Small Business Big World
New episodes every Tuesday discussing the challenges, adventures and fun of being a small business owner. Each week we'll delve into various small business topics, from real-world DEI considerations to selling your business, using video to market your business, unique benefit offerings for your employees and so much more. Curated by the crew at Paper Trails.
Small Business Big World
Public Relations Strategies
Unlock the secrets of powerful public relations for small businesses with our special guest, Laura Dolce, the director of the Kennebunk, Kennebunkport and Arundel Chamber of Commerce. Discover how even the smallest news—like promotions, product launches, and anniversaries—can make headlines and breathe new life into your business. Laura explains how lean newsrooms are hungry for ready-to-publish stories and offers actionable insights on crafting compelling press releases. Tune in and give your small business the PR boost it deserves!
This is Small Business Big World, our weekly podcast prepared by the team at Paper Trails. Owning and running a small business is hard. Each week, we'll dive into the challenges, headaches, trends, fun and excitement of running a small business. After all, small businesses are the heartbeat of America and our team is here to keep them beating. Hello and welcome to Small Business Big World, our weekly podcast talking about all things small business. Today, my guest is Laura Dolce, the director of the Kennyburn-Kennyburn Port Arundel Chamber of Commerce, and we are going to talk about public relations for small business.
Speaker 2:We are.
Speaker 1:Thank you for joining me. I'm happy to be here Before we get going. Don't forget like follow share rate review Anywhere you listen to podcasts. We're there. If you have any questions for us or for Laura or any of our guests, feel free to email us. Podcast at paper trailscom and we will get in touch with you. All right PR. I feel like this is a foreign topic for a lot of small business people, right? I think we're not very good at tuning our own horn.
Speaker 2:No, not at all.
Speaker 1:So what? What do you have to do to be newsworthy? What types of things in a small business can small business owners talk about to the press?
Speaker 2:I think, first of all, there's a lot that goes on in businesses that people don't even think of as newsworthy. I think you know, every time there's a promotion, throw it in the paper, you know, put a headshot out there. I think if you're changing something up, adding a product line, adding a new service, you hit an anniversary, whether it's one years or 21 years or whatever. I think a lot of times the press themselves nowadays are really, really lean and so they're delighted to get content from somewhere other than having to send a reporter out. They're delighted to get photos and put that stuff in. And business reporting especially a lot of papers just don't have business reporters anymore, business reporting especially a lot of papers, just don't have business reporters anymore.
Speaker 1:So, particularly speaking to the lack of workforce in that reporting field, we know the newsrooms are smaller than they ever have been, right.
Speaker 2:Oh.
Speaker 1:God, yeah, what catches a reporter's attention, I guess what's going to really move the needle and say, oh gosh, we're going to do something with that.
Speaker 2:I mean, I think something unusual. I do think something like an anniversary. I mean they're not going to come out and do a story if you have a promotion. They might have a story if you have a new president or a new CEO, but if you've got something new, something cool, you've got a big anniversary. You can contact the press directly. A lot of times, do a good press release. You send that press release out and chances are they're either going to put it in the way it is or they're going to call you because you've taken the time to write up what's interesting about it?
Speaker 1:What should be in that press release? What should go in there? What should you send them? How should you send?
Speaker 2:it First of all. I would always send it as a word attachment.
Speaker 1:Not a PDF.
Speaker 2:Having been on the other side, I can assure you that if you send a PDF, it's going to take so much longer to get that in the paper because someone has to type it in. So, for God's sake, send it. Even if you send it in the body of the email, send it in a way that people can cut and paste it, because no one has time for that. Always send a photo.
Speaker 2:Photos are terrific, both to get the reader's attention but also to get an editor's attention, because again, they're looking to build a page around photos and you want to get that in there. So contact name, phone number, email O is important, because if you send that out into the world but people have follow-up questions or they think, wow, that's a great story, sometimes they don't want to have to search for you or figure out who sent it to them. You know, put a headline that grabs people's attention at the top and then you know you don't have to get super complicated. There's a lot of great templates online that you can do a press release. Our chamber will do it with you or for you. So I mean that's always an option if you're part of a professional organization.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what is that? What is a press release? What's the format? I mean, you've got your quick headline right. Grab the attention, write about whatever you're talking about. Then is it put kind of an about the business.
Speaker 2:Just in general, I like to put an about the business at the bottom, if I can you know, like a full bio of the business I put at the bottom. But you might say your headline is ABC company ads. I don't know. You know brand new line of, you know, three-headed monkey toys. And then you've got kind of the town and then you know the announcement, like today, you know, president of ABC company announced that they're, you know, adding these brilliant new lines of three-headed monkey toys in time for the holidays. And then you'll have a quote, you know, from Joe Blow and it'll say we're so delighted to be, you know, adding these three-headed monkey toys. Blah, blah, blah, said Joe Blow, ceo of ABC Company.
Speaker 1:I think the Wall Street Journal is going to pick this one up Exactly. If you see this on Christmas list, you'll know why. So yeah, Hasbro is coming after the three-headed monkeys.
Speaker 2:And then after that, you know, oh yeah, a little bit more about the company. You know, abc Company has been in business for 30 years, is known for its two-headed snake toy, and you know blah, blah, blah Employees you know 300 people. Whatever, I think, some of that important information that you'd want to see in the paper.
Speaker 1:How do you, what about you know, I guess? How do you show your expertise and offer expertise to reporters Like, if you're, you know, I don't know, let's, let's say, reporters looking to write a story about you know, flooding, right, we had a flooding thing, right. And they reached out to you as the chamber director and said, you know, hey, who's an expert in this, right? And you said, hey, here's three insurance agents and here's a you know cleaning company or whatever, right, and they reached out to them. How do you, how do you put yourself kind of on that resource list? How do you get in touch with, how do you stay connected with these reporters when they're looking to write a story about something that you might be an expert on? And then that's truly a news story and not necessarily a rah, rah, rah, all about me story.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. I mean, every reporter has a source, you know, and I find like, when we get new reporters which we do frequently here I reach out. I reach out, I tell them, I give them my cell, I tell them like, hey, if you need anything or you're looking for business ideas or whatever, here's how you contact me. I think you can absolutely do the same. I mean, as a journalist, especially with the storms and things like that, I'd be delighted if three companies sent me a little email and said hey, by the way, you know, we're experts, we cleaned up after you know five hurricanes or whatever. And I think that's.
Speaker 1:So don't be afraid to reach out either. No, no, be a little proactive?
Speaker 2:I do. I think a lot of people are putting together a virtual Rolodex and they might not use you this time, but next time something happens they're going to say oh yeah, I've got so-and-so's number, I'm going to give them a call on that.
Speaker 1:That's interesting. I never thought about being so proactive, I guess, in terms of those news type stories and how you manage that. So that's a good one. How do you stay? Who do you send these things out to? I mean, most locations have a local paper, even if it's just a weekly or something.
Speaker 1:We have our regionals and some business magazines and do you just plaster it out there. Do you just say, hey, these are the 10 that I'm always going to send to, or is there a strategy around that? Do you think for press releases or anything like that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean we have a media list that we've created and we know that here's especially our local people. So for a general press release we do have kind of a list of like. I'm not going to send that to broadcast unless it's something really big or really cool, like if it's in a big event, then I'll send that to broadcast. But other than that, if it's things like a promotion or whatever, but if you've got your three-headed monkey launch and it's in time for the holidays, I would send that to broadcast. I would do a little homework and figure out where that's going to go and which is the right department. I always look for the news department. I always look for an editor, if I can, a producer. Even Sometimes the emails that some of these media organizations give you, like these info emails, they could go to the ad department. You don't know where they're going.
Speaker 2:There's probably some underpaid secretary dealing with all those. So you want to get it in the right hands right from the beginning. You know local papers. It's often either the local editor or the local reporter who every week is struggling to come up with something.
Speaker 2:So you know you could send it to them or both you know, but if it's yeah, if it's something really cool though and something super visual, then I would absolutely reach out to the radio or tv stations and, you know, get some additional stuff on top of that. We do a lot of print for things like business, because you don't get quite as much business stuff on tv, I think.
Speaker 1:But so what about things? I know there's going back to okay, being a little more proactive. There's things like Help a Reporter Out, right that's one of the services out there that you can subscribe to. That reporters go out and say hey, I'm looking for someone that knows about three-headed monkey toys, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean I have been a reporter using Harrow. I mean that's definitely valuable. I still think that unless you're looking to put together kind of a bigger, broader piece, maybe on like a regional or national level, your local reporters might not be using that as much. I think people at bigger organizations know about that, Probably not your local person.
Speaker 1:So that's why being proactive is really important Right, and being connected is important right. That's interesting. So you talked about the chamber. What is the chamber? You guys at the chamber obviously are really well versed in this as formal journalists. So how do you, you know, how are you helping members with this type of stuff?
Speaker 2:I mean, a lot of what we do especially is with new businesses. They've just come to an area they really want to tell you. You know, kind of here's what we just opened. We do this, we're going to have a ribbon cutting and obviously we take photos of that. But we just had a small mammal vet open and they really wanted to do a press release.
Speaker 2:And you know, sometimes I'll get sort of the very basic, but they sent me some really cool material about how they decided to be small mammal vets because they had a bunny in college and this bunny inspired and it was such a cool. So you really got to put together a really cool press release from that. So sometimes those cool anecdotes or something just that sets you apart is really fun. Um, we always ask them to kind of just give us the basics. You know, tell us when you're opening where you were before, what exactly services you're going to offer, kind of straightforward stuff that you'd want to see in there. So if you want readers to know, if you want consumers to know and you're sending it to the media, put everything in there you want them to know. You know you can't guarantee everything gets in, but on the chance it is. Put everything in there.
Speaker 1:You want them to know, do you send one photo? You send a couple photos. What's the, what's the standard and I always send one.
Speaker 2:I try not to do more than a page or so for a press release because, again, you know no one has time to go through three, four pages. If you've got some really cool photos, like the vet, for example, say it's like you know the two of you partner standing in front of your business, that's great. But if you have a really cool bunny shot, because you know, it's a specialty, or a shot of a bunny having surgery or something. Yeah, I think you know that's always a little more interesting.
Speaker 1:Right, I want to catch attention. Just like any type of marketer, you want to differentiate and catch that attention. So one of the things that I think we're all bad at is kind of tooting our own horn, and sometimes I don't even think about it. Right, I was talking to our marketing director today and we're currently trying to rank as one of the best employers in the state. Right, there's a big survey that's going out and today they went out. So we're, you know, we're working on that and I'm not I'm duly influencing my employees, don't worry. Uh, hr association I know that's a big rule. We're not doing that, uh, but it's.
Speaker 1:You know, I have this thing in my mind that main biz only features the people that are on this list. Like, I feel like we've tried to submit stuff to certain publications and I just feel like we don't have the credibility. So we're trying to. This is one of the ways we're trying to build credibility and you know, and that's kind of an outside the box kind of PR type thing Just saying, hey, listen, if you're getting recognized by outside organizations, you know, one of the things that we always look for are there industry awards that we can nominate ourselves for, or things that we should be applying for that are an opportunity Again, because those are things, those are press releases right, those are ways to get in front of other folks.
Speaker 2:And it builds credibility? Yeah, absolutely, and I think there are a lot of companies that are really good at doing that. I just wrote up something for one of those, for one of our member companies, this week, and I think people shouldn't be afraid to ask. Ask your number one client, ask someone that you work with in the community, ask someone you serve on a board with, ask your chamber, like, hey, could you write a letter of recommendation? Could you kind of put this out there? Could you give me a quote for this? Because we're applying for XYZ awards. I do think that the awards are nice to have. I mean, it's great to have them cluttering up your office, but it does give you a different level of credibility and they generally have their own PR built into them, which again it's kind of a double bonus, right?
Speaker 1:Again, because those types of things when they say, hey, we're announcing the awards, guess who won the award? Right, you want to be on that list. So that's just another different way to kind of promote yourself that I don't think a lot of people think about. Again, I'm not good about it either. I was talking to John today. I'm like I'm really bad at tooting my own horn, but we've got to think about that if we want to continue to kind of grow and so forth.
Speaker 2:And I think you should. I mean, you can look at some of the companies that do it well, like the one I talked to this week. They do it well. They're in hospitality, they've won many, many know, I don't know, yeah, but there's, you know, the payroll expert of, you know, the state of Maine, but there's awards in every industry. Exactly, there's, you know, industry associations.
Speaker 1:Even if you're, you know, you become the chairman of an industry association or something, you know someone, something big like that happens. You know we have a national association that we're members with, um, you know. I think there's a lot that can be said about that. So, but yeah, so what's the one takeaway? If you're gonna say, hey, mr small business, you need to think about when you're thinking about pr basic, if you had one thing, only one thing, you could do, what would it be from a pr perspective?
Speaker 2:oh my gosh. Um, I mean, I guess, tutor on horn, learn. Learn to get yourself out there. Learn to put yourself out there. Even if you send 10 press releases and not you know, one of them gets picked up. You haven't wasted anything, but maybe a few minutes for each and you're out there, and if it turns into a bigger story, that's kind of invaluable and it's free pr what's the?
Speaker 1:is it all news or all publicity is good publicity? I don't believe that I was just got checking that. I don't know nowadays social media?
Speaker 2:no, I don't think so. Yeah, no, and I think that's a big part of pr people don't think about like crisis management that's a whole other podcast, but really, really, quick.
Speaker 1:I mean I think you know we've we've been there where there have been businesses that have been caught in some sort of controversy right. And the paper is reaching out to them. You're not reaching out to them, right? They're reaching out to you and you know, I guess my advice would be don't ignore that Never ignore it.
Speaker 2:You want to control the narrative you want to print. You want to tell them what you want them to know. You don't want them to hear it from 10 people who have a completely different skewed, perhaps, view of what happened. You know you want them to get the truth and even if it's bad, talk, talk. You don't. You can work with someone else on a statement, even if it's just a statement you send, but don't ever be silent, because when you're silent, people fill in the blankss.
Speaker 1:Right, and you have certainly helped some business in the community with that. You know, with controversies and things, so that's been and you're right. I think once you make that statement, you've found even if it's just posting it to your Facebook page or whatever wow, okay, people actually are hearing your side of the story and 99% of the comments on the one I'm thinking of were very positive toward the business. Right, that gosh, we understand that there was this crazy person that caused a stink and you know we still love you. Right, maybe you screwed up, maybe you didn't, you know. Okay, if you did, we forgive you and that's real life, right, and we move on. I mean that's.
Speaker 2:It's the same for Google reviews, yelp reviews. I mean with the businesses that took the time to say yep, you're right, we fell short here and here's what we're doing, and we took it to our management team and boy, we've made changes. Great People respect that and they're willing to give you another shot, rather than the people who just ignore it or fight with people even worse.
Speaker 1:Those are the most entertaining. What do you mean?
Speaker 2:Yeah, for the rest of us to read Well good, well, that's kind of a quick PR 101.
Speaker 1:I think the good, the bad and hopefully not the ugly for most businesses. But if that does happen, find a crisis manager communications person right Exactly To help you manage that. Hopefully it's not too too bad, but well good, Well, thanks. How do folks get in touch with you if they want to chat with you further about?
Speaker 2:this Director at GoKennabunks with an S at the end com.
Speaker 1:Perfect, so reach out to Laura if you have any questions. Well, all right, don't forget like follow share rate review. We are everywhere online all the socials, all the podcast channels, and we will see you next week. Thanks everybody. Thanks for listening to this week's episode of Small Business, big World. This podcast is a production of Paper Trails. Payroll across all social media platforms and check us out at papertrailscom for more information. As a reminder, the views, opinions and thoughts expressed by the hosts and guests alone. The material presented in this podcast is for general information purposes only and should not be considered legal or financial advice. By inviting this guest to our podcast, paper Tra,
