In a recent episode of Smartpreneur, entrepreneur and host, Elsie Godwin sat down with Victoria Uwadoka, a seasoned PR expert with over 20 years of experience in various industries. As the CEO of Highstakes PR Professionals, Victoria shared her insights on the importance of strategic public relations in achieving business objectives.
In this excerpt from their conversation, Victoria discusses how businesses of all sizes can leverage PR, how to set effective PR strategies and engage key stakeholders to drive growth and success.
ELSIE: You’ve worked across Industries. What would you say is that one thing they all have in common when it comes to PR?
VICTORIA: Well, I think that our environment is still growing when it comes to understanding what public relations is about and I’ve seen that play out in various Industries, but another thing that I’ve come to see is that those who master the art of effective communications rule within their Industries and in their fields. The one thing that I’ve seen that is consistent among successful businesses, that have sustained their businesses and sustain their relationships with their clients and customers through the years, is an understanding of their audiences and understanding of how to communicate with them, you know, because communication is not about one cap fits all. So it’s not just about sending out information. It’s not just about posts. It’s not just about you know, just about publicizing your business. It’s about really having an engagement, an understanding, a relationship with your clients and public relations is that element that has helped to build successful businesses that I’ve seen through the years
ELSIE: A lot of people see public relations for the big guys, like the big companies. So speaking to an entrepreneur now or somebody watching that wants to understand the value of PR to their small business, how would you break down PR and how it affects small businesses?
VICTORIA: I’ll start from what the profession is or what the art is, which is about your publics. Your different audiences and is about relations and how you engage with them. That’s what this is about. A small business can leverage public relations when they do not have the big budgets for advertising. And that brings me to a point of separating advertising from public relations. Most times when you talk about public relations it’s confused with advertising. It’s confused with publicity. It’s confused with promotions. Public relations is actually understanding, first of all, who you are as a business. Second of all, what your priorities are as a business. What your personality is as a business. That means you need to understand your brand. And once you’ve understood your brand you need to understand what voice your brand has. And that voice of your brand has to be translated to your different audiences. So if I’m speaking to my shareholders, I need to speak in a language they understand and my voice to them has to be translated in the language, in the terms and in the things that matter to them. If I’m speaking to my suppliers, it’s a different voice. If I’m speaking to my consumers, it’s a different voice. If I’m speaking to my staff it’s a different method of communication. So public relations is really understanding these different audiences, understanding who they are, how they like to receive information, how they get information back to you. That means how they give you feedback because that’s what closes the cycle with communication and then breaking down your key messages to those audiences to get them to take the actions and have the behaviours and have the mindset that you want them to have. Why do I need to have an understanding of public relations because I can just say, you know what? I have social media. I know how to go on Facebook and I’m just going to post on Facebook and that’s why you see so many funny things going on on Facebook. People are doing exactly the same thing but not everybody needs the same thing. Who are you speaking to? Who is your audience? For example, if you’re offering services, like Highstakes PR professionals, I’m not going to to be dancing on Tik Tok or dancing on Instagram. That’s not what I’m going to be doing. I’m going to be talking to you about strategy, communications. I’m going to be talking to you about your environment and your brand. That’s what I’m going to be talking about. And how do I talk about it? I have to be professional. My voice and tone have to be professional and that’s what makes the difference. So public relations is really that low hanging fruit that a small and medium scale business can Leverage.
ELSIE: You’ve mentioned communications a lot in this conversation. It means that communication is at the heart of public relations. How can they (Businesses) begin to get communications right since it is not everyone that can employ someone to take up that role of PR manager at a small business that is just trying to grow. So what can they (Small businesses) do right in terms of communications? Are there tools or platforms they can go to for help?
VICTORIA: Oh, yes. So if you’re a small and medium scale business, I don’t think that you have the bandwidth to employ a marketer or a communications person or accountant, but there are tools that you can use and there are templates that you can use but with communication, it’s slightly different from just using an accounting tool because you need to understand yourself. So the first thing is to define your strategy. If you have not defined your strategy, you cannot employ any of the tools that are available. For example, there’s AI, chat GPT and others. There are so many AI-enabled content creators that can help you draft messages, but if you don’t know your voice, you’re going to sound very mechanical.
I would say to an SME; you need to invest in that part of your business. That’s one thing that if you get right you’ll get the rest of your relationships with your people right. Now people don’t buy brands or products. They buy the emotions that you create in them, the emotions that they experience when they relate with you and that is only gotten right when you have the right communication. So the first thing I’ll say is to define your communication strategy.
We’ve talked about understanding your brand and understanding your consumers that’s the first thing but when it comes to communication you really must invest time and some resources into defining your communication strategy. Once you’ve done that, step one is done and then your key messages are aligned into a tool that you can use which is readily available. That is your editorial calendar. What are you going to be talking about? When are you going to be talking about it? How are you going to be talking about it? And all of that is not just on social media. It also speaks to how you speak to people who come into your offices, into your shops, those who engage with you offline and all of that.
Once you’ve mapped out your communication strategy, there are tools that you can use. There are templates that exist for creating an editorial calendar. There’s AI that’s available to help you draft your content. And now that you understand your voice you can now adapt that draft to your voice and to your various audiences. There are also templates that you can pick up that can help you draft social media posts, creates gifs and all of that to communicate with and once you have the strategy and the key messages outlined, you’re able to use the tools that are available. But I’ll take you back to that key point which is defining your voice. You must define your brand personality and you must understand your audiences, then you’re able to use the tools more easily.
ELSIE: So it means that branding comes first before you can then begin to decide what your PR strategy is going to look like?
VICTORIA: Exactly, because your brand is your personality your brand is who you are and if you don’t know who you are, you’re not going to be able to translate that to anyone else.
ELSIE: What are some of the common PR pitfalls that small businesses should be aware of?
VICTORIA: I think for me, the worst thing that you could do in PR is to speak with another person’s voice. The second thing is to follow trends blindly without understanding how that relates to your brand or to what you’re doing. The third is to think that one message fits everyone else.
And then the last one is to be unprepared for crisis. To be unprepared in front of opportunities. You must be super prepared, you must understand what could go wrong and prepare ahead of time for it because will problems happen? Yes, but how do you address them when they happen? That is what makes the difference.
You must understand how to communicate. You must speak well, and must spell right. You cannot be pedestrian when you’re trying to build a professional business. You must adapt your voice, your writing, your communications to the image of the brand that you’re trying to build. Those are the things that you must really watch out for in PR.
ELSIE: At what point does a well mapped out communication strategy become very important for a small business?
VICTORIA: I think at the very beginning. Your communications plan should be part of your business plan. That’s the first thing you need to outline because come to think about it. Public relations is part of your marketing communications. plan, and marketing is critical. So you’re well mapped out communication strategy should be within your business plan. That’s really critical. There’s no other way to get it right. It’s also important because once you make the first mistake, It’s very difficult to come back from that. If you start on the wrong path, yes, you can come back but it’s time wasted. It’s better to outline that plan and start working on it step by step.
ELSIE: If you’re to give three essential PR tips to a small business owner, what would you tell them? Just something that is very practical.
VICTORIA: There are free tools that you can use to communicate but have your strategy and then deploy the free tools. That’s the first thing you can do. Second of all, understand that public relations Is about everything that you do, not just the posts that you make because sometimes you don’t even have time to post but every time that you serve your customer you can communicate with the customer in the way that you engage and respond requests.
That’s part of your communication strategy and you should train your people. Low hanging fruits; free tools, train your people. And then the third one; know that you’re in it for the long run.
Don’t jump on trends except when those trends align to your own strategy, very important. So another thing that you can do is learn to define the channels that you will use whether it’s social media, radio, etc. Define that and focus on it. It will work. You don’t need to do everything that the big companies are doing. You don’t even need to do everything that everybody’s doing, just go where your own customers or target audience is and then focus on that.
ELSIE: Thank you so much. This feels like a master class on public relations.