Top PR Tips from CosmoGIRL! Fashion Editor
One of the most difficult challenges for small creative companies is getting their work into the press. We’re therefore delighted that Navaz Batliwalla (Fashion Editor of CosmoGIRL!) has kindly agreed to share her top tips for gaining press coverage.
Top Tip for Getting PR by Navaz Batliwalla
White hot collection? Check. Fabulous website? Check. Press coverage in all the essential glossies and fashion weeklies? Uh oh, Houston we have a problem. It’s all very well having a great collection but if no-one knows about it where are the customers going to come from? In this age of must-haves and fast-fashion it’s essential to get your brand name and products out there on those fashion pages and websites. And it’s not as hard as it looks:
Make the internet your friend. Familiarise yourself with websites like www.cosmogirl.co.uk, www.handbag.com and www.jellyfishmag.com and get emailing.
Write a paragraph or two about the collection including stockist details, price points and contact number. That becomes your press release. You don’t need supermodel-posed pictures as long as you have good cutout still-life jpegs that show your key pieces to their best advantage.
In today’s celebrity-obsessed world, fashion editors like anything that links your product to a celeb so don’t be precious, scour the weeklies for A-listers wearing clothes that resemble yours and email the magazines the comparisons. Being handed stuff on a plate makes our job easier!
Have samples available in case they want to photograph them themselves. Remember that monthly magazines have 3-month lead times so autumn-winter samples need to be ready in May.
Research the market. If you’re selling couture aim at the monthly glossies not the gossip rags. And be specific about the page or section you want to be on ’ it makes editors feel that you’ve bothered to look at their magazine and flatters our egos!
Build a rapport. Follow up your press release with a call and get feedback from the magazine on whether your product is right for their market. Keep in regular contact but don’t be a stalker. Editors get bombarded with information so will forget you if you don’t keep them updated.
Don’t forget the smaller niche magazines and websites. They need you as much as you need them as they have less choice in the brands available to them.
Can you offer a discount or freebies? Magazines adore competitions and giveaways and this is a brilliant marketing tool to get coverage that might otherwise not be available.
Navaz Batliwalla is the Fashion Editor for CosmoGIRL!
A huge thank you to Navaz for taking the time out of her incredibly busy schedule to write this. It’s very much appreciated.
