how do i get press coverage for my jewellery business?
Have you ever wondered about how you can get press coverage for your jewellery business? Jeweller Anna Campbell gives her tips on getting press coverage for your jewellery business
Anna Campbell is a metal clay artist, qualified teacher and founder of Jewellery School Scotland. Anna has been featured in the Scottish press including in the Daily Record, The Scotsman and on STV2 she is also a blogger for the Huffington Post. Here Anna shares some advice on getting press coverage for your jewellery business.
Be prepared
Before you try to get press coverage make sure you are ready. You don't want to get coverage and have nothing in your shop to sell! Do a spring clean of your website and ensure that your ‘about me’ section on your website and/or selling site is up to date. You will hopefully get a spike in traffic after featuring in the press so you want to make sure you capitalise on it.
Do your research
The key to getting good press coverage is to be seen in publications read by your customers. Make sure you know what these publications are they asking customers at events what they read or by sending out a short questionnaire to your email subscribers.
Plan your year
Different publications have different lead times - the deadlines they have for their issues. Magazines tend to have the longest lead times - often planning their content 3 to 6 months ahead. Newspapers may want to hear from you on the day! Therefore it's important to plan your year and consider when you'll need to approach publications with your story ideas. Get a yearly planner and plot in important dates such as Valentine's Day Mother's Day or Father's Day, then look at other dates that might be important to your business. For example, if you sell wedding jewellery, you may want to try to get coverage around springtime.
analyse the publication
When you've chosen a publication (such as a TV or radio programme) carefully analyse a few examples of it. You’ll quickly find that there are certain sections that repeat regularly. Find out where you could fit - fashion, small business, news?
find an angle
Unfortunately, it is not a journalist’s job to promote your business and having launched a new jewellery range is not newsworthy. You'll need to think more carefully about how you can use your knowledge and experience in a way that will attract readers. My feature in the Daily Record was about how creativity is good for your health!
start local
Starting local is a good idea to get confident at approaching the press as you already have an angle; you are a local business person. Perhaps you've retrained, taken early retirement or turned your hobby into a business. Having local coverage under your belt will also help when approaching larger, national publications.
Events
If you're going to be selling at any events, particularly large events, get in touch with the organisers to see what promotion they are doing and volunteer yourself as a case study. This is how I got featured on STV2 (the Scottish equivalent of ITV2). I had previously approached the PR team for the events to say I was interested in being involved in any press so I was asked on the day to be filmed.
follow the journalists
For national publications, you really want to get into you need to do a little sleuthing! The names of journalists or editors are usually mentioned in the publication (or do a Google search). Make a note of who writes relevant articles and look for them on Twitter. many journalists use Twitter and share what they're working on. By looking at their interest you'll get a better idea of how to approach them.
How to write a pitch
It can be nerve-wracking to approach journalists, but remember they need stories! However, they are contacted frequently so get to the point!
Find the email address of the journalist, put the story title in the email subject box and write one paragraph starting with, ‘I'm writing to see if you would be interested in a story on…’ and do get straight to the point. You can then finish off with a few sentences about who you are and how they can get in touch with you.
Include a couple of relevant photos and ensure you give them lots of ways to contact you. If it’s for radio or TV giving a phone number is a must as they often have tight deadlines and may need to arrange things with you urgently.
Is it worth paying to advertise in a publication?
Have you been approached by a glossy magazine via email asking you to advertise? We would suggest caution if you receive any of these types of emails. Advertising in this way tends not to give you a return on your investment. The advert tends to be small in a classifieds section. And think, how often do you purposefully read the adverts in a magazine? That money could be better spent elsewhere on your business.
Check out Anna’s website https://www.jewelleryschoolscotland.co.uk/
(This article was first written by Jewellers Academy and published for Making Jewellery magazine. It has been edited for the blog and is published with the permission of GMC publications)