I was asked this question within The Marketing Compass website by Walter Blackburn, founder of Presenting Success, who is an experienced public speaking and presentations skills trainer.
Here is my response: Yes, PR works and it is a great way of getting your name out there. If you are happy to talk to journalists and reach out to them, it can have a considerable impact on your business. PR is a great way of generating brand awareness.
When I ran a PR agency, we took small ‘invisible’ enterprises and made them well known within their industry and target markets.
Interestingly, PR can also help with your SEO, by getting backlinks from authoritative media websites.
With regards to your business, it would be a good idea to contact local consumer media in order to let them know that you are there. Virtually everyone needs to improve their public speaking and presentation skills and business owners and decision makers may well pick up on a story in their local press (for us, this would be The Maidenhead Advertiser, which is a well respected and long established weekly newspaper which runs a business section every month).
Why not build a list of media contacts with whom you could exchange emails and have telephone conversations? They may wish to interview you or they may request copy from you in terms of articles and case studies.
In the 21st century, PR fits in with social media. Many journalists use Twitter and you can connect with them there.
