Brands are more nimble, more able to spread their messages to wider audiences faster than ever before and they're getting used to creating news more regularly.
Do you have any examples of SMEs with high profiles? And what are they doing right?
Kathryn Wilson is a great example. She's balancing a solid company foundation with good product at a great price. And she's making herself visible to a fashion community ann\d a business community. Juliette Hogan is another one - growing her business organically and quietly hitting the mark each season with her designs. "I Love Ugly" is a great example of this: they have a small team, a tightly focused product range and a very good marketing strategy across social media. Georgia Alice is a good example too. She's only one season old, yet she's winning the media over with solid designs that are selling out in a matter or weeks and gaining good press coverage to boot. We recently studied a few of our clients' PR values over the last 12 months and several of them are easily surpassing $1000 worth of PR coverage in print and online only not including radio or TV.
Can having a high profile backfire at times?
In New Zealand, absolutely. I don't think we've seen it yet in fashion but you see it all the time in music, sports and celebrity culture. When you're too big, everyone wants to take pot shots at you. Either that or you start to believe your own hype.
After that it's all over.
How do SMEs work at maintaining a profile? Do they have to keep coming
up with new stories, new products?
Basically yes. Within reason, you need to have new things to talk about as much as possible without becoming white noise. If you cultivate a really good brand with great product and a sound following, it becomes a matter of screening opportunities for coverage, choosing which to do or not do, which is a luxury, rather than having to rack your brain for new ideas when maybe there aren't any good ones at hand.
What does PR do for raising profile as opposed to social media and advertising?
I was once told that advertising is what you say about yourself, PR is what others say about you. In this ocntect, PR and word-of-mouth marketing is so much stronger than advertising because the opinion you're digesting are coming from people or media who you trust. You might buy them, subscribe to them, or have somoene recommend them to you. This is far more believable than advertising. I'd put social media into the same pot as PR due to it being very much fuelled by viral ideas, random visibility and endorsement by people or companies that the user has chosen to follow. Most of it can still seem quite organic, almost as if the user has stumbled onto it, instead of having it forced on them.
How do well established small businesses keep updating their offer without losing current customers? Tell us your stories.
