When flicking through a magazine, newspaper or when watching your favourite TV show, there are enormous opportunities for strategic product placement.
For By Caprice this is a crucial platform for promoting our products and driving traffic to our stockists, on both a regional and national basis.
The first steps are identifying your target audience and looking at what outlets these consumers and customers buy and interactive with.
Once you have done that, you then need to identify opportunities with these media outlets. For instance, the fashion pages of a celebrity and entertainment magazine are one of the important outlets for By Caprice.
However, before you approach, it is important to ensure your product is relevant to the pages you are targeting and that your product appeals to their reader. Don’t forget this is all about offering something to the end consumer and it has to be something an editor can buy into.
I would then recommend you have the editorial tools and the correct media databases in place to start the pitching process. A press release explaining your product or service is important, especially if your product, for instance, needs introducing at some length. Keep press materials relevant and informative and do not waffle otherwise your release won’t be absorbed by the reader. Include images highlighting your hero product!
Target key pages within a magazine or newspaper and inform the journalist of any unique selling points, special features and key stockists (etc) that might be of interest. Target your email and phone call to that specific journalist – so important!!!
For a wider feature you could always offer an exclusive reveal if a certain outlet is the market leader in the industry in which your business is operating.
Remember there may be multiple outlets and opportunities and a full and successful PR campaign takes strategic planning and expertise. Although, if you do not have the budget for this, there are still PR opportunities any business can pursue. For instance, look at your local regional press and enquire about promoting your product or service through their editorial pages. Whether you send the editor images of products you stock / sell, or inform them of a sale or invite them along to an in-store event, build relationships and they will become brand advocates….
And always remember, editorial is 3 times more effective that advertising!
