Creating content without clear intent is a waste of your time. If your PR posts don’t have a purpose, don’t help your clients or pose a valuable question then they’re destined to be ignored. It’s time to level up your LinkedIn game!
With over 20 years of experience in the field, Sarah Owen – Founder and CEO of Pumpkin PR – is well acquainted with how to find your voice and use it to connect with journalists, award boards and above all else, your prospects.
Sarah joins Street Agency’s Founder, Katie Street, to talk PR strategies in a time where your agency may not have much news to share, and the often overlooked need for a link between PR, sales and new business, as well as a rare rant from Katie about LinkedIn’s new ‘stories’ feature…
This episode covers
- Building connections with journalists and the press
- The perceived importance of awards
- Sharing the right posts from the right pages
- Earning trust without face-to-face meetings
- Keeping PR, sales and new biz connected
- Creating focused content with clear intent
Word on the Street is lucky enough to be sponsored by the wonderful team at Just After Midnight who are experts in uptime. Whatever the issue, whatever the time of day, they are supporting your websites and applications 24/7, while your team sleeps. Learn more: https://www.justaftermidnight247.com/
Links & references (include in Blog Post)
Katie Street: https://www.linkedin.com/in/katiestreet/
Sarah Owen: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarah-owen-50703511/
Pumpkin PR: https://www.linkedin.com/company/pumpkin/
Get in touch: [email protected]
Episode highlights
“PR and comms during a crisis does mean a very different type of approach, in a very broad sense. So just to give you an example, one of the things that we’ve been trying to get our clients to do a lot of right now actually, is internal comms. Internal communications is absolutely key right now.” – 6:20 – Sarah Owen
“Keeping the brand awareness out there, continuing to demonstrate authority and expertise – all of these things are absolutely critical in terms of new business and growth.” – 9:48 – Sarah Owen
“In terms of what agencies need to do, I think it’s absolutely fundamental that they need to be really clear about why they’re doing PR, and what they want out of it. To spend money in any way, shape or form right now, it has to have tangible, demonstrable value for that agency.” – 17:44 – Sarah Owen
“If you can really flood the market from pushing out your own marketing content, and getting the right PR, getting the right content into the right publications, then it all works really, really beautifully. That’s exactly when you start to get the phone ringing – as well as pushing out and you’re opening doors, your door is being rung.” – 25:58 – Katie Street
“PR can really help build that trust because the credibility is there, people can say ‘I’ve seen them in an agency league table next to all these other great agencies’.” – 30:13 – Sarah Owen
“It’s just really interesting when you actually have a look at someone’s LinkedIn to realize that, first of all, looking at their audience and who they’re actually linked with – the audience is great, but it’s great for recruitment, it’s not great for new business.” – 33:49 – Sarah Owen
“Awards are nice, and if your client is particularly wanting you to enter one then I presume you would. But I think there’s a lot of very small awards that are out there that I don’t think are essential, or even really needed.” – 38:20 – Sarah Owen
“Most journalists can write very broadly, but they also have areas of real interest and passion and expertise. So start reading them up, and understanding what those are.” – 46:37 – Sarah Owen