Tell us a little about PR Guru and your role?
I am the creator of PR Guru, a do it yourself publicity platform for artists, designers, photographers, authors and small business owners wanting to get media coverage for their event, product or service to build their profile and increase attendance or sales.
What are the five words that people who know you would use to describe you?
Committed, driven, generous, enthusiastic, hardworking
Tell us about PR Guru and what you can do to help Artist, Designers & Creative Professionals?
PR Guru has all the tools to enable you to know how to do your own PR to get media attention. There’s a grassroots DIY Publicity Guide – a book that tells you how to go about conducting a media campaign, a write my press release service, and over 40 media contact lists that range from arts, lifestyle, what’s on, features to news and regional editors in Australia.
What was the purpose on starting PR Guru and how has the concept come about?
Having run a PR agency for 25 years (JMM Communications) where we have worked on major arts, photography and literary events, I know that most independent artists can’t access PR companies due to funding constraints. Knowing this, I decided to demystify what we do everyday in our PR agency and make available tools that help small businesses get media coverage. Enter PR Guru (www.prguru.com.au) an online do it yourself publicity service that we launched in June this year.
What are the most common issues that relate to artists &designers who come to see you?
Not having a large enough promotion budget to publicise the fabulous things that they are going, and not knowing how to approach the media with their story and what they are looking for?
Tell us more about your services that you provide to the creative industry ?
For starters, we have a very accessible jargon-free DIY Publicity Guide that is a blueprint for getting media coverage. It tells you really useful things such as when to contact the media – some need to be sent information 3-4 months in advance, how to conduct a media call prior to an event to get advance coverage, what makes a good press release, building relationships with the media and much more.
Our media database contact lists contain names, email addresses and phone number of journalists, editors and producers so that you can send an email direct to their inbox, follow up and chat to the contact.
Our press release writers ensure that they pinpoint your news so that your press release gets noticed by journalists and doesn’t go to junk mail.
Tell us about your process for working with clients?
It’s simple, as its do-it-yourself PR, log on any time to www.prguru.com.au to purchase our DIY Publicity Guide, press release writing service and targeted Australian media lists. If you purchase a press release simply fill in the questionnaire online, and we deliver it to you within 24 hours or 4 days.
However, look closer and you’ll see lots of ‘free’ stuff as well. There’s Tips on what makes news in your business, you can subscribe to our monthly newsletter Taboo. We interview media personalities, editors and the gatekeepers, as well as profile other small business owners that have successfully done their own PR and also notify of changes in the media. And, the PR Guru blog always has useful tips on getting publicity.
What advice can you offer to artists & designers who are just starting out ?
Remember publicity is one of the most valuable ways of getting the word out there about you! It’s considered more credible than advertising. And, it’s free – any bit of editorial that appears, you don’t have to pay for. So you need to get started.
For your publicity tool kit, ensure you have fabulous photos and a well written press release.
And, if you’re running an event or have a gorgeous product, consider giving away complimentary tickets or promotional copies to the ‘what’s on’ media – because this is another way to get free editorial coverage.
Do you have a book that you would like to recommend?
It has to be our own PR Guru’s DIY Publicity Guide available from the PR Guru website. It’s extremely grassroots account on what to do (and what not to do), plus it has an enormous amount of tips, checklists, templates and useful links.
Where do we find your services?
