Recap, resources and support
What we've just learned
- Business and product stories don’t appear by accident, they are mostly placed by the companies themselves.
- You don’t need to be a big company to do PR.
- Being a vegan company or having a vegan product isn’t newsworthy any more. You need to find a real hook to your story beyond being vegan.
- The thing that is newsworthy might not be your product, service, or even your company – it might be you.
- Exposure and publicity is what will make your business live or die. If you haven’t yet got a story, then build one!
- Identify which publications are going to be interested in your story.
- Research journalists in national publications who have written vegan stories.
- Keep your pitch to journalists short and concise and include it in the main body of the email so that they can see it straight away.
- Think about what would interest you in a news story; just trying to sell your business doesn’t make for an engaging news piece.
- Find the stats that relate to your story to make your pitch more interesting; tie your story into a bigger trend in the market.
- A great photo can make all the difference in if your story gets published or not.
- Make sure you follow-up after sending your story to a journalist. PR is all about being persistent and not giving up.
- Can you create a PR stunt that will give you great content both for the news and your social media?
- A good vegan PR professional will have developed relationships with editors and journalists. Their emails will get opened where yours don’t.
- Once you get all this great coverage for your business – shout about that too! Let people know you are a newsworthy business.
My training in dramatic art actually has some use now. Bonus!!!
Just wondering how best I can market myself, I am a longterm involuntary client of Mental Health in Australia and have been incarcerated (mostly in psych wards) on more than 20 occasions. Although I became vegan-conscious in 1996, long before this happened, I would like to promote the idea that my experiences as an invol have fuelled my compassion for animals.
Hey Marc, our life experience (no matter how positive or negative) is something to really draw on. We have a friend called John Awen (https://johnawen.com/). He’s been in prison 20 times, he’s an ex drug addict, he ran a small-holding where he raised his own animals for slaughter, he’s over six foot tall with a shaved head and covered in tattoos and he is also the most compassionate person I have ever met. He’s now a vegan activist and coach and is one of the most powerful speakers I’ve heard.
When I first met John he had just given 55 talks in a year at various different vegan events and fairs around the UK (all for free), he is the author of several books and spends all his time trying to make amends by educating people on veganism.
Without his past he would just be another person banging on about veganism. But because of what he has been through himself, and the transformation to where he is now, people listen to his story. It was the realisation of what he was doing to animals when he took them to slaughter that brought him to veganism – and it was his conversation to veganism that made him understand compassion.
I would suspect you have some parallels and your own experience gives you a stronger voice. We recorded an interview with John when we had just launched Vegan Business Tribe, you might find it useful: https://veganbusinesstribe.com/how-to-be-a-vegan-activist-interview-with-john-awen/
D 💚🌱
Edit – just to add to this Marc, I’m not drawing parallels between John ending up in prison from his own actions and you being held involuntary. Two obviously completely different situations that you have no control over and must be beyond frustrating. But to answer your original question, when we have life experiences that are different from others around us then that gives us unique viewpoints that make our stories stronger. I expect you have some very unique views on veganism because of your situation (especially the link between your own restricted living and compassion towards animals) that will make for an extraordinarily powerful voice and would urge you to find channels to share them.
Aww thank you! Such a lovely surprise to see my Incredible Carrot here! I’ll let you into a secret, the backdrop is a paper napkin I found in a corner shop haha!
We put it in just for you to find Victoria! And it’s a great example from a real company too.
David
Victoria, can I just say I really love your website and branding in general? Insipiring!! 🙂