Publishing details
A Brightword book
www.brightwordpublishing.com
HARRIMAN HOUSE LTD
3A Penns Road
Petersfield
Hampshire
GU32 2EW
GREAT BRITAIN
Tel: +44 (0)1730 233870
Fax: +44 (0)1730 233880
Email: [email protected]
Website: www.harriman-house.com
First published in Great Britain in 2012
Copyright © 2012 Harriman House
The right of Greg Simpson to be identified as the Author has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988.
ISBN: 9781908003331
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A CIP catalogue record for this book can be obtained from the British Library.
All rights reserved; no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior written permission of the Publisher. This book may not be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise disposed of by way of trade in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published, without the prior written consent of the Publisher.
No responsibility for loss occasioned to any person or corporate body acting or refraining to act as a result of reading material in this book can be accepted by the Publisher or by the Author.
About the author
Greg Simpson has been a journalist, a marketing director of a £30m turnover business and worked in two large PR agencies for clients that have ranged from multinational PLCs, to charities, not-for-profits and start-ups.
His frustration with a lack of transparency in the PR industry and its frequent ‘smoke and mirrors’ approach led him to quit big agency life and invest his years of experience into his own PR consultancy, Press For Attention PR.
Since its launch in 2008, Greg has sought to blend the skills and experience he gained from working with some of the biggest brands and organisations in the UK, with a straightforward and streamlined approach to PR that allows even the smallest budgets to compete for share of voice in a noisy market. True to his open approach and determination to help others lacking in resource, Greg also established a regular, free “PR Clinic” for business and management graduates at Nottingham University.
Just four years later, in spring 2012, Greg was introducing a client (a 24-year-old entrepreneur he met at one of his PR clinics) and his guest, Sir Richard Branson, to the national business press at the UK’s biggest ever business show.
Greg introduces PR master and business legend Sir Richard Branson to the national media
PR isn’t all about big ideas and even bigger budgets, champagne launches and celebrity endorsements. Greg helps his clients to get the foundations of a solid PR campaign in place right from the start, so that their messages will be heard loud and clear when it is time to shout them from the rooftops!
Acknowledgements
A huge thank you to my family and friends that have been patient with me and resisted the urge to roll their eyes when I said I was writing a book!
You have been hugely supportive, especially when the going has been rough and I have on occasion lost the ability to string a sentence together like an errr…you know, one of those people that struggles to sort of express himself a bit like.
Thank you to my clients for understanding this temporary demand on my time (although I hope you haven’t noticed) especially Simon Gray at Cherry Professional for being as enthused about the project as me.
A big shout to my Mum and Dad for both inspiring me and encouraging me to pursue my own dreams, my brother for keeping an objective but supportive distance (whilst being secretly quite impressed) and to Gemma for kicking my backside when I have slackened off a little and believing in this project with me.
Finally, a big shout to Alan Hardy at Paragon Plc for giving me my first “real” job in marketing after university and then again giving me my first break when I went self-employed, clearly a glutton for punishment!
Massive appreciation to you all and to everyone else involved in my career to date but sorry this isn’t Oscar night and I haven’t got time to mention you all!
Cheers,
Greg
Who this book is for
Quite simply, anyone who wants to be able to have something to show for their PR efforts.
I use the word “effort” here because this book has been written for those who take action. I could write ten books on PR theory and you could read them all and still not have anything to show for it afterwards – other than less room on your bookshelves.
I want you to be able to look back in ten days or even ten hours and see what you have achieved.
So, who are you?
You could be a PA at a mid-size manufacturing business, the MD of a new start-up, a marketing executive in a law firm, a business development manager for a construction business, a community liaison officer for a charity or an events manager for a not-for-profit. You may well be studying business at university or college and feel that you need a good primer on PR.
The job titles above are not random. They belong to six people that I have helped in the last six months, with me either becoming their PR director or their PR coach.
Ultimately, it simply does not matter who is reading this. The common factors I find with countless people that I speak to about PR are:
Frustration
Confusion
Fear
What is it? What can it do? What can’t it do? Is it right for me? How much time must I invest? How much will it cost? What’s the point?
What I have tried to do with this book is quite simply cut to the chase: I know what works.
This book makes no attempt to be a complete guide to PR. Instead, it is your chance to get straight down to business, to use your precious time to your best advantage and to crack on with a well thought-out, structured PR campaign which gives you a fantastic chance at getting results from your efforts.
Just a chance, Greg?
Sorry, yes.
There are no guarantees.
I don’t know what stories you are going to come up with (or perhaps try to get away with), I can’t be sure that you will implement my approach as I advocate and I don’t know that you will put the time aside to really have a proper run at this. You may already be skimming this part of the book (come on, admit it, you were a bit!). But I will guarantee that if you do give this your best shot – and I am only asking for ten hours of your life – you will begin to see the fruits of your labour far, far quicker than if you went at your next PR campaign without a plan.
So what are we waiting for? Day 1 beckons. This isn’t Day 1 you know...you are probably reading this bit on the bus or whilst you eat a sandwich. If you are, tell me what it is on Twitter using #PRsandwich – it’s all a lot of people seem to talk about on there