How to use JournoLink to enhance your PR

Before we start talking about enhancing PR it is important to understand exactly what we mean by it.

Too many businesses fall into the trap of setting their website up and believe that, once done, that is all they have to do to have their brand recognised and prospective customers putting orders in. True, the website is important, but it’s the prerequisite of the marketing plan, not the end of it.

To get the brand out into the market, and start winning visitors to the website, three key strategies have to be engaged:

• A Social Media Strategy
• A Search Engine Optimisation Strategy
• A Traditional Media Strategy

All three of these go towards the overall Marketing Strategy. They are equally important and work together with the principal aim of getting independent trusted third parties bringing your brand to the attention of others. That’s when interest in the website really starts to pay off.

For many businesses, especially those started by younger entrepreneurs, social media and SEO are concepts the business owners are familiar with, but traditional media is often seen as complicated, expensive and inaccessible to them. In fact, it need not be any of these, but without it, the social media efforts will not achieve their full potential.

Online PR platforms vs PR agencies

To counter the expensive point, there are very affordable online platforms available to businesses that enable them to do more or less everything that a full-scale PR Agency would do, but at less than the cost of a daily first class stamp.

The important point though is to choose one that is also simple to use and effective in what it does.

JournoLink is the platform of choice for thousands of business for this very reason. There are four elements to JournoLink that enable a business to manage its traditional PR confidently, efficiently and within a small budget:

The Calendar and Knowledge Base

This is an initial hand holder, prompting businesses on what news, events and forthcoming data releases are likely to be good hooks for issuing content to journalists and bloggers….in a relevant and timely way. 

The Press Release Distribution Service

This provides a simple-to-use, intelligent template for businesses to use in compiling the news they want to release, and then a clever automated distribution that means the news gets sent to those journalists and bloggers who are most likely to be interested in it. 

The Editorial Request Service

This is the hidden gem that simply waits for a journalist to ask for content, comment and spokespeople when they are writing an article themselves. There is no better time to capture the interest of a journalist when it is them actually asking for businesses to talk to them. JournoLink links businesses with journalists at this time by a simple email, all the business has to do is reply to the email. 

The Press Room

JournoLink provides the business with its own customised media room which links directly to the business’s website and automatically updates as the business uses JournoLink.  This means that not only does the business now have a website that is dynamic, carrying current news about it, but also that it frequently punches above its weight. Media rooms are generally seen as only for big businesses with the budget to be able to afford a team to manage them. With JounoLink there is no need for the team, nor the cost.  

Enhancing the benefits of PR is all about getting the business brand and name talked about and referred to. Advertising is fine, albeit often limited in its reach and expensive, but in today’s world notice is rarely taken of taken of businesses saying great things about themselves. Independent ‘reviews’ are much more powerful, and the value of a journalist, broadcaster or blogger making positive comments cannot be overestimated.

For more help contact the JournoLink team at sales@journolink.com

Written by: Peter Ibbetson, Company Director

As one of the co-founders of JournoLink PR, Peter is passionate about giving small businesses a voice in the press by providing them with the support and advice to do just that.