Wolf Craft - Your PR questions answered

This newsletter feature was inspired by you! If you've attended one of our recent PR workshops, you likely noticed there were A LOT of great questions during the Q&A. We've collated all the questions and once a month we'll send you two in-depth answers to your most common PR questions.

We started this series last year and our readers loved it! And now it's back! Stay tuned for this + more PR, storytelling, and business strategy tips coming soon.

Q: What do you think is an interesting story? If you were a writer at Architectural Digest, for example, what do you think would be a good story?

A: First, I want to remove myself and you from the conversation.

Kirsten and I built Wolf Craft around a design thinking methodology, and one of the most important pillars is research. Research is something that publicists have to do a lot of, and so do you if you are DIYing media strategy in-house.

If you're wondering -- "what does Architectural Digest want to write about?" -- you have to go to the source and actually look at their most recent pages, like really look, not just flip through. Read the articles, and get a good feel for the types of projects/products *and* the types of photography that they're featuring.

Generally, AD the print magazine writes about celebrity homes and very expensive interior design, so if you want to be considered you have to be in those categories. Little me (or you!) is not going to make them change their established editorial point of view.

After some research, you may realize that your work and point of view may not fit that publication. This is good information to have because then you can go on to find out where your work *is* a good fit. Maybe you’re not a good fit for AD today, and you can build your on-ramp for a placement there sometime in the next two years.

Try and figure out what publications' point of view overlaps with what you create.

AD is like the New York Times of the interior design community. Everyone wants it, and thus they get bombarded with pitches. I have a fairly strong hunch that a lot of these pitches just aren't appropriate for their publication. This isn't something you should take personally, it's just good information to have.

To get good results, you should be pitching outlets that are appropriate for your work, so research research research.

Q: My business has multiple facets. I teach, design my own products, and license work. Should I start a PR strategy with services as well as products?

A: This is a great question, one that's come up before. I think it's really important to think about your business' point of view.

Does including your services make sense on the same website and social media platforms as your products?

Sometimes it does, if there's a lot of overlap. But sometimes you have two separate businesses.

Here's an example- There's this incredible lighting designer who makes stunning lights that cost around 20k. They do not belong on the same website as her online store that sells $100 pieces. The price points are different, the potential buyers are different, and the media opportunities are different too.

Think about who the intended client is and if there is overlap. From a PR perspective, is everything on one site going to be confusing to the media outlet?

At the end of the day, the media profiles grown-up companies. If your business crosses different areas – teaching, products, licensing – your website has to be professional. It shouldn't feel like you dumped everything that you do onto one page without any thoughtful connection. It’s not a portfolio website, it’s your business.

To verify if your hunch to keep everything together as one business (or to pull it apart into several) is a good plan, again I will tell you to do your research.

Can you find a Renaissance person who has everything they do funneled into one business and publications you're interested in still wrote about them? If so, you're probably in the clear. If not, consider pulling your business apart.

Generally, it's hard to say if there's a good one size fits all, but ultimately you need to be intentional with who the audience is for that storytelling moment.

Useful tools to help you get started:

Tweak & Edit PR Review by Nora & Kirsten

7 Big Website Mistakes Creative Businesses Make & How to Fix Them

9 Tips to Ensure Your Images Support Your Story Angles

Thanks for giving us some time in your inbox!

Cheers,
Nora & Kirsten

PS - If you liked the newsletter, we’d be so happy if you shared it with others who might find it useful. Anyone new can subscribe here.

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