Personal Interest Story Press Release Keyring
What is it?
This is a one-off, as and when add-on for either of our subscription keys.
A Personal Interest Story Press Release is a press release focused on telling the story of a person or group of people.
Typically these people are business founders, employees or customers.
It needs to be interesting, juicy and typically sensational.
It’s peppered with photos (5+ at least) and several quote from the person / people involved.
If published, it’s usually published as a full article and plugs the brand / expert / product(s) / service(s).
How it works
If you’re keen and we think the story will appeal to the media, we’ll interview you / the subject(s) of the story, discuss angles, get photos from you and then present you with an initial draft.
We’ll then work with you to make edits and when you’re happy, we’ll sent it out to either local or national publications (and usually both).
If local or national press are interested in the story, they’ll want to interview you / the subject / subjects and gather any photos or media.
Sometime, when signing off these press release the subjects wince (it’s unnerving to see your story on paper – usually sensationalised). Hang in there! There’s also the temptation to litter the release with brand and product plugs – don’t – the content is the story – the plug will come in the article(s) itself / themselves.
An example
Scottish Gemma from Gut Wealth told her story to the Scottish Sun.
Plenty of other examples here too.
How will these articles help my business?
Credibility
Credibility or ‘gravitas’ (as a few posh PRs call it) feeds that need for potential customers to see ‘social proof’ and to build trust.
According to a 2019 Edelman Trust Barometer Special Report “81% [of consumers] say trust impacts their purchasing decisions” so it’s important to build trust with your potential customers.
Getting articles in trusted, well-known publications, helps you build that trust and trust means more sales.
Once you have these articles, pepper your socials and website with them – shout them from the rooftops: “[insert fancy publication name here] loves us”. It will go a long way.
SEO
One of the most powerful benefits of PR is a boost to your SEO. In a nutshell, SEO (or Search Engine Optimisation) is the activity of appearing first on search engines when your key words (such as your service / product type, brand name and/or location are typed in).
The higher up you are, the more people will click onto your website.
When you get an article online, you may get a backlink to your website. When search engines see you have backlinks from websites they like (such as online publications) that gives you a boost and you’ll appear higher up the list.
How much a website is liked is called your ‘Domain Authority (DA) rating’ and you’re rated from 1-100 (100 being the best rating).
You can find out yours (and others) here: https://moz.com/domain-analysis.
To give you an idea of the Domain Authorities of publications, as of 2022:
§ Daily Mail – 94
§ The Sun – 94
§ The Telegraph – 94
§ The Metro – 93
§ Huffington Post – 90
§ Yahoo – 78
§ The Express – 76
Backlinks from these websites will boost your own Domain Authority.
There are tons of other SEO activities you can do (such as working on meta tags on your website or writing blogs) but backlinks are the most powerful way to up the ante.
Some Digital PR and SEO agencies charge £1,000s for backlinks – don’t do it.
Brand awareness
This is a classic reason for doing PR but as many small businesses tend to focus on it over the other two, I purposefully put it third to highlight the greater importance of credibility and SEO.
The idea of brand awareness is a simple one – you want your target market to know you exist (and then you want to keep reminding them).
Most publications have media packs (usually available on their website) which will document who their reader is. It’s then just a case of targeting those publications.
For example, if your target market is 25-34-year-old women with a disposal income, you might want to be in Cosmopolitan Magazine.
Timing
Typically, it takes a two weeks from interview to the press release being sent out (depending on edits etc).
It’s very usual for these press releases to be sent out several times (with angle-changes).
We’ll also pitch the stories to journalists looking for similar stories.
In terms of being published, it could be days or months – it all depends on the press appetite and news cycles. Usually, expect 1-2 months.
The pricing
£99+VAT/each, as and when.