What Are Local Public Relations?

If public relations is maintaining a positive image for a brand, local public relations is the act of maintaining that image at the local level, usually in the area where the brand or business is located.

PR is also about developing brand awareness and communicating with the customers you’re trying to reach. As a small business, it can be difficult to do this on a national level, especially if you’re just getting started. Local PR lets you build up a customer base in your local area while giving yourself the potential to grow nationally and globally.

If you’ve been wanting to get locals aware of your brand and visiting your website, but aren’t sure where to start, read on to learn more about local PR and how you can use it to grow your business.

Three Strategies to Get Started With Local PR

Local public relations doesn’t have to be complicated. Sometimes it’s as simple as doing something for your community and getting the local media involved. Below are three easy strategies to help you on your way.

Find the Local Angle

First, you need to figure out your angle when it comes to your area. You shouldn’t be focused only on what your town can do for you. Instead, figure out your town’s unique culture and ask yourself what you can do for the people there. Is there a charity, organization or another small business you can help?

When you tap into the culture of your community, you’ll be able to resonate with the people there, make a true impact and build your brand awareness. When you’re helping your community, you’ll often find that people want to help you.

Host Local Events

Local events are a great way to boost your local public relations. Think of events you can host that benefit your community in some way while also increasing your exposure. You may want to work with another organization or team up with another local business to plan an event.

Now’s the time to get creative. There may be businesses that naturally fit with yours, such as if you run a digital music startup and there’s a music store in town. If not, there are still ways to make connections. For example maybe your connections can provide music for an event held at a local car dealership.

Use Local PR for More Exposure

Reach out to local media any time you’re helping the community, doing something new or hosting an event. Local media loves to cover anything interesting going on in the area, so you may get some good coverage. You may even be able to attract the attention of national media after being featured in your local media.

As an added bonus, if your local media outlet links to your company’s website, then you may get some local SEO traffic.

How to Improve Local Public Relations

In the past, you may not have had much of a local focus when it comes to relations and marketing, especially if you’re attempting to serve a wider market than just your area. People in your area may not even be aware of your business. If you’d like to change that, you can come up with a strategy to improve your local PR.

In addition to hosting events, there are some other strategies you can use. If you aren’t already on social media, you need to create accounts for your business. You should use your social media to reach locals in your area. As you get involved in the community, share your social information. You can also use your social account to reach out to potential customers, such as holding contests or doing live presentations.

Word of mouth also plays a big role in local PR. You can’t have a lot of control over word of mouth other than by providing excellent customer services. The more you do for your customers, even before they make a purchase or before anything goes wrong, the more likely they’ll be to tell others about your local business.

What Are the Challenges of Local Public Relations?

One local public relations challenge that you may face is if you offer a product or service that doesn’t have a market in your area. For example, you may own a business that ships vegan and organic foods but are located in a small town where the local cuisine skews towards meat and fried foods.

While getting people to buy in to what you’re selling may be a challenge, it’s not completely out of reach. Think of ways that you can make your product appealing and get people excited about.

Or you may offer something that isn’t as familiar to the people in your area. Let’s say you run an SEO service. Many people have never even heard of SEO, but if there are small businesses in your town, they can benefit from SEO. You’ll need to educate these businesses on what you do and how you can help them.

What Are the Benefits of Local Public Relations?

There are many benefits to shifting your focus to local public relations. It’s often easier to reach people who are local, whether through local media or other avenues. If you’re doing things to help your communities, then you’ll be surprised at the type of loyalty you can build.

You can even use great local PR to get national PR. Sometimes a great story can get national attention, especially if it’s something that has the potential to scale. If your local media is reporting a story on you, it may get picked up by national media.

What Are the Best Practices for Doing PR Locally?

One of the most important things you can do when it comes to local PR is to make sure that what goes on inside your business matches the image that you present to the world.

You also need to analyze your area. You’ll be wasting your time and money if you’re using tactics that don’t resonate with the people in your area. Figure out what people need and want and the best places where you can reach them.

You should also listen to any feedback you get. If people are willing to tell you what works and what doesn’t work, you can make adjustments accordingly.

Local PR Tactics That Work Online

If you’re trying to up your local public relations online, then you’ll need to focus on local SEO, or optimizing your page to rank in local search engine results. One aspect of local SEO is getting backlinks to your website through local media, businesses and organizations. A backlink is simply a link to your site from another site and it’s a signal to Google that your site is worthwhile. There are several tactics you can use for link building.

Sponsorships

There are many types of sponsorships that you can use as a way to get your name in front of a local audience. Your business can sponsor an organization, event, individual or team. If the sponsorship gets media coverage, you may also get a local backlink to your company website

Organizations

You don’t necessarily have to sponsor an organization, but you can work with them in some capacity. You can host an event or collaborate in some way. If you can get some local media coverage, such as on a community blog or online news source, you may be able to get a backlink.

Editorials / Columns

Do you have something to say that’s of interest to the people in your location? Consider writing an editorial for the local newspaper or try to get a column. For example, maybe you have a business focused on finance. You could write a column with financial tips for readers. If the paper has an online component, be sure to ask for a link back to your website.

Guest Posts

If there are individuals or businesses in your area with successful blogs, you can ask to do a guest post on a topic where your business and their blog intersect. You’ll get a byline with a backlink to your website.

Directories

Directories are still an option when it comes to link building. A directory is an online list of websites around a particular topic. If there’s a website with a list of local businesses, you can always submit your business’s site to the list. It’s not the most effective form of link building, but it doesn’t hurt.

What Is the Balance Between Doing PR Locally and Nationally?

Both local and national PR are imperative to your business. Local PR is often your foot in the door to getting national awareness for you brand. If you start with a solid local PR strategy, you can then move into regional PR and get into trade publications in your industry. From there, you can start to operate on a national level. Just remember that you need to continually come back to local PR, as it’s critical to your business at any stage.

Conclusion

If you’re ready to build your local public relations with high quality link backlink strategies, contact us today to discuss your business’s needs.