Sometimes it can be tough to come up with new ideas for PR and marketing.
You look around and see many people talking about the same things. It can reach the point where you don’t even click on articles to read them because you’ve seen three covering the same topic already.
Where can we find inspiration?
The photo opposite made me realise how we can look at something very familiar and see it in a completely different light.
“What’s that?” Mrs Z asked when she saw it.
When I told her, she was quite surprised. She wasn’t surprised that I had taken the photo. I am interested by patterns and textures, light and shade, and often experiment with photos to see how they will come out.
You can apply this approach to public relations too. When I am editing my weekly business news for a local newspaper, I am always looking for different angles. For example, a business will send a press release about being nominated for an award, not realising that in one week I could be covering four separate awards schemes and will likely amalgamate those stories into one article. If there was something in their press release that stood out, something really special, or a photo more interesting than people shaking hands and holding trophies, I would take more interest immediately and give their story more prominence than the others.
So when preparing a press release, focus on what is different. Look at your story from a reader’s view, a customer’s view, an employee’s view or any other view to get different ideas. Thousands of businesses win awards, so what’s different about how you won yours? What is it that makes you stand out from everyone else? Have you got a photo that’s different? You can apply this approach to any topic, eg achievements, events, new appointments, product launches.
I almost cry out with joy when I do receive something that’s different.
Try it and see what you come up with.
Any ideas of what the photo is?
It’s the loose tea in our tea caddy.
