How Positive Public Relations Can Help Retailers Increase Sales
A retailer without a face is a retailer without a future. That is why it is so important for businesses, both large and small, to stay visible in the ever-changing and highly competitive marketplace. Staying visible requires utilizing many avenues, including sales, circulars, advertising, and public relations. Too often, business owners either intentionally or unintentionally fail to realize the importance of public relations. At some point in time, every business owner will face the challenge of promoting their products and services. Public relations can help solve this problem.
Give Yourself a Face
Creating a positive image for your retail business can be crucial in beating out the competition. Public relations, sometimes referred to as media relations, is perhaps one of the most cost-effective and important sales tools you could use to garner new clientele.
Public relations provides your existing and potential customers with important information regarding your business. Public relations, which most often results in newspaper or magazine articles and television news spots, offers the public a more detailed and interesting look at your company. Instead of an ad with a few words and pictures of products you carry, a newspaper article can give readers so much more information, including a more inclusive list of the types of products you carry, their prices, your company philosophy and background, and so on. Public relations gives a face and personality to your business, which makes it memorable to the public.
Finding the Story
You may find when it comes time to embark on your public relations campaign that you are fishing for newsworthy ideas. As a baby store retailer, the ideas can be limitless. Women are giving birth everywhere, everyday, so information on new products and special promotions for them are always newsworthy.
More often than not, when you read an article in the newspaper, it has come from a public relations professional whose job it is to come up with story ideas for his or her clients. A public relations professional can work with you as a retailer to find a variety of avenues to keep you constantly in the news. Everything your retail business does can be turned into news if pitched correctly, from a grand opening or five-year anniversary, to a new product launch or special events you may be holding.
You may not be doubling the size of your business, nor may you be changing the face of the baby-retailing world with your business, but that doesn't mean that your shop does not have many newsworthy things to publicize. Sometimes the smallest item can make the news, including new hires and promotions within your business and even awards received.
An effective way to grab the media attention is to create news. Plan an event that will trigger interest, such as a seminar for new mothers. Invite a local celebrity to talk about her own experience with motherhood. Hold a special fundraising event for a local charity, particularly one that relates to infants. Perhaps you are changing the hours of your store to better accommodate working mothers. This, if pitched to the media correctly, could lead to a greater trend piece about women juggling motherhood and careers with you as a key source. It is important to keep in mind, however, that nothing is guaranteed in public relations. Just because you sent out a news release does not mean the media is necessarily going to cover it. Remember, however, that you want to get your name on the Rolodex of as many media members as possible. That way, when they need a source for a story about the baby retail business, they can turn to you.
PR as a Sales Tool
Use public relations to increase your sales. Being able to show your customers that the media recognizes your baby retail store as a viable, strong business is key to them wanting to shop at your store on a regular basis. By frequently keeping your name in the news, you are showing that the media recognizes you as a business worth writing about. The benefits of this type of publicity can really enhance your other marketing efforts.
When you have received the publicity you were looking for, don't be shy about it. Boast about it and let your customers know that your business was featured in magazines, newspapers, and on television and radio shows they may not even know about. Use the articles as tools to sell yourself to your customers by displaying them at the checkout counter or show the video of a television interview during a special promotion. It will get your customers talking about you.
Public relations is also a great way to tell your customers about special events or promotions at your store, and it can be done without paying a single penny to the news outlet of your choice. You may have to hire a public relations professional to assist you with your public relations campaign, but newspapers, TV and radio stations do not charge for news stories. Not only does this save your retail business money in advertising costs, but it lends credibility to your business as media representatives recognize you as an expert.
The purpose of publicity and/or hiring a public relations professional is to attract attention to your business so that you may gain new clients and, ultimately, increase your sales. You cannot ignore the importance of this aspect of marketing your business. So start racking your brain for newsworthy topic, and don't be shy about telling the world about yourself and your business. It's a great way to survive.