Kate Betts Blog

If you run a business it is possible to do your own PR. In fact I have spent the last four years going round Yorkshire and the East Midlands running a seminar called “How to get free publicity in the media” or, as I like to call it, “DIY PR”.

I do believe a lot of small businesses can do their own PR up to a point. But you need to put effort into it, you need to find time to do it and you need to have the inclination to do it.

And there may become a time when you don’t have all of those – or the company just becomes too big. So this is when you need to call in outside help. We all need to bring in others to help from time to time, whether it is legal experts, financial experts, marketing experts or PR experts.

I spent the first few years running my business doing all my own accounts, but now they have just become too complicated – so I pay an accountant. He knows what he is doing, and the time I save getting him to sort out capital allowances and dividends is time I can spend focusing on running the business and doing things that I do understand. (And he saves us money!)

It may also be that writing is just not your strength. And even in these days of social media and all sorts of clever methods of distributing information, if that information is not written in a way that can be easily understood it will be ignored. In other words, press releases that are better written have far more chance of being used – it’s obvious. So there may come a time when it is worth calling in outside help. But before you do; ask, what they can do that you couldn’t? You wouldn’t engage a plumber who is no better than you at plumbing, so does that PR agency really add value? Do they have contacts and skills that you don’t? Unfortunately, as with builders and plumbers, there are a lot of PR cowboys out there.