A very warm welcome to our new client, Pawfect Deals, who LBMPR will be handling the PR for. LBMPR are pleased to announce the launch of their new website, PawfectDeals.com.au, which offers pet only daily deals where you’ll be able to take advantage of the huge daily savings - from pet grooming to worming tablets and just about every other pet problem you can think of.

The site was established by Australian vet, Dr Rod Sharpin, who wanted to help his patient’s owners save money on pet products and services.

According to Rod, “Australians just love their pets. In fact, 78% of pet owners spend more time with their pets than they do with their own spouse. They’re more than happy to spend money on their pets, but we wanted to offer pet owners a way of using their collective power to score some ‘pawfect’ deals for pets.”

Each day, a pawsome deal will be offered to members either nationally, or in each capital city. Members can pounce on that deal by clicking on the ‘Buy it now’ button, and once they have purr-chased the deal, a voucher will be sent to their inbox. Like other group buying sites, the deal will only go through if the minimum number of deals are purchased – and make no bones about it, the bigger the community, the greater the savings!

To sign up for some pawsome deals then visit PawfectDeals.com.au or join their Facebook community at I Love Pets – Australia.

A great addition for a summer wardrobe (if summer ever comes round again) and a great way to give back to those in need. Call 1800 655 154 for stockist enquiries.

Bianca has worked extensively in the fashion industry, amongst others, completing a Bachelor of Fashion Design and going on to do her Masters in Brand Management. She is picking up the LBMPR ropes very quickly and is already a much appreciated and valued team member at littleBig.

Welcome Bianca!

littleBig Marketing & PR worked tirelessly to achieve $6.6million worth of publicity for the Melbourne event, putting Melbourne on the map as Saint Mary’s birthplace, educating Victorians about this amazing historical figure and driving an estimated 10,000 attendees to the event. We used our wide connections and know-how across a broad cross-section of media to achieve these results and are chuffed to have received great feedback from many producers and journalists (Channel 9, 7 and 10, AAP, The Herald Sun and more) about our media facilitation.

Tamara Jenkins of Esencia Communications was an integral part of the team and I thank her enormously. Logistics Events Australia did an amazing job of pulling the event together, as did the Catholic Archdiocese of Melbourne and most importantly the Sisters of Saint Joseph, who, since they were co-founded by Mary MacKillop in 1866, have done so much to champion and care for the poor and disadvantaged in this country and indeed throughout the world.

It was an absolute privilege to be part of this significant moment in history and work with so many great people… all thanks to Saint Mary!

Here is a very simple four step guide for how to aim for coverage:
1) Zero in on not just a media outlet, but a page/section/segment/column/etc. that is relevant to what it is you do. For example, if you sell baby clothes then the Baby Steps page in the Sunday Herald Sun is a good place to target.
2) Come up with an angle that is relevant to your product but most importantly, is of interest to the readers of that page and not like an ad. Be honest with yourself here. Your angle needs to make sense on the page from a format point of view, ie. don’t pitch a feature article idea for a half page product of the week style section, and also a topic and newsworthy point of view. Let’s again use the baby clothes example. The fact you have designed a range of baby clothes inspired by your gorgeous child is NOT news. Perhaps what is news, is the fact you’ve designed a range of baby clothes that grows with baby and will fit them from age 0 to 3 due to some amazing fabric technology you’ve developed. Admittedly this is a particularly unique angle but you get the idea. The media are looking for angles that are unique, often quirky, interesting, entertaining and have a ‘wow’ or a ‘I did not know that’ factor.
3) Find out who edits, writes or produces the page/segment and obtain their phone number and email address. This is often as easy as reading the page in the paper. It’s only as hard as calling the TV station/publisher/etc. and asking who is responsible and for their contact details.
4) Construct a brief pitch outlining the most newsworthy aspects of your idea. Make this no longer than three paragraphs or dot points long and email it to the appropriate person or call them, explaining who you are and that you have an idea for their page/segment.

Be prepared for a ‘no thanks’ and if that’s the case accept the authority of the person you’re pitching it to and leave them to their busy day. Move on to another target. The main things to remember are that you need to keep your pitch super relevant to the specific page/segment you’re aiming to appear in and resist the temptation to make the pitch all about you. It’s not an ad remember. You’re approaching someone with editorial control with an idea that will be of interest to their audience and that happens to feature your business.

Good luck!

Tough break for the PRs in question as mistakes are easily made as we all know and being slammed in the media in a way that could likely jeopardise your career and the reputation of your company is harsh to say the least.

But then again, we all need to be kept on our toes and if nothing else the above two examples should certainly ensure we do that.

Thanks to Mumbrella, Ben Glazier and Sean Nicholls/Erik Jensen for reminding us that any media approach involves risk and exposure for both our clients and ourselves, and that there’s no room for laziness and lack-of-thought in the PR game.

Although any publicity’s good publicity isn’t it?  For MarkComms I think it was today.

Sally