Influencer of the Month

This April we’re championing beauty blogger extraordinaire Really Ree. Ree has ran her successful blog for 10 years, sharing everything from first look product launches, insider beauty industry news and a plethora of makeup and skincare knowledge. She prides herself on keeping it real for the everyday, ordinary person who just wants to look their best!

We asked Ree some questions and absolutely loved her answers, have a look:

What are the 5 words that best describe you?

Excitable, chatty, enthusiastic, friendly, loyal.

What magazine do you love reading and why?

I have to confess, I rarely read magazines now. If I do, it's the Stella magazine from my mum's Telegraph.

What is your favourite book?

Traditionally, the answer to this has always been To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf. Now I think it is The Life-changing Art of Not Giving a F!

Which song makes you dance?

Anything by Britney!

What has been your best career moment?

I think it was when my L'Oreal Elvive ad was played on the big screens at Piccadilly. It's a moment I'll never get over. There have been lots of amazing moments and I'm amazed every day that I actually work with the brands I have obsessed over all my life, but that was a standout!

What advice would you give your 20-year-old self?

You haven't failed until you quit. Just keep going.

Where are you happiest?

When I'm on the evening dog walk. Archie my dog is a constant source of joy and I am like Beyonce to him.  He loves me much more than my actual son does!

Who would be your number one dinner guest and why?

I think I'd have Charlotte Tilbury. Her energy is incredible, and she likes a glass of fizz too!

If you could have any superpower, what would it be and why?

To be able to know what beauty brands are launching before even they know!

Ree asked the SBPR team: what's your top motivational work tip?

Sunny – Recognise results

Unfortunately, clients don’t always thank the team for their hard work. So to motivate your team in the workplace you need to remember to recognise the results they produce. Let them know specific reasons why they did a good job.

For example, “Great job on that feature Grace, It’s already increased traffic to our customer’s website tenfold over last month.”

Lizzie - Give yourself a pat on the back. Allow yourself, and even encourage yourself, to be pleased with what you’ve done. Working from home is so much harder with no team to bounce ideas off of, and no one there to be your cheerleader, so remember to be your own cheerleader!

Grace - If you’ve had a morning of difficult work and feel daunted about doing any more, do something on your list which is going to get you a quick win, it will make you feel so much better and you’ll feel like you’ve achieved something for the day. Also, give yourself breaks… I need to do this more!

6 Top Tips for Creating a Killer PR Strategy

The importance of developing a strong public relations strategy is probably something you’ve heard a lot, but what exactly is a PR strategy, how does it work and why is it important?

A PR strategy is essentially a plan of action to ensure your campaigns are well coordinated and delivered on time to ensure maximum impact for your brand. As an agency, we believe that a strategic plan can be the difference between make or break and is something you want to get right.

There are a lot of elements and steps involved in executing an effective PR campaign, from writing press releases, securing imagery and pitching it to the right journalists in time for the correct issue. It is the strategy which helps coordinate this to make sure everything runs smoothly.

At Sunny Bird PR, we create strategies for all our clients to ensure your brand or business is appearing in the press and is seen by your target audience year-round.

Here are our six steps to a fool-proof strategy:

Outline your objectives

First and foremost, outline your objectives. What do you want to be achieving through PR? Do you want to drive website traffic, increase sales or boost awareness? It’s important to make your objectives specific and measurable so you can tailor your campaign towards achieving them and monitor when they’ve been achieved. It is these objectives which will define the tools and tactics needed to implement your PR plan.

Define your target audience

Identifying your target audience is crucial if you want to be positioning your brand in front of them. Who do you want to be discovering your brand, product or service? What media do they consume, where do they spend their time and who do they talk to? Understanding who you are communicating with is crucial as it means your tactics can be targeted to resonate with a specific audience.

Research the media

This part is absolutely key. Once you’ve identified your target audience and what publications they read or websites they visit, devour that media! Find out who the journalists are, what they are writing about and identify any space where your brand might fit. This activity will help you start thinking creatively about how to position your brand to certain publications and what key messages will be most important.

Decide on tactics

Next up, you need to determine which tactics will best achieve your PR goals. For example, if you’re a fashion brand, you might want to sell more clothes by having your latest collection featured in a plethora of women’s magazines or you might want to make your tech start-up more appealing to investors by commenting on a topical debate.

There are endless tactics at our disposal depending on the objective ranging from distributing a press release to social media campaigns and organising events. Having established your goal and target audience it will be easier to assess which tactics will be the most effective in conveying your brand messages to them.

Leave yourself enough time

Now it’s time to start implementing a timeframe. This timeline can take any format you choose so long as it works for you, be it an excel flow chart or your everyday diary. This involves thinking strategically about time. Break down projects into smaller achievable tasks, decide who will do them and when by. By allocating time to tasks, you can organise your time and realistically evaluate how much time you want to dedicate to PR each month and what can be achieved in that time.

It’s also very important to consider deadlines for publications. Magazines and newspapers will have very different deadlines depending whether they are published monthly, weekly or daily. It’s imperative to identify what titles you are approaching and when they will need the information by. Generally, we advise six months in advance for the monthly titles, meaning if you would like your product appearing in December Christmas gift guides, you need to be reaching out to journalists in July.

Remember, your timing strategy can be as detailed or as vague as you like, but the important thing is it’s achievable, no deadlines are missed and it keeps you accountable week-on-week.

Set KPIs to measure results

Finally, we recommend setting yourself some targets or ‘Key Performance Indicators’ to give you something to aim for and measure the output of all your hard work. At Sunny Bird PR we set ourselves KPIs to achieve for every activity, whether that’s increasing Instagram followers or placing a certain number of articles in the national press.

Monitoring success can help you work out what tactics have been successful and what to try next time. A solid strategy will help you better understand your target audience, communicate your key messaging and most importantly grow your business!