Starting a Business | SEO & Google

Marketing & Public Relations

You are one of many thousand new businesses launching this year; how do you ensure that you are heard above all the noise without spending a lot of money?

PR for your business should begin as soon as the business plan is finalised. There are many opportunities to start creating a buzz.

Even if there are still a few months to go before you have access to your premises or before you have finished fund-raising, you can still start promoting yourself. Start early by advertising for staff early. Often local papers can be persuaded to add some editorial to a job advert if you commit to them for all your recruitment advertising (this doesn't stop you using recruitment agencies). Try to get features written about you in the papers by showing how you are looking to recruit local talent and how this business is going to help the local economy grow.

Once the job vacancies are filled you have the opportunity to ask for a follow-up feature showcasing who has been employed. Any article written about your business should give you the chance to be able to show your logo and contact details.

Once the name of the business has been agreed, create the domain names that you require and start registering for free with the major search engines. The registration process can take six to eight weeks to come into effect. Internet job sites are a great way to advertise any employment opportunities to a massive audience - ordinarily payment from you is only due if you accept the candidate.

Most cities and many towns have websites run or sponsored by the local council which include a business directory. It is well worth registering your business as it is yet another way that the public can find you on the net.

SAY CHEESE

Whether you like it or not, it is very much in your interests to be photographed - and this is true of all staff. By being photographed, you are much more likely to get the story or feature in the local papers because it gives the writer more angles to use in the story. With so many individuals and businesses fighting for PR, journalists are reluctant to plug a new business, no matter how cool or trendy it might be. By offering photographs and information about personalities, you can have a feature that is more of a 'lifestyle' story, but still answers the business' need to be noticed.

AND THE WINNER IS

The public, it seems, never tires from entering competitions. The prizes on offer vary from the ridiculous to the impressive, but it seems not to deter them. With the aid of your local paper (or by paying for an insert), as you come closer to launching the business, offer some competition prizes by asking a simple question based on general knowledge or by providing the answer in 200 words of marketing blurb about the business. You are adding value to the paper and they will usually be quite warm to the idea, assuming that the value of the prizes is perceived to be quite high. Sometimes you might have to run the administrative side of the competition, but the knock-on effect is that you get a mailing list. Be sure to enter a note in the competition rules which states all entrants agree to be contacted in the future by you.

The moment that you have access to the business premises, be sure to erect some corporate signs. For a retail outlet this can cause a stir long before you have begun shop fitting and acquiring stock, and for commercial premises it announces your imminent arrival to surrounding businesses.


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