Do You Need A PR Team?
In episode 4 of our Big Plans Podcast, we discussed another question we received about whether or not you REALLY need a PR team to grow your sticker shop. Shout out to our own amazing PR team who we appreciate so so much! It can take time to get to this point, so we’re sharing what we’ve learned along the way.
We also answer some frequently asked questions like compensation and finding the right PR team members.
First let’s breakdown how you actually recruit influencers and how we structure our own PR team:
- How to find influencers:
- We use Google forms to create applications to join our PR team and vet applicants through their profiles. We ask for information like: social media handles/accounts, where are they based, and why they want to work with us.
- If you’d rather not use a Google form or application, another suggestion is to reach out to customers who are already using your stickers that match your criteria and ask if they are interested in joining your PR team.
- What we look for in a PR team member: our decision is not based on their follower count. Rather, we base it on the photo quality of their posts, if they post regularly, what’s their style of planning and if we’re a good match. It’s also important that the applicant has a public profile (obviously we can’t review a private account) and that their account is related to planning.
- Note: We have a really diverse PR team even though we didn’t take any of that into account! We literally just looked at the quality of their profiles. So something you may want to consider is diversity in the representation of your team.
- Responsibilities of PR team members:
- If you use an application process, be sure to list the PR team member responsibilities so it is clear what is expected of them.
- Our PR team responsibilities are to share details about sales, post promos and coupon codes (mainly in their IG stories), and help design their PR freebie that will go out in orders for customers who enter their name in the order notes.
- Other shops may choose to do things differently and might require posting x amount of times a week, or ask their PR team for other responsibilities like providing input on designs.
- How we compensate our PR team members and use “Acorns” for tracking points:
- When they join we give them shop credit so that they can get products right away and share about our products with their followers. Sometimes we send them products, as well. They also have their own promo code that they can use for a bigger discount in the shop.
- We use an app on Shopify called Acorns, which helps us track and manage our influencers. It uses a points system for earning rewards (in our case, shop credit). They can earn points by posting on IG and mentioning our shop, sharing their unique link to our shop, and sharing their own PR code. We used to have a manual point system, but Acorns is much easier for tracking. For shops on Shopify, check out Acorns and try out the free version. (Note that Acorns is only for Shopify, not Etsy.)
So, do you need a PR team?
- No, it’s not necessary to have a PR team and it can potentially be very time consuming to manage, but they can be a lot easier to manage with Acorns.
- Don’t expect to have an increase in sales from having a PR team, it’s just a way to get your products in front of more eyeballs and grow brand awareness.
- There are also other ways to help promote your shop besides a PR team, for example referral programs (like Smile.io), affiliate programs, and sending influencers your products to talk about with their audience.
Question: Do you like having a PR team?
Answer: Yes, we have an amazing PR team!
Question: Are PR teams a good way to grow?
Answer: With so many shops, it’s a good way to get your shop and new releases out there to be seen by more people. It’s nice to have a PR team when you’re a little more established, since that way you can also get more quality applicants.
Whether or not you choose to have a PR team, we hope you’ve learned some helpful tips from our experience, and once you’ve set it up hopefully it will be easy for you to maintain. We typically look for new applicants about every 6 months, but we encourage you to set the term length that works best for you.
Got any stories or lessons you’d like to share? Send them in so we can share them with our listeners! Or if you’d like to send in a question for us to answer, feel free to comment below or message us.
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xo, Lisa & Lucy
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