Get Good PR for Your Recruitment Agency

Good PR is truly the food of the gods to a small business. PR is basically free advertising, so it is worth your while focusing on trying to build good PR contacts for your business either as well as, or instead of spending time and money on advertising.

A key part of good PR is that is looks less ‘sales’ than advertising. PR is placed editorial, features and comments in any media – local, national and on-line.

Have a Good Story

One of the first rules of PR is to have a story. That story does not need to be the wackiest thing in the world, but simply saying ‘I have opened my own recruitment agency’ is not going to get you anywhere. Journalists and features writers do not just want to give people free publicity, even though they have pages to fill and articles to write, they cannot just write lovely things about your business because you ask them to. You need to have an angle, a story. That can be the fact that you are having a launch party, or that you have won an award, or that you are asking local art students to come up with a new logo. Just having a new business is not enough – think about what is appealing to the media you are trying to get coverage in.

Be clear about your key messages and write a press release that highlights the vision and service of your recruitment agency. You may choose to use a professional PR company if you have the resources, or ask a friend with experience in marketing or PR to help you with your business communication.

Gaining Local PR for Your Recruitment Agency

The key to getting good local PR is to focus on a relevant, local angle to your press release. See if there are any local business initiatives going on, or see if you can tie in with a feature in the local newspaper. If you live in a small town with a local newspaper, befriending a reporter can help you get all sorts of good PR, although you will still need to have a story. Having good photographs also helps to gain column inches, as does offering a competition with a prize.

Gaining National PR for Your Recruitment Agency

It can be harder to get national PR because the pool of possibilities is that my larger, however journalists still need to fill their magazines and newspapers, so it is always worth sending your press releases and information to publications you would like to be featured in. A good way to get PR for a recruitment business is through indirect means, such as talking about something unrelated in a woman’s magazine, but having your business mentioned. As long as you are not talking about something rude or inappropriate, all publicity is good publicity!

Gaining On-Line PR for Your Recruitment Agency

The internet has increased the PR opportunities for all businesses ten fold – blogs, websites, social networking sites and forums allow us to write our own PR and have it straight in the hands of our target audiences almost immediately. To be savvy in the media age, you cannot just write a press release and send it out by email to relevant websites. Nor can you think you will beat the system by some cheesy viral marketing campaign that people see straight through. Take your time to make your blog appealing, make it ‘sticky’ so people come back time and time again and when they need a recruitment agency, yours will be the first one they think of.