Local PR for small businesses

Regional newsrooms have contracted sharply. Fewer journalists cover more ground, with the same number of pages to fill.

That is a difficulty for journalism and an opportunity for any business that makes a journalist's job easier.

Make the story easy to publish

A regional journalist with four stories to file today will use the one that arrives complete.

That means: the story written in a publishable structure, a quotation from a named person with their role, one or two verifiable figures, a high-resolution photograph cleared for use, and a contact who answers immediately.

Supply all five and the probability of publication rises enormously.

What regional media actually want

Rows one and two are the reliable ones. Regional editors need local reaction to national stories constantly and frequently struggle to find anyone who will comment.

Become the local expert

Offer yourself as a source on the subject you actually know: heating costs, property prices, hiring conditions in the trade, food supply, whatever your business gives you genuine knowledge of.

Write to the relevant journalists once, saying what you can comment on and how quickly you can respond. Then be available.

Businesses that do this get called, repeatedly, for years. It is the single highest-return activity in local public relations and almost nobody does it.

The photograph matters more locally

Regional publications have few or no staff photographers. A usable image frequently decides whether a story runs and how prominently.

What is usable: high resolution, horizontal, people in it doing something rather than lined up, natural light, and cleared for publication with the consent of everyone shown.

Beyond the newspaper

Local radio, community magazines, district newsletters, association bulletins, and the local news sections of online platforms. Each has an audience and most receive very little material.

Local radio in particular is under-approached and frequently receptive to a business owner who can speak clearly for three minutes.

Sustaining it

Two to four genuine stories a year, supplied properly, with availability for comment in between. That is a sustainable programme for a small business and it accumulates.

The effect is not measured in enquiries from a single article. It is that after three years the business is known, which shows up in recruitment, in referrals and in the ease of every subsequent conversation.