What is Public Relations?

At a time when people live behind their phones and knee-deep in social media, it’s easy to see why public relations and its meaning is blurry and confusing. Public relations as its core is building mutually beneficial relationships between a brand or person and the public. Another way of defining PR, in a similar vein, is building and maintaining a positive image of a brand or organization to the public. These are simply broad explanations of public relations. Of course, there are micro definitions and different ways of going about maintaining a brand in the public eye. However, for clarity’s sake, we will use our broad definition of PR.

Once a public relations agency or individual works with a new brand, there are multiple layers of representation depending on the size of the brand, organization, or person. A large consumer goods brand requires different beauty public relations than a new, niche upstart skincare brand with very few SKUs. Many big beauty and fashion brands produce hundreds of products across different categories. Often, each of those categories requires their own public relations. Take a large corporation like Unilever as an example: They own and produce several different beauty lines. Each of those different brands require their own public relations. A bath line requires different positioning in the public compared to a skincare brand. All brands under a large umbrella need their own strategic PR to present them in the best possible light to the public.

Social media adds another layer to public relations. Social apps such as Instagram put brands and their founders directly in front of the public. Think of all of the beauty brands and influencers that were called out in 2018. Vox media refers to the drama and fallout as callout culture. This year saw many beauty brands air their dirty laundry online. As various brands’ drama unfolded, consumers were quick to leave comments on their Instagram accounts. Many beauty brand founders found themselves in hot water after trying to protect what they created by not responding from a place of clarity. Often their retorts were rude, judgmental, and overall not professional. Public relations is a must in the world of social media. The beauty public relations industry must be proactive in schooling brand founders they represent in the finer points of PR. If a brand founder has a public, personal account on Instagram, they must post and comment with the public and consumers in mind. It doesn’t bode well when a beauty brand founder goes off the rails on Instagram. It’s a sign to the public that there isn’t a professional behind the brand. Remember, public relations positions a brand in a favorable manner to the public.

Public relations in today’s age must guide brands and their founders and teach them how to present themselves and their products in the best light possible. The public is always listening and reading. When something negative happens surrounding a brand, many of the public never forget. In this digital world of social media, public relations agencies and freelancers have their a lot on their plate. Instagram alone is nearly a full time job for PR. Public relations is always evolving, yet it is still fundamentally about relating a product or brand favorably to the public. PR is simply much harder now because the public is everywhere - offline, online, etc.

How to Select the Right Beauty Public Relations Agency

As the founder of a new beauty brand, the thought of public relations is daunting. It’s hard enough to get a brand off the ground- from the original idea, to ingredient creation, packaging, working with off-site production, it’s exhausting and mentally draining. Most public relations agencies have no idea what it’s like to create a brand from scratch. Edith Press is one of the few boutique PR firms co-founded by a brand founder. We have experience what a brand founder goes through before researching beauty public relations.

Not all public relations agencies are created equally. Many are large where publicists work on several different accounts at one time. These have a time and a place, but for small and growing beauty brands, we recommend boutique PR firms. Also, not all publicists are the same. Because your brand is new, doesn’t mean you don’t need PR- you deserve for your new line to be recognized. We hope to shed insight into what to look for when searching for a beauty public relations agency.

1.) Boutique Agency

As a new beauty brand, Edith Press recommends searching for smaller, boutique agencies. Boutique PR firms are smaller than their counterparts and often cater to niche and growing brands. Many publicists working for boutique public relations firms have fewer accounts to manage which means they can dedicate more time to each client. There are many boutique agencies which specialize in beauty.

2.) Ask Questions

Public relations is expensive and many new brands end up working with several different firms before they find the right fit. Before working with an agency for the first time, it’s important to understand what you are looking for. Via Google search, you will undoubtably come across many boutique public relations firms. Reach out via email to ask if they work via month to month retainer or if they make you sign a 3 or 6 month contract. Also ask about the monthly retainer fee. Don’t be scared to ask if they have startup packages which differ from monthly retainers. Sometimes public relations firms use a concept similar to pay-per-placement. The client pays them a small pitching fee and then if the agency lands them press, they pay another bonus.

Figure out your budget and when you hear back from a boutique PR agency, ask if they can work with that. The worse they can say is no.

3.) Print and Digital

Another important aspect in selecting the right beauty public relations agency is knowing how they pitch media. As you probably know, print magazines are downsizing with some even closing. Newsstand sales have been in a slump for a while, but that’s nothing new. We still believe print media is incredibly important. We believe it’s never safe to put all of your media eggs in one basket - such as digital. When you find a boutique agency you like, find out if they pitch to both print and online. What no one is telling you is that readership on many online sites is also down. Eyeballs are important offline and online.

4.) Client Base

When our co-founder worked with public relations, she found many had attitudes towards brands and founders who weren’t based in NYC or LA. Judgmental, right? So many talented business owners are spread across the United States; it’s incredibly closed minded to think only top tiered talent exists in certain large cities. If you are close to signing with a new boutique beauty public relations agency, ask if they have clients throughout the country.

If you would like more guidance how to select a beauty PR agency, simply get in touch and Edith Press will help you as much as we can.

What’s your PR Plan?

Public Relations is often the last box small and growing brands check off their list. More often then not, there aren’t enough funds to even hire a freelance publicist or a public relations firm. We understand. We know what it’s like to be on the brand side as one of our co-founders also designs and manufactures a fashion brand. Our in-depth knowledge of both sides gives us a very unique perspective and it’s one most PR people don’t have.

Even if you have no money left after producing a new line of products, you still need to think about PR and come up with a plan; even if it’s DIY. After all, what good is a newly created product if no one knows about it? You can easily start implementing small fashion PR steps that ultimately help the bottom line.

1.) Make sure your website is up-to-date and has excellent on-page SEO. That means your meta tags, site title, and description need to be concise and informative. Don’t forget to use one of your top keywords in the site title and one to two keywords in its meta description. You can do all of this for free on your own.

2.) If you are e-commerce, set up a separate blog on your site. Though most big SEO’s now say an additional blog won’t help as far as search results, we still recommend one. Your blog is a great area to go into greater detail about your products and/or new collections. And, it’s content. Google still loves content. Obviously content off your site with a backlink to your URL is the best, content connected to your site is still fine. Your blog is also a way to be your own spokesperson and if you are a halfway decent writer, it’s free.

3.) Photograph your products and create line sheets. If your products are easy to photograph and you are fine handling a camera, be your brand’s own photographer. You can rent a good camera and lens online, make a white backdrop, and shoot away. I like to shoot my products outside, but of course away from the sun. After shooting your products, you may need to knockout the background and add various shadows. Hire a freelancer on freelancer to do this. Next, create your own line sheets; we use Illustrator or PS. Line sheets are used to show case each product with size and price. The canvas of a line sheet can be the size of a sheet of paper and all background must be white. Line sheets need to be simple and to the point- no fancy fonts, no over embellished images.

4.) Start reaching out to influencers and editors. Most email contacts are easy to track down, so don’t think you can’t do this part on your own. Make each email personable, address them by their name, and never send mass emails. Each email should have an upbeat tone, introduce yourself and your brand, but keep it as short as possible. Attach line sheets to each email.

These are just a few of many DIY public relations steps you can do yourself without hiring a fashion public relations firm. When your budget increases the next step is to look into hiring a PR specialist. Many public relations firms have differently priced packages. Ask a lot of questions before signing a contract; you don’t want to be stuck paying several thousand dollars a month if sales are down. Look into a PR firm that bills by the month.