DIY PR by Penny Haywood Calder

There's no shortage of paid help and expensive subscriptions to keep you abreast of environmental legislation for business, but there are some great free resources. Use them to create an Environmental Management System (EMS) to demonstrate your serious commitment to the environment. And reduce the likelihood of expensive fines by keeping up to date with a number of recent changes that affect most businesses.

At a time when businesses need every edge they can get, being able to demonstrate credible green credentials is a real PR plus - a key business asset.

Log onto useful free resources at the http://wwwnetregs.gov.uk/ site, which has been recently re-vamped. It includes a questionnaire http://ping.fm/iaVafnetregs/links/97472.aspx)where you can get a bespoke answer as to your environmental compliance requirements.

That will give you a legislation list, which is the start of your EMS. You will find out how each individual piece of legislation impacts on your type of business using the search tools on www.netregs.gov.uk. Netregs will stream info according to business type and the regional variants for Scotland, England & Wales, plus Northern Ireland.

Environment legislation is driven by Europe and there are more changes in the pipeline. It's worth signing up for the Netregs updates to stay up-to-date.

Labels: DIY PR, environment, green car, Penny Haywood, PHPR, PR

I'm all in favour of business networking, and word of mouth is the most effective type of publicity, but it is limited to relatively small numbers because it is a one-to-one form of communications.

The grand-daddy of the one-to-many approach is media relations (both online and offline media), not only because it delivers the big numbers, but it also carries a powerful media editorial endorsement.



Like an award (which makes you forever an award-winning business) you can use a media accolade on all your publicity materials: as seen on TV/in the FT.com…. This confers a lot of credibility on your business and inspires confidence.



And we are talking of reaching very large numbers indeed: thousands of people.

Every town has a collection of local media, from community radio, newspapers, online sites and local interest magazines onwards, so look out for outlets for your news.

And don't forget the newsletters and blogs for the business clubs and the trade press relevant to you and your business.



Add a few of these up: it would take you several lifetimes to network with that lot. A really good story could reach them all in one single day!




For every person who contacted the business as a result of reading or hearing about you through the media, there were thousands in various stages of near readiness to buy, who needed a few more nudges with information and contact to finally land the sale.



That's why PR needs to work alongside marketing and sales.

• PR raises awareness and confers credibility.


• Marketing describes the features and benefits of your offerings and decides how to position them in the market (positioning for price, gaps in the market, distribution etc versus your competitors).


• Sales matches the benefits to an individual buyer's particular needs and handles the mechanics of the sale and after sales service liaison. And manages the relationship to get customer referrals and case studies to further boost your business.

Labels: DIY PR, Edinburgh, marketing, media relations, on and offline PR, online PR and marketing, Penny Haywood, sales