The birth of a brand is achieved with publicity, not advertising.
Brands are born out of stories. "The new Leeds restaurant that's reinvented Indian food", "The new show opening at the Bradford Alhambra", "the Yorksire-born entrepreneur who is creating a revolution in hairdressing". Stories tell the public how to categorise a particular brand in their minds and why they should be interested. Without a story, a brand has no context.
Advertising is very effective at telling people about products and offers, but is much less effective at telling the stories behind the makers of those products.
PR employs storytelling to put your brand on the map, educate your market on how to mentally categorise your business.
Being featured in the press creates unparalleled authority - even if your prospects never see it! Simply featuring the logos of the outlets you've been featured in can vastly increase credibility and trust with every website visitor you get!
Imagine having these logos be one of the first things your website visitors see when they go to your website to check you out? Doesn't it instantly put you in a whole different league to your competitors?
It's true. Your vocation or project is not the barrier you may think it is.
While you understandably may think that the media focus mainly on artists and entertainers and perhaps the occasional tech entrepreneur, with the right angle and the right story, virtually any project, business or person can make the news and widen its reach.
Whether you think your job is boring or not, the chances are that it's interesting to somebody.
So yes, we do work with entertainers, authors and artists. But we also work with many other professionals you may not ordinarily associate with press coverage.
The top players in almost every industry who command the highest prices for their products and services are not necessarily the "best". Quality definitely commands a price in any market place, but there is something else that pays better: celebrity. Sometimes ten, twenty, a hundred times better.
Building celebrity also opens up additional revenue streams for you that are not available to those in your field who aren't famous. Things like public speaking, book authorship - some of the most highly paid revenue streams that there are.
Leveraging a public profile correctly can lead to a huge increase in status and confidence. Your reputation can inspire confidence in your business and services; find investors more easily to finance new projects; and even get your into rooms you wouldn't otherwise get into.
If you're in the entertainment business, fame is a necessity. It's just part of the territory. Because the public equates how famous you are with how 'good' you are.
We help improve your brand strength and reach by positioning you in all the right places.
Is your company releasing a new product to market? This could be anything - a new kind of iPhone, a new novel or film or the premiere of a new theatre show.
When you're releasing a new product, it's vitally important to get the word out to your market. It's also beneficial to create a bit of market buzz and anticipation to influence interested people to rush out and buy it when it's available.
Product launch campaigns focus on explaining very simply what the product is, what it does, why it's good and how people can get it.
We'd begin by understanding your product in order to create simple, easily understandable messages that can be communicated to your market.
A campaign like this should start around 6 weeks before the product launch is due. This gives us a couple of weeks to prepare materials in order to start getting the word out a month before the product launch.
Status building campaigns form part of an ongoing narrative about your brand or business. They change or maintain the way your market thinks about you and also remind your market that your business exists.
At Smart & Slick, we have involved in PR for 7 years and have good relationships with most Yorkshire media outlets including The Yorkshire Post, Telegraph & Argus and ExaminerLive.
First, we establish your objectives. Then we go away and figure out how to get you what you want. Then we begin collecting story ideas. Then we write them up into press releases. Then we pitch them to media outlets. Normally, within a week, you'll start to see press coverage.