched.

She also suggests checking whether or not they’ve actually opened your email by using tools like HubSpot. “I like to say a week for waiting to follow up if you truly didn’t get a response and you saw they opened your email.”

A big part of following up is adding new information to what you previously sent them. “When you send somebody an email and it just says ‘hey, following up, thanks,’ that doesn’t make me any more enticed to open your email to respond to you.” Katherine recommends that when you’re following up, add something new like “’I just crossed this threshold’ or ‘I just booked this guest for the next two months,’ something that could pique their interest a little bit.”

6 Pr Strategies Guaranteed To Increase Business Visibility 2017

A great way to follow up is to play on a competition or urgency angle. Mentioning other brands or individuals you’ve engaged can also help you generate interest from other possible sources. “They’re a lot more inclined to be like this is important, this is a big deal, let’s get on board too.”

6 Pr Strategies Guaranteed To Increase Business Visibility List

Katherine’s Words of Advice If You Want to Start Working on Your PR

Katherine’s biggest piece of advice for digital product sellers that want to take the step to start working on their PR?

“100% I guarantee you people are going to say no to you and that is the best thing for you. You learn what pitch works, what pitch doesn’t.” Trying pitches can help you learn what type of pitches work, what time of year to pitch, and can help you keep an eye on trends and patterns.

“The sooner you can get over [the rejections] and all that matters is the ones who will say yes, I think you’ll be a lot more confident and a lot more willing to get yourself out there and at least try it.”

One really important thing to remember? You guarantee a no if you don't even send an email.

//LINKS IN THE SHOW//

Check out Katherine’s website, Slightly Savvy, here – https://slightlysavvy.com/

Follow Katherine on Instagram here

Mention – https://mention.com/en/

Muck Rack – https://muckrack.com/

//AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY//