Low-budget PR for professional services businesses

How to plan an effective PR campaign to grow awareness in your professional services business, no matter your budget

How will this guide help me and my business?

People are often nervous of public relations. They think that it is all about press interaction and worry about saying something wrong. This feeling is often compounded when budgets are tight. You may hear a lot about the benefits of PR, but are still unsure how to use it for your business if you are an SME with little to no budget to spend. However, PR is exactly like any other business discipline. It will work well for you if you plan carefully and if you think about it in a businesslike fashion.

There are several steps that you need to work through in order to achieve an effective campaign. That's why we've created this guide to PR for professional services. We'll give you the seven essential questions you need to answer before planning your campaign, and then we'll tell you the best practice to follow for coming up with an engaging hook for your PR story. If you follow our process, you should be able to grow awareness of your professional services business amongst your target audiences and, more importantly, without spending lots of money.

Who is the guide for?

This guide has been created for:

• SME owners and entrepreneurs who have a professional services business without a marketing department
• Marketing managers of companies with limited resources or attempting PR for the first time
• Marketing executives in agencies who need to balance potential results for clients with a limited budget to ensure a positive ROI

How is this guide structured?

This guide begins with an introduction to PR and how your business may benefit from it. After letting you know some preliminary information, such as why you should have a company-wide PR policy, we break the planning process down into seven key questions:

1. What are your objectives?
2. Who do you want to communicate with?
3. What do you want to say to them?
4. How are you going to tell them about it?
5. What are your timescales?
6. What resources do you have available?
7. How are you going to measure success?

The guide then ends with best practice information on how to formulate a good story that will peak the interest of journalists and increase your chances of gaining exposure for your company.

Resource Details

• Author: Rebecca Harding
• Format: Online long-form guide
• Related resources: Marketing budget spreadsheet template, Editorial calendar spreadsheet, Post-campaign analysis report template

About the author

Rebecca Harding

Since founding Saltwhistle, Rebecca Harding’s professional clients have ranged from multi-nationals e.g. Deloitte and WPP agencies, to SMEs and charities. They benefit from consultancy, communications solutions, partner/executive advisory services, marketing, pitching and business development, and innovation workshops.

Previously, Rebecca was responsible for PR at Andersen, working across Europe, the Middle East, India and Africa. She held communications roles within accountancy and the oil industry e.g. working with BP and Shell.  She was an elected politician and has been quoted and published widely in the media e.g. Sunday Times. She appears regularly on a BBC radio chat show. You can connect with Rebecca on LinkedIn here.