The ABC'S OF PUBLIC RELATIONS

A - G

Advertorials: A hybrid of editorial and advertisement, usually denoted by ‘Advertorial’ in magazines. We can write these and secure the magazine space for you.

Ambassadors: We have worked with many ambassadors and understand how best to extract value our of this relationship.

Benchmarking: We find that setting benchmarks is helpful as it allows us, as publicists and marketers, to assess how effective our work has been.

Bloggers: We can work with you to build relationship with key bloggers writing within your industry. Blogger and influencer endorsement is worth its weight in gold if the campaign feels authentic - the balance of getting it right is quite tricky. Let us help you find the right blogger fit for your brand.

Brand partnerships: Brand partnerships are opportunities for your brand to join with a complementary brand so you can each benefit from talking to each other’s audiences and increasing sales.

Briefing: A good client brief is essential to understanding the campaign objectives and the expected outcomes. If you aren’t familiar with drafting your own brief we will take the information you give us and draft one on your behalf.

Broadcast PR: We can secure broadcast PR for the right story. We can also be your spokesperson if you don’t want to be in the media spotlight.

Business to business: Business conducted between companies is called B2B. We run many of these campaigns to ensure that the right business are connecting with each other.

Business to consumer: Business to consumer or B2C campaigns are conducted between a company and one or more consumers.

Content creation: This is your product and brand story in words, pictures and video -created by us and our partners. We will work with you to write, photograph and film some or all of the things that you want to share with your customers. Then we’ll get it out into the world using media relations, social, events and ambassadors.

Content planning: Plans rule our world - it allows us to let our conceptual creative juices flow, but it also ensures that those ideas are executed beautifully. We will work with you to set out what we need to create to tell your story, what you’ll say and when.

Content marketing: Content marketing is also known as Public Relations - PR is the original content marketing, creating content to secure positive coverage for clients.

Copy writing: Writing good copy is a real skill. Everyone can write but not everyone can write good copy.

Coverage: Coverage is an output of our media relations work. We secure a lot of coverage for our clients. Outputs (images, videos, coverage) are not the end of the story. An output is the lifeblood of our business as it's a product of our work.

Crisis communications: We have a solid reputation as crises and reputation managers, having managed crises communications in the retail, financial and petrochemical industries. We work fast, have experience dealing with issues on a very senior level and understand the nuances involved in a reputational crises.

Data: We love data - particularly when it delivers a new insight. Data forms the foundation of our planning and helps us to benchmark a campaign.

Events: We love delivering slick, tailored events for our clients. Big or small, we have the experience and the network of partners and suppliers to deliver a strategically crafted event.

Facebook: Let's start by saying - Facebook is not for everybody. However, when it works for your brand, it can be magic. For businesses, it's not neccesssarily a free social media network, but there's nothing wrong in that. It hit two billion monthly users globally in June 2017 and 66% of monthly users return every day. Despite what you may hear, people under the age of 30 are still using it in their millions. Facebook isn’t necessarily for everyone. We can discuss whether it’s right for you.

Google Analytics: Google Analytics is a powerful set of tools that helps you to understand who is visiting your site and what they do when they get there. We can help you explore the data and gain insights about your online audience.

H - P

Hero messaging: When developing your content marketing plan, we will determine the hero messaging first. Your hero message is the key outtake or narrative and we view it as an integral part of your PR collateral. It determines the way forward with the execution of your campaign plan.

Influencers: Influencers is a word you may hear a lot. They are people who are seen to have influence because (often) they have loads of followers who may copy their behaviour; what they wear, cosmetics they use, what they eat and so on. These influencers can be paid to use your product.

Instagram: We love instagram. It’s fast become one of the most popular social media feeds. A visual diary, it allows you to tell your brand story or campaign in pictures. However, it is not suitable for every business. We can discuss whether it’s suitable for yours.

Issues management: Issues management is the process of identifying and then managing potentially difficult issues for your business or brand. The process can help you to plan for issues and reduce the risk of them becoming a reputational crisis that could do real damage to your brand.

Journalists: We specialise in food and drink so we know the right people to get in touch with about your product. We have our own relationships and 'little black book' of contacts to use on your behalf.

LinkedIn: A vital tool in business to business networking. Let us help you take your B2B and peer-to-peer networking to the next level.

Media Relations: Media relations can cover many different activities, but at its simplest it is about developing relationships with, and leveraging our media contacts, to tell your brand or product story in print, online, in broadcast and amongst the blogging community.

New Product Placement A very useful way to get your product into the hands of journalists. Bear in mind, it’s not just a matter of throwing free stuff in their direction and hoping they’ll talk about it. Journalists and bloggers get a lot of product. You need to ensure that they will receive it in the first place and then write about it. We know the interested journalists and how to approach them.

Outcome – In PR measurement an outcome is either aligned with or equal to the initial objective. Outcomes are changes in behaviour, attitude, action. They are distinct from outputs below.

Output – These are the products of a campaign. The material produced for campaigns we run might include the following: Grower stories; product information; recipes; photographs (product, recipe, field, grower); video; printed material; website; coverage in the media. You may see coverage presented as the outcome of a campaign. It is not. Unless the coverage results in attitude or behaviour change it’s just words on a page.

Photography – We do product, pack and recipe photography in house and use professional photographers to create media content for campaigns. Over the past 12 years we have produced thousands of images for use in print and online. From smart phone photography and digital SLR photos to high resolution images for posters, we know the right people to use on your behalf.

Pinterest – Pinterest is not a social network. Pinterest is an evergreen pin board where you collate ideas and inspiration, perhaps for a project. The content you post is evergreen because it doesn’t matter when you post it, it remains relevant to the searches people conduct. In fact, unlike some of the social platforms, Pinterest users become more active over time rather than less active. Pinterest is particularly useful for website attribution. A post from a website retains the relationship to the original site and as a result, Pinterest can be a very strong source of website referrals.

Planning – We love a good plan. We can and frequently do have to work without one. Having one does make everyone’s life easier and expectations clearer.

Press release – We do write press releases. Not as many as we used to but trade and local media in particular still use the information. Writing a good release is a skill. You need a good headline. One that draws the reader in. You want them to read it after all. Then you need to tell them the key information in the first couple of lines. Answer the questions Who? What? When? Where? And make it clear why/how it is important. Or we can do it for you.

Press trips – These can be a useful way to have journalists and bloggers engage with your product story. You need to have a good story to tell and you need the right people to come to hear it. Press trips are hard work and need plenty of preparation, especially if they’ve are outdoors. We can advise you on what works and what doesn’t.

Q - Z

Questioning – We like asking questions. It’s how we make sure we understand your business and how it works. The questioning unearths weaknesses as well as strengths. That’s good. It means we can help do something about them. It’s certainly much better than finding weaknesses out from customers or having them exposed by the media.

Recipe development – Recipe development is particularly useful for fresh produce PR. It allows us to use the product in recipes to show versatility, convenience and ease of use. We work with home economists, chefs and food writers to create the recipes for your crop or product. We have developed almost two thousand recipes over the past twelve years. That’s the rough equivalent of twenty recipe books worth. See also content development.

Reporting – Reporting is how we tell clients what we’ve been up to. It takes many forms, from weekly emails and private blogs to one page summaries or printed books we can accommodate most requests.

Research – We love good research, data and insights. We work with data from organisation such as Kantar Worldpanel, Dunnhumby, Neilsen and IRG. We also commission research from providers such as IPSOSMori and GfKNOP. Occasionally we use online research providers for one or two question surveys and we’re not averse to a bit of desk research or using the foodie community on social. Insight is vital to aid decision making. We will work with you to ask the right questions and interpret the results.

Resources – Useful things we have found online. These will appear as downloads or links on this page.

Retail communications – Retailers can be a tricky bunch. They have so much going on that it’s easy for them to lose sight of you and your product. That’s where we can help. We produce communications material with you that tells them what you are investing in marketing your product to their customers. It may be a pdf sent by email, a few PowerPoint slides or a personalised book. Whichever it is, we work with you it communicates the work you have delivered.

Social – We do social. We are social. We can help you do social, either by doing it or by helping you to do it. Social isn’t free. Even if you never invest a penny in advertising the time commitment is significant.

Spokesperson – We have secured spokespeople for many of our clients. These include Olympic hockey gold medallist Georgie Twigg and world champion track cyclist Becky James; cookery writers Alex Hollywood, Valentine Warner, Gizzi Erskine; TV Chefs Dean Edwards, Dale Pinnock and social phenomenon and nutrition expert Joe Wicks @thebodycoach. See also Ambassador for more information.

Sponsorship – We have opened the door and worked with clients to set up and manage sponsorships. Examples include Pink Lady apples sponsorship of the Food Photography Awards, Sweet Eve and Great British Chefs, Sweet Potato Spirit Co. and The Idle Man.

Strategy – What is strategy? It’s the territory you choose to compete in and how to win in the market. Read more about it here

Trade marketing – Promoting your business product or service to businesses (B2B). We have plenty of experience marketing B2B for food businesses. B2B presents different challenges to marketing to consumers. For a strong and coherent analysis of B2B marketing and why it is special pop over to (come back when you’re done) B2B International.

Translation – We don’t do translation but we know people who do. They translated all the L’Osteria material for us as well as websites and video copy for a fresh produce client.

User Generated Content – It is what it says. Content created and shared by users on behalf of your product or service. It can have a good side and trickier one. The good side is when it means that people enjoy your brand enough to make the effort to create stuff for you.

Video – Video can be an engaging and persuasive way to tell and share your story. The costs of video have fallen dramatically over the past 10 years as the quality it is possible to achieve with lower cost technology (Smart phone and digital cameras) has increased. The end use of video also seems to have changed to be more disposable, especially on social.

According to the Cisco Visual Networking Index white paper 2016 – 2021, video traffic will be 82% of all consumer internet traffic by 2021. By the start of the next decade, live video will account for 13% of internet video traffic.

Word of mouth – Possibly one of the most powerful marketing tools Word of Mouth (WOM) was estimated to account for between 20 and 50% of all purchasing decisions by McKinsey in 2010. A 2016 Neilsen Harris Poll survey (USA) suggests that 80% of consumers seek recommendations when making purchases. We’re not saying people do this before buying a brand of own label tinned tomatoes, but recommendations definitely have a role to play in branded service and product purchases and especially in restaurant recommendations.