Helen Lewis, director of Literally PR, explains why the business should win the marketing and PR category of the Guardian Small Business Showcase competition.
I’m director and founder of Literally PR, a publicity agency working with authors, publishers, and food and drink brands. Shouting about others comes way easier than self-promotion, but it must be done, or we’ll be squeezed out by the competition.
I’ve invested in distance learning (digital marketing diploma), and it’s been invaluable in terms of how I use Facebook, Twitter and Google Ad services. I’ve seen a decent ROI in the past four weeks, with a surge in followers and a spike in new business emails.
This year I put my money where my mouth is and invested in exhibiting at the London Book Fair. We got plenty of new clients and contacts. I also fulfilled a life-long dream and went to New York. At BookExpo America I met with new and old contacts, secured two new clients, and it helped me to spread the word about Literally PR across the Atlantic. We now have a PR company in NYC offering US publicity services to our British authors, and vice versa.
This has been an expensive year – investment in the two exhibitions exceeded £5,000 (from a turnover of £80,000) – but it has been worth it in terms of marketing, publicity and new business for Literally PR.
Being shortlisted for the Great British Entrepreneur of the Year Award has been the icing on the cake for me in 2015. It feels like people are starting to know Literally PR more than ever before.
All entries which meet the competition criteria are published and our judging panel select a shortlist of the top three for each category. Winners are announced at an awards ceremony in summer 2016.
