Why Public Relations is Key to Successful Marketing

It doesn’t matter whether you are a farmer with one holiday let, or a park owner with multiple accommodation units – you need to have both public relations and marketing activity to help you stand out. Glamping in particular has become a crowded market place with many land owners diversifying and offering an experience on their land. To make your offering stand out, you need to invest in promoting the experience on multiple channels – and that doesn’t mean just paying for some adverts.

The main difference between PR and marketing is that PR focuses on building and maintaining a positive reputation for your brand or business, while marketing focuses on directly promoting and selling; think social media posts compared to social media adverts.

Obviously a business needs to make money, so marketing activity is essential, but you won’t get bookings if your online reputation and presence is poor – no matter how much marketing you do.

Before a potential customer makes a booking, they will look at a number of things to help them decide who to spend their hard earned cash with. Your prices will play an important part, but so will how they feel about your brand. They will look at online reviews (and how you responded to them), check out your social media to get a real feel for your destination – they may also Google you to see if any articles come up, good or bad. So, what can you do to improve your PR?

Michelle Nichols

Director of Purple Pitch Communications

Organic Social Media Management

This is all about posting regular, engaging content on your social media to bring your experience to life. It’s a great way to build a loyal, dedicated audience who can help market your offering with likes, shares and comments – for free!

Review Stays/Familiarisation Visits

You may have seen other sites being reviewed in newspapers or magazines. Working with media and influencers to review your accommodation can result in a huge increase in traffic to your website and social channels, improving your search engine optimisation and increasing bookings.

Media Relations

You will undoubtedly have a story to tell from time to time. Whether it’s the launch of a new venture, new units, enhancements such as hot tubs or ensuite facilities, or a special event –they will all make a great news story for local newspapers and trade media, securing you free coverage and promotion. Getting articles published which link back to your website will also improve your Google rankings!

Awards

There may be awards you could enter, but you don’t have time to research the right ones and do the applications. But, winning an award can give you amazing positive coverage and undoubtedly increase your bookings.

Any business wanting to encourage people to book with them rather than a competitor would benefit from PR. It’s all about creating your story, building trust and advocacy in your target market, developing your brand personality and showcasing the experience you offer.

Find out more at purplepitchcomms.co.uk.