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How to Get Featured in Magazines: A Consumer PR Cheat

Consumer PR, Hiring A PR Firm, PR Branding, product launch, Public Relations Services, Social Media, Social Media Advertising, Thoughts

If your consumer brand is at a point in its journey where you’re wondering how to get featured in magazines, then it’s time to consider consumer PR. Many consumer brands have been successfully created through marketing and advertising, but the evolution from an ambitious challenger brand to a category leader is only possible with the power of PR.

So, you’ve gotten as far as wondering how to get your product featured in magazines, but you haven’t gotten as far as figuring out exactly how to start getting there. That’s where the Avaans consumer PR cheat sheet comes in.

In addition to outlining what you can expect from engaging an experienced consumer PR agency for your consumer brand, this article supplies a PR dos and don’ts list to help first-timers understand how to begin their PR journey.

The significance of PR in consumer brand authority

While paid advertising and other marketing techniques are the triggers that push consumers to buy your product, PR is the thing that gives people confidence in your brand. Here’s a fictional example to explain the critical difference.

People are bombarded by digital ads every few seconds. Let’s say your product is a magnesium supplement for muscle recovery and restful sleep. Your innovative branding, packaging, and even the product itself are deserving of headlines. You know that – but your prospective customer doesn’t. They’re going to Google magnesium supplements and, for the next four days, will be buried under a slew of online ads for every magnesium-based pill, powder, and potion under the sun.

But, here’s the difference that PR makes – after people see your ad and research your product, they’ll see that it’s been published in trusted publications. Now, the next time they see an ad, they’re that much more likely to purchase your product instead of a competitor’s.

That’s because PR creates authority, authority inspires trust, and trust builds customer loyalty. It’s like a burr effect – PR makes sure that the seed of your brand sticks in a prospect’s mind until they see an ad for your product, which acts as the trigger to purchase. PR gets you to the table, and marketing closes the deal. You need them both, but PR is the thing that will create the burr effect.

The power of media coverage for brand awareness

While PR is by no means limited to print and digital media, it would be unwise to discount the importance of a well-placed media feature in a publication that aligns with your brand identity and your target audience. A media feature is an evergreen asset that works just as hard as a backlink to your site as it does on a pitch deck for prospective investors, for much longer than the average marketing asset at that.

Plus, the tagline “as featured on [insert brand-matched publication]” becomes a coveted endorsement that fortifies the trustworthiness of your brand, differentiating and often elevating it above the competition. Finally, getting your product featured in magazines is a smart way to increase brand awareness in market verticals that aren’t currently being targeted by your current marketing strategy.

The dos and don’ts of consumer product PR: how to get featured in magazines

So, you want to know how to get your product featured in magazines? This PR cheat sheet will give you a brief overview of dos and don’t that media relations experts consider essential.

Do be prepared to send out product samples (for free)

If you want journalists to write about your product, you have to show them how it works. Sending samples is a standard practice of exposing the press to your product so that they can write about it in their publication.

But don’t be fooled into thinking that this is a quid pro quo exchange. Sending a sample is not a guarantee that the journalist will feature your product in the next issue, though it certainly helps with brand stickiness (remember the burr effect?). Journalists don’t work for you; but, they can help your PR work very hard for you. What is guaranteed is without sending a sample, your product will not get featured in a magazine.

Getting Featured in a Magazine: Don’t treat the press like the enemy

Unless you’re dealing with hyper-specific circumstances in which an investigative journalist is doing their job, the press is not angling for a “gotcha!” moment – they’re angling for a story that their readers want to read. You can drop your guard. Respect your interviewer’s time, come to the interview prepared, and approach the exchange with the same degree of professionalism that you would in a meeting with an investor or a dream client.

Do manage your own expectations and timelines with fluidity

PR is a powerful tool, but it’s not magic. An accomplished boutique PR agency will have the capacity and expertise to shoot for the moon with audacity and accuracy in equal parts, but first-timers should make peace with the idea of landing among the stars. Either way, PR is designed to take your brand to new heights.

It’s also useful to bear in mind that, because your PR team works quite closely and fluidly with a vast network of fast-moving journalists, you might need to make quick decisions about your availability for interviews and product features.

Don’t sign up for a long-term commitment if you don’t need to

Committing to the high ROI of PR efforts shouldn’t have to mean committing to high-intensity, long-term plans. For consumer product brands who want to develop a punchy product pitch, or simply want to sample the power of PR without taking the plunge, a micro PR contract could be the answer and a way to get featured in a magazine.

Enter the race with an Avaans PR sprint

PR can be a sprint, not a marathon. Avaans Media offers seasonal micro PR sprints for consumer product brands who are new to PR, want to launch a new product, or want to reduce their PR budget by up to 80%. Get in touch today.

by Avaans PR

How to Inspire Advocates and Influencers in Your Marketing

Hiring A PR Firm, Native Content, Paid Media, PR Branding, PR Insights, Reputation Management

Marketing to influencers and advocates is all the rage, fueled by social media. But if you’ve ever developed a consumer campaign with influencers and/or advocates, you know it can be filled with land mines.
Part of that is what inspires advocates and influencers is different. In my last post about Captivation Motivations, I shared with you the secret driver you’ve already heard of behind so many of our snap decisions and just BARELY touched on rewards and lures.

But they’re actually super closely related to what’s behind our fastest decisions to click, like, join, sign up, or buy. If you’ve played an app or computer game, you’ve probably noticed that these games are getting more addictive (eh, em, Candy Crush anyone?). It’s not just better graphics and faster speeds that are making these games addictive, it’s the deeper understanding of what really motivates people to continue playing and one of those is the power of rewards.

I will get to the secret successful games used in a minute, but first, I want to share something else with you. If you’re thinking of running a giveaway, a promotion, or even thinking of starting an app, you want to keep reading. If you’re using digital and social media to market your brand (and I know you are), you’ll want to keep reading. If you’re doing affiliate marketing, you will want to keep reading. What I’m about to share with you is essential and will ultimately make or break your product or promotion and even marketing relationships with influencers and advocates, including journalists.

You Scratch My Back…Carefully.

The last time someone bought you lunch, I bet your parting words were, “It’s on me next time!” You probably said it without asking where you might go or checking your bank account or calendar. You just blurted it out. The truth is, we’re hard-wired to return favors. Think about that for a minute. We are deeply, sincerely uncomfortable when we think we must return a favor. Next time you run a promotion on Facebook, do a test. Ask people to like the page BEFORE entering the contest and compare that to the results if you ask AFTER you’ve given them something, even if it’s just a chance to win. Chances are you’ll find that if you ask AFTERwards, your conversion percentage goes way up, AND those people remain engaged for longer.
This is because lures trigger our sense of reciprocity.

Want to hear an old-school example of this?
Ever received mailing labels from a nonprofit that you didn’t ask for? Did you know that sending mailing labels with a request for a donation has been shown to DOUBLE donations? And guess what? The average donation is way, way more than the value of the labels.
Why? Because reciprocity is a compelling motivation, and it comes with a quirk: what we give for what we receive has very little to do with the financial value of either. You give something, ANYTHING, of some value without placing a value on it, and the reciprocity trigger kicks in. This is the idea behind successful content marketing.

Why You Should Never Pay Your Advocates

There’s a lot of discussion today about influencer and advocate marketing. Lures and rewards are different. Lures give without the expectation on the giver’s part of receiving anything in return. That triggers reciprocity by the receiver.
Rewards are given with the expectation of the receiver to get something in exchange, so no sense of reciprocity is triggered.

Rewards (generally) kill reciprocity, but they can create habits if done correctly (like training your dog).
But it’s tough for marketers to get the consistency required to create a habit. Hell, it’s hard to get the consistency required to create a habit in dog; ask anyone who’s tried.

But marketers can more easily create reciprocity, which is an extremely powerful motivation that rewards do not trigger. Here’s the rub though: reciprocity has some limitations too.
If you offered rewards to those who were already advocating for you to do what they were already doing, you’d see that their desire to support you moving forward would be slipping. That’s because offering a reward on contingency (do this 3X/week and receive that reward) for something someone is ALREADY motivated to do, decreases the desire. And unless you understood this motivational fact, you’d probably be left scratching your head about what happened.
Tread lightly with your advocates, because your appreciation can decrease their motivation if you aren’t careful.

This isn’t to say rewards aren’t effective. They can be very effective. “Share this and receive that…” you see it all the time. That’s a reward, not a lure. Again, ask my dogs. They know if they do something, there’s a good chance there’s a treat for them. That’s a reward; they’ve been conditioned to expect it. Rewards can be potent tools for increasing reach. It creates increased reach by those who AREN’T your advocates; depending on your strategy, that can be very important. Just don’t confuse people you give a reward to as an advocate.

Time: The Biggest Reciprocity Trigger

If you’re really interested in triggering reciprocity, then you should probably do two things:
1) get to know your customer really well
2) think beyond monetary lures (discounts, coupons, even product giveaways).

The reasons for this are two-fold:

Our 90% of the brain (the oldest, largest, and most primitive part of our brain) inherently knows that time is more valuable than items. We inherently value experiences (millennials especially) more than items, so although the default is often a coupon or discount, experiences are more highly valued. Receiving an experience from a product or brand increases reciprocity. So if you use an experience as a reward, you can trigger reciprocity. But to offer a highly valued experience, you really have to know your customer. What YOU think your customer values may differ completely from what they actually value. In the last post, we discussed information seeking as a dopamine trigger, which can also be a reward. So can mastery-this is the essence of gamification. Becoming good at something is its reward and the longer we spend on achieving that reward, the more we value it. Again, what your customers value may include inclusion in a tribe, recognition, or status. All these things can be valuable rewards AND lures for brands.

The other thing to understand is that placing a distinct financial value on a lure (or a reward) kinks up the perceived value. Let me give you an example: If I invited you to dinner at my house for a homemade dinner that was wonderful (of course it would be FABULOUS), but then I spent all night talking about how much I spent on buying the ingredients of the dinner, two things would happen. 1) you would view the dinner as a sum of parts rather than its whole value of time, effort, and community, and 2) you probably wouldn’t feel a sense of reciprocity, no matter how fabulous the dinner was. Don’t force your influencers OR your advocates to view your rewards or lures as a sum of parts by involving money too heavily; it kills goodwill AND reciprocity. This is part of the power of consumer PR – it triggers goodwill and reciprocity with journalists. If you’re going to use rewards or lures, remember, make it something the customer values and think about how to make more valuable than money.

Here’s the bottom line: use rewards for influencers and lures for advocates.

Can you think of a time when a marketing strategy with lures or rewards turned you off? Share them with me here or in social media; it’s a fascinating discussion I love hearing about.

About the Captivation Motivations:

The Captivation Motivations are all built around the “other 90%” of our brain. The part of our brain that is the oldest and most developed part of our brain.
I didn’t make up the Captivation Motivations; I’ve simply been studying them and their effects since 2008. I’ve been testing them in my strategies and tactics, reading and writing about them.
These motivations are not some flash-in-the-pan-do-whats-trendy-now strategy, these are strategies that trigger reactions from the oldest part of our brain. Over the last few years, more and more has been understood about these motivations. But one thing is clear: even though these motivations developed in the earliest days of humanity’s survival of the fittest experiences, these motivations are very much alive and well today. What triggers them in the modern world differs from what triggered them in our earliest evolutionary days.

by Tara Coomans

Mastering the Art of Consumer PR

Consumer PR, Consumer Products PR, Consumer Tech PR, Hiring A PR Firm, PR Branding, PR Insights, product launch, Public Relations Services, Thoughts

The idea behind public relations is – publicity, as in establishing a company’s credibility (and its owner). It helps by predisposing potential customers to believe the brand when a new product or service approaches. In essence, consumer PR agencies work in the same vein as marketing agencies but are more focused on building a positive image for a brand and building the brand’s image with stakeholders like journalists. Mastering the art of consumer PR means capturing the imaginations of key audiences.

What is Consumer PR?

So, what is consumer PR? The debut of Facebook marked a watershed moment in the media and communications industries. Social media has evolved as a legitimate platform that has given consumers a voice during the last five years. PR experts began to make little moves towards making it a standard practice in the field. Simultaneously, social media played an essential role in global political events such as Barack Obama’s campaigns, solidifying its position as the public’s voice.

Over time, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram evolved into forums for consumers to discuss the companies they used and liked. The flow of information changed from being controlled by the media to peer-to-peer. Brand communications evolved from a monologue to a discussion. This compelled the public relations business to realign and innovate.

Several brands conducted customer surveys during the time to develop impactful campaign tactics, but the sample size needed to be bigger, making the insights ambiguous. However, technological advancements gave the sector a digital-led data trail with a sample size of millions.

We could now analyze consumer trends, assess their reaction to advertisements, comprehend public opinion, and adjust the discourse accordingly. Data has evolved as a medium for clearly identifying the appropriate method to use with the target audience, with data-backed insights constituting the foundation of every plan or campaign.

The internet was now the primary platform for generating brand-related dialogues. It resulted in new communication channels, such as webinars and podcasts, which brought brands and customers together on a single platform.

Today consumer PR has evolved into a spider web that enables us to construct several communication layers. Owned social media channels and content creators that advance the topic through authentic branded content can supplement traditional public relations by providing live material, such as webinars created by consumer PR agencies, to reinforce the brand message.

Some new business owners may wonder and think why they should devote money from their marketing budget to public relations. They may believe their tech firm needs more significance to warrant full-fledged public relations, or they are considering adopting a PR strategy to save money. However, public relations is not a luxury or a nice-to-have for today’s tech firms. Every organization, regardless of size or stage of development, must promote strong ties with the public.

Strong consumer PR allows brands to create the narrative in discussions with customers, prospects, investors, and existing and potential employees, in addition to assisting the organization in gaining positive publicity.

Audiences can be either active or passive. Different methods will be required to appeal to each kind. An engaged audience is interested in the company and receptive to the message.

The passive audience isn’t looking for anything and may need more time to prep for the carefully planned message, making reaching it more challenging. However, the approach should be genuine and human when dealing with a receptive audience. For that, a deep dive is required before establishing a strategy, mainly because there’s no such thing as a one-size-fits-all message. A consumer PR campaign agency can create customized messages to be successful because communication is the key to corporate success.

Consumer PR vs. Marketing

Even industry pros can readily cross the borders between public relations and marketing. Public relations and marketing departments’ aims, goals, and strategies may closely relate to today’s environment.

In short, marketing is concerned with increasing sales by promoting products, services, or ideas through platforms such as social media. Public relations primarily involves maintaining a favorable reputation for a company, brand, or individual through the media.

While public relations is concerned with reputation management and increasing the reach of news items, interviews, and announcements, marketing teams are concerned with acquiring new buyers, maintaining current consumers, and storytelling.

Both are profoundly ingrained in developing brand equity, consumer loyalty, and good brand impression. Generally, there is a distinction between the audiences for whom PR and marketing teams create communications.

The audience of a marketing agency is based heavily on consumer insight research, which enables marketing companies to target specific demographics who are more likely to be interested in one particular service or product.

It means the target demographic of marketing teams is those potential customers who will purchase based on the marketing message. Marketing teams are likely to engage in digital advertising, ABM, and email marketing for segmenting and targeting specific consumers to achieve that.

On the other hand, consumer PR is a broader initiative that depends on the primary goal of a specific organization or campaign. For instance, a press release intends to introduce or inform current and potential customers about a product launch or event. In contrast, the company’s financial report or white papers are for investors and journalists. So, while marketing and consumer PR employs tactics that may be similar, they are focused on achieving different goals, which is why PR and marketing are distinct from the same department.

Major differences:

Daily Activities: Marketing and public relations specialists use their time differently. PR experts mostly for earned media and media partnerships. Marketing experts devote their efforts primarily to paid media. Both marketing and PR have a role in product launch preparation, marketing campaign creation, and client research.

Target Audience: Another distinction between the two departments is the audience they reach. Depending on the organization’s desire, the PR department addresses various audiences. They may generate a good outreach with the media, firm stakeholders, or even personnel. In comparison, the marketing department is primarily concerned with reaching out to customers and prospects.

Metrics: Another important distinction between marketing and public relations is how both departments judge success. PR professionals assess whether they successfully create a positive buzz for the firm. On the other hand, marketing might consider whether a product accomplished its sales targets or the ROI from a recent campaign.

Goal: The public relations and marketing divisions approach their duties with different objectives. PR is concerned with projecting a positive image of the firm and cultivating positive relationships with the company’s numerous stakeholders. In contrast, marketing is concerned with reaching customers and prospects and growing sales, bringing us to the next obvious question, “what is the differentiation between consumer PR and B2B PR?”

Consumer PR vs. B2B PR: Explained

In public relations, there are two major categories: business-to-business (B2B) PR and business-to-consumer (B2C). Both types of public relations entail advertising a product, service, or company to a specific audience, but there are some substantial variations between the two. The target audience is likely the most crucial distinction between B2B and B2C public relations.

B2B PR is concerned with reaching out to other businesses, whereas B2C PR is concerned with reaching out to individual consumers. The target audience in B2B PR is often a blend of company decision-makers who have the authority to purchase on behalf of their firm. B2C PR, on the other hand, aims to reach the daily consumer interested in a particular product or service.

Relationship building is vital in B2B and B2C PR since it is necessary to develop trust and credibility with other firms or customers. PR agencies prioritize long-term relationships with industry influencers, journalists, and other essential players in their target market. They may also attend networking events such as launches, trade exhibits, seminars, and fairs.

In the case of B2C, PRs typically focus on creating buzz and enthusiasm about a particular product or service. Consumer PR agencies may often work with influencers and social media celebrities to generate buzz around a product launch or promotional event.

Types of Consumer PR

The role of consumer PR agencies is to plan coordinated messages that help a brand achieve its objectives instead of just passing on information for the sake of it. You could invest in the following major consumer PR types.

Social Media and Online Communications

In today’s world of instant communication, brands must possess a solid online presence to stand out from the crowd. With an increasing consumers turning to online sources to research products and services before deciding, brands must get out a positive image via their online and social media communications. As a brand, hiring the expertise of a top consumer PR agency means you get your vision out on the best social media platforms.

Targeting Influencers and the Press

When promoting a new service or product, the consumer needs to get the information they deserve, meaning there should be a mailing list of influencers and media outlets that can help get a business the boost they need when launching a new product or service. The longer the list, the better the chances of reaching a wider audience.

Targeting press and influencers can be divided into specialty, local and national categories. Only experienced consumer PR agencies can gauge which social media influencers and media reports specialize in particular products or services. It is also common for consumer PR agencies to create influencer collaborations and partnerships to produce specific content for a brand.

Consumer PR is about more than just engaging an audience and boosting visibility; consumer PR agencies act as the translator between what the company is saying and what consumers hear. Keeping that in mind, only the top consumer PR agency will be able to work its messages in a way that complements the brand and helps it reach its goal. In today’s highly competitive business environment, consumer PR has become the most critical asset for organizations that want to position themselves for success.

Hiring the Top Consumer PR Agency

Ever since Henry Ford was a little tyke getting news on the latest in the automobile and technology relied heavily on advertising. Besides the high cost, the words of an authority figure in the niche were (and are) arguably the most influential. It’s the reason why stars such as Jay Leno and Jeremy Clarkson have carved a niche as the motoring enthusiast’s TV shows and newspapers turn to for communicating brand differentiators.

In short, their opinion sways the decisions of motoring enthusiasts across the world of automobiles. The same motivation for the connected car is also responsible for the connected consumer, who can now determine the right choice from an array of news, views, and reviews on their mobile device. In a fragmented world where the sheer number of opinions available makes it harder to distinguish the truly committed, consumer PR agencies work to shape the narrative.

More influencers, reviews, and opinions will undoubtedly exist in an increasingly connected world. Still, more messages are needed, which is where hiring the top consumer PR agency can make all the difference. AdRoll has its finger on the pulse when it comes to consumer PR. The company helps marketers and business owners do more with less when reaching the consumer. Find out how you can create, manage, and analyze display, FaceBook, Instagram, Pinterest, TikTok, and email campaigns, all from a single platform.

by Avaans PR