10 Alternative Public Relations Tactics
Tags: Pr, Entrepreneurship, Startups, Publicrelations, Startupmarketing

PRontheGO: 9 Alternative Public Relations Tactics

We asked our PR and growth experts to advise entrepreneurs on how to stand out with alternative Public Relations tactics.

How can entrepreneurs spice up press announcements? How can verbal speech, visuals and platforms, and collaborations be utilized to boost attention and recognition amongst stakeholders and journalists?

Our experts describe their ideas and provide examples to advise founders on how to implement alternative PR tactics. Learn from these top 10 insights:

1) Provide Added Value To The Newsroom.

Evan Nierman, CEO and Founder of Red Banyan:

“Include photos, quotes or any relevant graphics you have to make it as easy as possible for the journalist to craft a compelling story. Providing journalists with those kinds of “extras” provides added value and will make the journalist’s job easier. These days, newsrooms are understaffed and journalists are overworked, so anything that makes their jobs easier and enhances a potential story is a win they are likely to remember and will keep you in mind for future media opportunities.”

2) Leverage Social Media.

Chandra Gore, Publicist & Principal Consultant of Chandra Gore Consulting:

“An alternative to stand out with Alternative PR Tactics is to create a social media campaign around the press announcement. A week long or month long series of live videos or interactive posts centered around the upcoming press announcement can boost attention to journalists or stakeholders. Be sure to include the outlets you would like to be featured in by finding trending topics they have shared and tying them into your campaign.”

3) Apply For Speaking Engagements.

Steve Markman, Founder & President at Markman Speaker Management, LLC:

“One method has proven to be very effective if used correctly — getting speaking engagements. I’m referring to the unpaid kind of speaking engagement that is used as a PR, marketing, lead gen, and thought leadership strategy. For example, say you are the CEO of a cybersecurity company. What should you do? Apply to speak at a cybersecurity conference — there are many of them! — and if you get accepted, you will be speaking at an event where the audience is comprised of people who could hire your firm and within days you could be getting qualified leads for new business.”

4) Start Video Storytelling.

Samantha Sands, Public Relations Account Manager at Fast Forward:

“Organizations can spice up press announcements to boost recognition with stakeholders and journalists through video storytelling. We are in the digital era where video is thriving amongst the internet, and it is easier and more efficient to state the organization’s message and purpose through video in replace of pictures and written details about the announcement. With video storytelling, the intended audience can capture the compelling emotion and the reasoning behind the campaign or message. This is a recent example of this is with the San Diego Bay Wine + Food Festival (ex. here), where they showcase a lot of video storytelling to show the ambiance and the culture of the festival, and what it means to attendees and exhibitors.”

5) Newsjacking

Ravi Parikh, CEO of RoverPass:

“One of my favorite PR methods is newsjacking. Newsjacking occurs when you monitor live news and find opportunities to put your brand at the center of conversations. Doing this successfully requires professionality as well as the ability to think on your feet — but when it is done correctly it can be a great way to build authority and trust with potential and current customers. Newsjacking can be planned (with comments and posts prepared in advance about ongoing events), or reactive (commenting on the spot about breaking news as it happens).”

6) Leverage Through Big Brands.

Daniel Phung, CEO at Full Books Marketing:

“In regards to Alternative Public Relations Tactics, there is one tactic my clients have used to associate their small companies with big companies through leverage. Note, these are done in digital press publications. The difference between big name brands and a smaller brand is credibility/branding — the level of material quality can be similar in both. For example, if you had an activewear company, compare yourself with a leading company like Gymshark. To leverage Gymshark’s credibility, you can feature in a press article including Gymshark and now your brand is associated with a leading brand. For example, the article could be titled: “The top 5 activewear brands of 2021”, with #1 being Gymshark, #2 being Echt and #3 being your company. This is a quick, clever hack to boost your brands credibility by associating with leading brands.”

7) Participate in Community Events.

Eden Cheng, Co-Founder of PeopleFinderFree:

“One of the most underrated PR tactics that business owners can use to stand out is by making an effort to be a part of local community events, like festivals, charities, etc… whether it’s done by sponsoring them or simply participating. After all, these events tend to garner a lot of local press coverage and it also provides an opportunity for you to connect with potential customers, face-to-face. Plus, it allows you and your business to enjoy benefits like favorable word-of-mouth traffic, community support, as well as better opportunities for future PR.”

8) Use Personalization For Your VIP Contacts.

Dorota Lysienia, Community Manager at LiveCareer:

“If you want to be more successful in your next PR campaign, you should personalize your PR efforts for the most important journalists in your database. It’s essential to research your prospects, learn about their interest areas, and create personalized emails that truly respond to their needs. You won’t get journalists’ attention if you send things that don’t relate to their focus areas or address their audience’s pain points. That’s why you need to invest time to get to know your VIP contacts and do everything you can to build meaningful relationships with them.”

9) Create A Bit Of Controversy.

Carol Tompkins, Business Development Consultant at AccountsPortal:

“A good debate will always get people talking and you will be shocked by the extent of engagement that you can milk out of a campaign. Make sure the campaign you come up with is a perfect PR storm, one that will get everyone talking. And it doesn’t matter whether it’s reviewers, experts, or reporters, as long as they’re saying something about the brand, that’s the idea.”

10) Use Guerilla Marketing.

Lori Cheek, Founder & CEO of Cheekd:

“One of my first big hits was The New York Times and I got in by simply mailing a lone promotional black Cheekd card in a plain black envelope to one of the main editors at The Times. A few weeks later, we were featured on the cover of the Style Section and coined as “the next generation of online dating.” which lead to customers in almost every state in America and requests from all over the world to get in on the action. We immediately set up an international shopping cart and soon hit 28 countries.

Another one of my favorite stories to date would be the personal Lori Cheek’ng of Hip Hop Mogul, Russell Simmons that lead to this article in the NY Observer and many national customers after the article dropped:

I’d slipped a card in his front pocket and he didn’t notice then ended up having a conversation about it that got overheard by a journalist for The New York Observer! Similar tactics have lead us onto the pages of TechCrunch, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Huffington Post, Inc Magazine and countless others.”

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