Building Profile for National Associations
Powerful, highly effective PR campaigns are not just the domain of brands, and here at Zeus PR we take great pride in showcasing incredible non-profit member organisations.
One such as example is APDO, the UK's professional body for decluttering and organising professionals, which sets standards, provides professional development and supports the growth of the industry.
Zeus PR has been supporting ADPO and their members, as the retained PR agency for 2.5 years, a role which has seen us generate significant awareness of the association, and of the phenomenal offering of its highly knowledgeable membership.
By sharing the expert insight of the APDO members via editorial comment in the national media, and within broadcast interviews, we support their position as the major authority in both general home organisation as well as in more specialist areas such as productivity, hoarding and digital organisation.
We also work very closely with the APDO board in securing press exposure for APDO’s major events such Spring Clearing Week and National Organising Week, as well as supporting their involvement in major national exhibitions such as the annual Clean & Tidy Home Show.
And the exposure speaks for itself!
By working closely with our media contacts, we have achieved high netting editorial profile for APDO in major titles such in the Sunday Times, Ideal Home, Woman and Home, Living Etc, House Beautiful, each and every month.
Zeus PR has secured for APDO over 250 items of media coverage across both national print and digital media channels, supporting not only brand awareness, but also enhancing their SEO substantially with more than 200 powerful links from high domain authority websites.
To find how Zeus PR can support your organisation call us on 01260 275372 or email anthea.fosti@zeuspr.co.uk
Lasting Client Relations... Decades of Success
We take immense pride in the longevity of our client relationships here at Zeus PR, having supported many businesses for several years with hard-working PR campaigns. One such client – our very first client, in fact – is Abbey College Manchester, a leading independent college based in the city centre, for which we have enjoyed a partnership spanning fifteen years.
Following many successful years supporting Abbey College Manchester, we have since relished the opportunities to service all other colleges within the group including Abbey College Birmingham, Abbey College Cambridge and DLD College London – with who we are celebrating a decade of working with at the time of writing.
As an agency, we have collaborated closely with the internal college teams over the years, supporting the inspirational establishments with targeted education PR and marketing to raise awareness of the unique offerings and drive pupil recruitment in an increasingly competitive marketplace.
Throughout the PR programmes to date, a significant amount of media coverage has been generated, highlighting and showcasing pupil achievements, new first-class facilities, key milestones, pioneering academic programmes, exciting initiatives and extra-curricular activities, and industry insight and advice to name just a few examples. Opportunities to profile the colleges have been secured across national and regional print and digital media, education-specific press, and broadcast platforms by combining PR tactics such as powerful news placement and press release distribution, negotiating expert comment opportunities and editorial, thought-leadership feature placement.
If you’d like to talk to a member of the team to discover how we can support your business, get in touch.
PR Campaigns for Professional Service Providers: A Multi-Channel Approach
At Zeus PR, building our clients’ reputations on multiple platforms via high-quality press coverage is our forte.
This is an effective approach to generating valuable exposure and widening reach for professional service providers, and a great example of this is our work over the last year with leading law firm SAS Daniels. Working with each of the departments across the organisation’s four offices, the Zeus PR team regularly showcases the expertise of the firm’s 120-strong legal specialists on local, regional and national levels.
Supporting the development of the firm’s corporate profile, we generate ample print and digital coverage for SAS Daniels on a monthly basis through powerful news placement across key local and regional business titles. We profile individual team members with advice-led features in prestigious regional lifestyle magazines for ongoing visibility, and with our wide network of journalist contacts, we successfully support the business to reach new clients through topical comment opportunities with national news outlets.
Through effective sector-specific media targeting, we also elevate the business’s profile in key national trade publications - with the wide range of services the firm offers, the opportunities with this element of the PR programme are extensive.
Whilst the firm’s expertise, technical know-how and friendly approach speak for themselves, our specialist PR support enables SAS Daniels to connect with its target audiences, convey its key messages and promote the core benefits it offers to its clients.
If you want to talk to us about boosting the reputation of your business, please get in touch.
Supporting the Launch of Sustainable Baby Brand, Their Future
At Zeus PR, we are devoted to boosting our clients’ presence, working hard to present each brand we represent with a constant flow of engaging ideas for brand activation, and gold-dust opportunities.
With our client base ranging from globally established businesses to fledgling start-up brands, we are liaising daily with our expansive network of contacts across multiple platforms, to identify and secure excellent exposure.
Over the past year, we have been delighted to have supported the birth of Their Future, the luxury sustainable baby brand, providing a bespoke service right from the initial stages of product development, to the official launch to market, and beyond!
A Success in The Press
With the task of raising awareness for Their Future’s utterly unique blanket, our strategy began with drafting the initial launch press pack, which was then issued wide to our highly relevant list of media targets across consumer, trade, and environmental news outlets.
Upon enlightening journalists to Their Future’s first-of-its-kind, super soft-touch blanket, it was safe to say that the campaign got off to a successful start, with the launch featuring in prestigious titles including The Business Desk, BBP Media, The Cheshire Magazine, Northern Life, etc.
And this was just the beginning, as to bolster the flow of coverage, we continued plugging away to position the blanket as the ultimate gift for both seasonal and evergreen product roundups.
Exceptional press coverage was generated as a result of this, with Their Future’s blanket awarding the status of ‘Best Baby Blanket’ by the iconic national news title, The Independent (which has an astronomical monthly reach of over 88 million readers), in a roundup of ‘52 Best Baby Shower Gift Ideas: Top Present Ideas New Mums and Dads will Love’.
Further exposure was then achieved in both the UK and Irish Daily Express, in a roundup of 'We love... New Baby Essentials', which featured in the hugely-circulated print issue, reaching over 933,000 readers daily.
Alongside national news titles, coveted motherhood media features were secured in online titles including Net Mums, within the publication’s roundup of ‘Best Baby Buys For Autumn’.
Targeting both print and online publications ensured a huge uplift in brand awareness, as well as the opportunity for increased traffic to the client’s website, with online publications including a ‘purchase now’ link, alongside the product’s RRP.
Influencer Outreach
To amplify the press launch campaign for Their Future, we liaised closely with motherhood and lifestyle influencers, ranging from highly-engaged micro-influencers, to large-scale macro influencers to provide gifting in return for a continuous flow of organic social media content.
From stunning and informative reels showcasing the blanket’s innovative properties, to new-born announcement grid posts featuring the blanket as the backdrop, influencers have continued to share an array of engaging content, month-on-month.
Managing our client’s social media feed ensured we were able to re-share influencer content as and when it came through, strengthening our existing calendar of curated grid and story posts.
Developing a relationship with influencers via our client’s direct messages also allowed us to also gain valuable product feedback, as well as in-depth testimonials for www.theirfuture.co.uk’s landing page, improving brand credibility and strengthening the overall appearance of the website.
To date, we are delighted to have secured Their Future an extended reach of over 200,000 new eyes, solely through our influencer outreach campaign.
Celebrity Brand Ambassador
Our support extended to sourcing and managing the high-profile celebrity brand ambassador partnership with E4 Made In Chelsea star, Tiffany Watson, who has a hugely relevant, and highly-engaged fanbase of over half a million followers on Instagram.
Making the perfect candidate for maximising Their Future’s sustainable brand launch, first-time mum Tiffany is a huge advocate for the planet-friendly movement, making conscious choices, and already partnering with aligning brands within the eco-friendly baby market.
Tiffany’s role is set to elevate the brand, delivering an ongoing array of exposure to her luxury motherhood audience, with the partnership including a schedule of social media content, a Their Future blanket photoshoot, attending Excel London’s The Baby Show (the UK's largest shopping and advice destination for all things baby) on the Their Future stand, as well as participating in press opportunities.
We always relish the opportunity to bring our big brand experience to new fledgling brands, helping them establish themselves within the relevant consumer market. For more information on how we can support and propel your brand into the limelight, please get in touch.
A Summer of Success for Southport Pleasureland
Looking back on what has been another incredibly busy and successful year supporting our valued clients, longstanding and new, the Zeus PR team is reflecting on the fantastic results achieved for Southport Pleasureland during a 6 month campaign.
Reigniting interest and positioning the iconic Merseyside amusement park as the ‘go-to’ destination for families throughout the spring and summer, Zeus PR employed a hard-working strategy to ensure a constant flow of content. This included a highly effective media relations campaign, twinned with a prolific influencer outreach programme for maximum results.
Overall, major exposure was achieved for Southport Pleasureland and its neighbouring attractions in the key target media, reaching over 328 million total readers, and featuring in over 30 titles (including Lancashire Live & The Liverpool Echo) across the 6-month period.
Kicking off to a cracking start over the Easter half-term when the park reopened for the 2023 season, the agency sparked parents’ desire for fun-filled days following a winter of hibernation by producing a ‘What’s On Guide’, which showcased an array of activities to delight the entire family. The guide was incredibly well-received by the press, generating significant coverage, as well as sparking national journalist requests to attend and review the attractions.
Following this, Zeus PR maintained a regular presence for Southport Pleasureland in the national, regional and local media by promoting the park’s action-packed schedule of family entertainment and events on a monthly basis, including the hotly anticipated ‘Dino Encounter’ days, the sell-out ‘Superhero’ days, and the ‘Emergency Service’ days.
Building on the press coverage generated through the promotion of the park’s popular events, Zeus PR also propelled Southport Pleasureland into the limelight through highlighting major park investments, charity sponsorships, and exclusive offers and deals, fulfilling the key campaign objective of generating a range of positive and regular news angles for the park. This in turn allowed for the park’s exciting developments to appear at the top of the search engine, following frequent coverage on highly-ranking online news outlets.
As part of the targeted, ongoing Southport influencer programme, Zeus PR identified highly engaged micro and macro influencers in the parenting and lifestyle sphere, offering gifted PR visits to enjoy with their families. This served to build the park’s social media presence through a range of exciting and organic content, as well as boosting profile engagement through influencers’ collaborative posts that appeared on Southport Pleasureland’s feed.
Over the course of the campaign, the agency secured reviews from a total of 57 influencers, resulting in an array of continued social sharing across multiple platforms, including Instagram, TikTok and YouTube. An impressive 387 stories and 42 grid posts were shared, with influencers continuing to promote park news and upcoming events following their gifted visits.
The influencer programme also fed into another of the park’s key campaign objectives of driving traffic to the website to boost Google rankings and online ticket sales, through links back to Southport Pleasureland’s website featured in influencers’ stories.
If you’d like to talk to us about how we can execute a proactive and effective PR campaign for you, please get in touch.
Most effective ways for travel brands to generate major national exposure
At Zeus PR we are passionate about growing travel brands, and we love a fun and creative PR campaign to give bookings a real boost. To accompany the more creative ideas however there are a number of failsafe Zeus PR campaign tactics that we employ across the board for guaranteed substantial exposure. In this blog, we are happy to share these for Travel Agents, Tourism Boards, Tour Operators, Resorts and Airlines wishing to make 2023 their best year ever…..
Prime Time TV Show Placement
What brand wouldn’t want free TV placement, in return for gifting a short break or week’s holiday. For many shows they don’t need to be extra lavish, and if the theme fits – a weekend break in Paris may work as well as a luxury 4* holiday in a resort.
On behalf of our clients we research key opportunities on up and coming shows in the pipeline, link in with the show’s producers and negotiate the best possible placement exposure. For several of our clients we have negotiated major exposure on top TV shows, from Saturday Night Takeaway with Ant & Dec, to All Star Family Fortunes.
Celebrity Ambassadors
Teaming clients such as icelolly.com up with major A’listers such as Stacey Solomon, or travel themed names such as we did with Place in the Sun’s Laura Hamilton for Teletext Holidays, to enjoy a holiday courtesy of your organisation, will extend your reach and profile considerably.
Add press shots, media interviews and a social media package into the mix and boom! You have hugely cost effective 360 PR campaign – with print and digital media and significant social media traction into mix.
Press Familiarisation Trips
What better way to secure super strong media reviews and build a long-term relationships, then plan an accompanied trip to enjoy the service / and or destination you are looking to promote.
Media & Influencer Reviews
We regularly speak to national travel editors and writers, partnering them up with gifted breaks for them to review. Domestic Breaks away work just as well, for example for our client, the bespoke Welsh coastal firm Ben & Holly’s Hideaways, we regularly set up weekend breaks for press reviews
National Newspaper Travel Pages & Magazines
By getting to know the format and lead-times of the national press travel pages you can secure inclusion at no cost in the weekly deals columns that are run over a weekend. Working closely with the travel editors, we do this on a weekly basis, and it’s not unusual for us to have clients featured each and every week in the travel sections for the major national newspapers from the Daily Mail and Express to the Daily Mirror and The Sun.
We Can Assist You!
If you would like to discuss further how we can propel your domestic or overseas travel brand, do get in touch……
Life Beyond the Launch
You’ve launched your new product, so what next? To grow your sales pipeline, you should be working towards having a constant presence in front of your target demographic.
So, how do you do this?
Give target consumers more reasons to love and purchase your product all year round - this is where a hardworking and well-executed PR campaign comes in.
Leveraging seasonality is a key part of our PR strategy for some of our FMCG clients. We generate significant media coverage on a regular basis for well-known food and beverage brands such as Horlicks and Drink me Chai, with media placement of recipes using the brand’s innovative products as a key ingredient.
We incentivised Horlicks lovers nation-wide to purchase during the summer months with placement of a range of dessert-inspired drinks recipes that were specially developed to be enjoyed cold, complemented by malty, toasty notes of Horlicks, in major national titles. This not only secures exposure for the brand, but also educates consumers on other ways to enjoy the product and promotes extended usage – this can work for most food and drink brands!
We run similar PR campaigns on an ongoing basis for Drink me Chai, the UK's leading alternative hot drink brand, securing product placement and recipe coverage in food and drink publications, women’s weeklies and high domain authority online magazines.
Leveraging seasonality to secure visibility and extensive reach month after month for our client, fragrance-led household brand Fabulosa, includes curating seasonal tips and advice with which to secure print and digital PR coverage in key target publications.
Creating a buzz not just initially but also beyond your product launch and attaching relevance is key to preserving your brand’s share of voice and getting your product noticed in a competitive market.
These tactics apply to brands of all sizes too; even if you are a small brand, there is no reason why you can’t get national coverage in glossy monthly magazines or on high-ranking digital sites!
If you want to find out what this could look like for your brand, we’d love to chat with you. Contact us on 01260 271450 or email anthea@zeuspr.co.uk.
Maximising PR for Homes & Interiors Brands
We are super proud of our specialism in providing homes and interiors companies of all sizes, with hard-working Lifestyle PR & marketing campaigns to successfully drive awareness of their brands and boost sales.
For those who are starting out, or simply haven’t considered as yet the value that can be brought to their business by editorial content rich Lifestyle & interiors PR strategies, we have put together several pieces of key advice to inform and turbo charge your brand!
1. Diligent media research
The first starting point in any PR campaign is to make sure you have an up-to-date media list with key press and influencer contacts across your target demographic. Set yourself a task of finding those key writers. Consider monthly and weekly home interest and consumer magazines, homes supplements and pages on the national newspapers and on digital channels together with home influencers.
Also, many magazines, newspapers and digital channels utilise home interest freelancers, so these are also key. Many of the more experienced freelancers work across several media titles.
Then input the data into a spreadsheet with full contact details so you can revisit and update on an on-going basis.
As an agency specialising in the homes sector, it is imperative for us to continually add to these lists. This allows us to ensure we have captured key moves as contacts move onto to other media channels. If you are doing your own PR outreach, we highly recommend you do the same.
Desk research on Google and Instagram is great for sussing out the main digital writers, and then sifting through the hard copies of the magazines and newspapers should help. Also make calls to the publishing houses (although since the lockdown it is increasingly hard to speak to journalists on the phone).
2. Strong imagery is key
Glossy home media and newspapers supplements, together with lifestyle digital magazines rely on beautifully styled images to adorn their pages.
It is definitely worth investing in a shoot, of both product shot cut-outs images on a white background, and also styled ‘lifestyle images’. Lifestyle images allow you to really ‘sell the product in a setting that shows it off to its best’ in a mock home or garden setting. Remember you are selling a 'desirable lifestyle'.
3. Getting your press information right
Whether you are launching a new product or range, or wishing to generate media attention and editorial coverage for an existing line, simply emailing a journalist will generally receive little attention without following a specific format.
For product pitches, keep it brief and always include the information in the body of the email. This should include detail prices, stockists and general product information, and a weblink. You should attach a high-resolution image/s (minimum resolution 300 dpi is standard.
Top home interiors journalists can receive 1000 email pitches a day, and missing info will only infuriate them. This may mean that you are potentially discounted from inclusion in a major feature in a key broadsheet!
4. Building & maintaining press and influencer relationships
Media and influencers value most highly those contacts who can supply content rich information and images in a timely format ahead of deadlines.
Once you have the media lists, make the most of them by reaching out to see how you can support any features in the pipeline that the contacts might be working on, as well as drafting a thank you email back to them after they have included you in one of their features!
After reading the above, if you simply don’t have the time or the resource to undertake a proactive PR and marketing campaign for your brand, we would be delighted to discuss how our agency can support you. Please contact anthea.fosti@zeuspr.co.uk
The Power of Awards – Writing a Winning Award Entry
For many clients, as part of their PR programme, we manage their company award-entry programme, achieving for them much success in securing coveted accolades and the heightened exposure which comes with the high-profile award schemes.
To assist businesses who haven’t as yet dipped their toes in the sometimes-confusing world of awards. Or perhaps those who have entered several without much success as yet. We have put together a brief guide sharing some key insights from our team.
Which awards are right for me?
This all depends on where you want to achieve exposure and increased visibility?
The first step is to identify the purpose – so for example, are you looking to showcase your achievements in a specific sector? If so, many sectors will have supplier awards – ideal for demonstrating the value you can bring to a legal, insurance, manufacturing or a healthcare business for example.
Or maybe you are interested in securing profile in a peer-to-peer awards programme i.e. within your own industry. Ideal for attracting interest from a potential buyer or investors if you want to benefit from funding, an exit or even take a step down from your business for example.
Regional business awards, may also be on your radar, for the same reasons above. Or are also useful for building your employer brand, and attracting interest from potential employees. Many programmes have employer recognition awards for instance.
How do I go about it?
Set time aside to research thoroughly which ones are worthy of your time. There are hundreds of schemes, and not all are equal!
Awards often have media titles aligned to them, which can be particularly beneficial as finalists and winners are typically profiled in the print issues and on their digital platforms, giving you free valuable exposure.
Also, some awards initiatives charge for entry – so internal budget considerations then come into play.
Be mindful of deadlines
Writing this blog in mid February 2022, we know from our experience and research that many of the schemes for this year have already closed.
Typically, the entry deadlines are 6-9 months before the glittering ceremonies take place, so if you see a competitor collecting an award that you could have pipped to the post, make an advance diary note once you have checked the entry date/ deadline for the following year so you don’t miss out.
Preparation as always is key
It is very difficult to sit down and draft an award with a blank sheet of paper. More often than not you need lots of details and need to be prepared to share data such as statistics to show key indicators to prove your case for example, demonstrating growth, efficiencies, happy clients giving testimonials, whatever will strengthen your case as to why you should win.
Start well in advance – maybe ask you clients as a project is coming to the end, if you can enter it into an award. Hopefully they will be very obliging as it will heighten their profile too!
Attend attend, attend
Presuming you follow our guidance; and have prepared your submission well, you should stand a good chance of being shortlisted for an award.
This being the case, whatever you do – you really must go to the ceremony!
Purchasing a ticket shows your interest, commitment and respect for the organisers.
Leveraging the Win
After all the effort that has gone into researching, preparing and submitting the entry, keep in mind the need to maximise the opportunity to the full.
Press releases and social posts on your channels can be employed effectively at timely points to give you a few ‘bites of the cherry’.
You should be announcing your delight at being shortlisted as you receive the news, and then posting perhaps in the run up to the ceremony.
With the cherry on top being your big win on the night, complete with a post-event press release and event images. This should be being issued to key media, shared on your website and on your social feeds to make sure no one is in doubt who won the award!
And if the above all seems too much…..
Hopefully after reading our guide, you feel much more equipped to go forth and win lots of awards, however the whole process can be very time consuming, so do feel free to enquire about how we can support you if this is the case.
After all, we love nothing more than seeing our clients collect another trophy for their cabinets!
Media Placement to Celebrate 2021 Client Successes and Sharing New Year Ambitions
We love nothing more than ending a year on a high, with lots of well-placed media coverage, promoting clients end of year successes and sharing their New Year visions for an even bigger and better following year as we enter 2022.
What a great way to celebrate the year gone by and whet appetites for what’s to come!
As a hard working and initiuitive PR agency, we relish compiling these media round ups across a whole host of sectors, hitting the press in a timely fashion to secure for our clients best in class digital and print press coverage in their target categories, whether this be inclusion in hard copy magazines and newspapers or on online media channels - in general business titles or in the vertical sector tech, healthcare, retail and other niche sector publications.
Examples include media releases produced for a tech company client – the software automation specialist Endpoint Automation Limited (EAS), who we were thrilled to announce that they doubled their turnover to £1.8m, and are now targeting £2.2 in 2022. The business has a lot to be optimistic about – it has laid firm foundations for future growth, as well as unveiling their latest initiative ‘EASy Way’ offering clients who use automation technology, a fully managed delivery and support service.
For our client, the innovative and award winning sustainable fabrics manufacturer Meryl Medical, we enjoyed the sharing some positive news for the global environment, as the firm sets to increase their 2022 mask production output by potentially 50% in response to the substantial consumer and industry calls for a sustainable alternative. The company is seeing a heightened demand for sustainable alternatives in light of an increasingly familiar sight of discarded disposable masks, causing irreversible harm to the environment, with an estimated 55 million single-use face masks used daily in the UK taking an average of 450 years to decompose.
We also manage similar business press placement campaigns for many of our consumer brand clients – we were particularly thrilled to share their year end achievements, and plans for 2022 growth, informing the business community and the fmcg sectors that they operate within. To illustrate, our home fragrance-led client Fabulosa, enjoyed another mammoth trading year in 2021 with £39m sales to 31st August 2021, and we worked with our media contact network to share their future ambitious growth plans by successfully announcing the opening of their landmark new site containing almost 60,000 sq ft of production, warehousing and operational office space.
And for another consumer client - Sollution Fires the new generation highly efficient, authentic and stylish electric fires brand, we were able to generate media exposure on yet another trading high for the manufacturer as they celebrate their massive acheivement of a substantial sales uplift of 58% in 2021, and now targetting a further 30% hike in turnover over the course of this coming year.
For the vast majority of our clients we run annual media placement campaigns, working with them throughout the year to share their news, supporting brand visibility and cementing industry positioning, as well as enhancing their SEO rankings with lots of valuable high domain authority organic media links pointing to their website.
If you think we can benefit your business, and would like an informal discussion on how we can support you across 2022 and beyond, please get in touch with Anthea Fosti on anthea@zeuspr.co.uk