making pr work for you
TRANSCRIPT
Making PR work for you
Presented by
What is PR?
• The practice of managing the flow of information from your centres to the public
• Persuading the public to have a particular opinion about Everyone Active
• PR is an effective, low-cost marketing tactic. It can be used in your marketing plans to support all activity
Why use PR?
• To improve awareness of your centre / facilities • To build a positive perception of the centre• To showcase success / achievements to key
stakeholders• To encourage more people to visit the centre • To grow the Everyone Active brand • To save you money on advertising spend
What makes a good story?• New and timely• Exciting, bizarre or out of the ordinary!• Affects the local community• Topical / ‘hot trend’ • Is something being offered for free? • Is money being raised for charity?• Prominence - link with an NGB, local sports club, sporting hero
or celeb?• Human interest – has someone connected with the centre
achieved something extraordinary or exceptional? • Superlatives and milestones • Does it involve an award?• Is there an environmental angle?• Images!
News or Snooze
What makes a good PR story?
Some of these headlines make great PR stories and others are red herrings. Can you spot which are most likely to get column inches and which will send news editors to sleep?
Photos, photos, photos!
• A photo can turn a snooze story into a news story
• It can mean the difference between a few lines and a whole spread
• Who are the key participants?• Staged photos to camera are preferable to
action shots • Set up shots with branding
• High quality photos only!
• Get permissions, names and details
Case studies
• Have they lost weight? • Are they completing a charity challenge? • Have they completed / are completing an extraordinary
fitness feat?
THEN….• Do they want to share their story? (in the media)• Are they happy to be photographed?
News Articles
Can you identify the news hooks in these published articles about Everyone Active?
For what reasons did the newspapers consider them to be newsworthy?
Giving your event the best shot at getting some free publicity
• Make it open to all• Add a charity angle • Throw in a free activity• Ask someone ‘exciting’ to attend • Get an NGB or local sports body involved • Offers prizes / goody bags• Get local heroes / members with success stories involved• Appoint someone to take photos at the event • Give us the ‘after’ story quickly – with all the facts and photos
PR league tableCentre Pieces of Coverage
Harrow Leisure Centre 110
Everyone Active Acton Centre
34
Northolt Leisure Centre 20
Vale Farm Sports Centre
11
Southall Sports Centre 11
Bannister Sports Centre 8
Hatch End Swimming Pool
5
Perivale Athletics Track 0
Twyford Sports Centre 0
Elthorne Sports Centre 0
Sharing your stories • Complete a PR framework form
with as much detail as possible
• Give us plenty of notice
• Take photos
• Reminder email at start of (most) months
• Remember PR opportunities can be ‘before’ and ‘after’
• Stay in touch and be cool in a crisis
Stay in Touch
020 7300 7380