Behind the Scenes of the Communications Craft
Lifestyle is one of the key verticals or niches that need Public Relations services to enhance brand visibility, media presence, narrative building, events and trust building. Often, lifestyle brands are an integration of other verticals. Let’s say a skincare brand or apparel brand may fall under the lifestyle category. It could be a cafe, restaurant, resort or home decor verticals brand too. Lifestyle brands usually have a higher SEC target audience and stakeholders.
The concerned PR Agency working on lifestyle brands should have an updated media list from the beats of lifestyle, fashion, apparel, accessories, business, e-commerce, beauty and other relevant beats. Apart from Editorials, they should also have a database of the marketing departments of relevant publications because at times paid promotions would also be needed. Elle, Grazia, Femina, Pinkvilla, ET Retail, and Lifestyle Asia among other publications and wires like PTI, IANS, ANI and UNI are given for a start to have a database.
Apart from that, influencer marketing has also become a significant part of lifestyle PR and clients expect the PR Agencies to provide influencer marketing services too. Having a database of relevant lifestyle bloggers and influencers along with their commercials is a positive sign for the growth of the agency and the smooth functioning with the clientele. Nano-influencers and micro-influencers connects will help the operations too.
The team working on the lifestyle brand should be aware of the clientele’s key messaging, strengths, story angles, terminologies and relevant information to communicate with relevant stakeholders as and when required.
Usually, the key stakeholders for lifestyle brands are their employees, their consumers, their competitors, their investors, Venture Capital firms if they are planning to raise funds, designers, social media influencers, celebrities, media, and government bodies, among others. Their opinions and views of the lifestyle clientele brand shape the brand perception in the short and long term at varying scales.
The spokesperson profile, brand profile, organization profile, fact sheet, and boilerplate of the press release should be handy with the PR agency of their clientele to make sure it can be leveraged as and when opportunities knock on the door.
At times, the clientele and scope of work may require outreach to celebrities and their stylists if they are from the niche of apparel, jewellery, accessories, fashion, grooming and skincare. The lifestyle PR agency should be prepared with the database for the same.
PR Teams of a lifestyle clientele usually spend dedicated hours of analytical research in coming up with brand story pegs, trends in the relevant niche, speaker opportunities, media opportunities, drafting content and reaching out to relevant journalists and influencers. Curating media kits can also be an add-on task. Tracking of the coverage, weekly PR reports, mention of missed opportunities, dossier making with PR ROI, social media impact reports, monthly way forward plans are a given.
Crafting tailored campaigns as per the requirements of the clientele is a significant task that needs to be focused on with care. The messaging should align with the corporate identity of the clientele and reach the relevant target audiences through the media platforms.
Ideally, lifestyle PR Agencies keep access to freelancers and stringers with expertise in the lifestyle niches so that at times of need they can be resourceful. The personal network of the concerned stringers and freelancers needs to be leveraged in critical times.
The clientele needs to communicate on a daily basis to be in sync with the expectations, media opportunities, other organic opportunities, changes in plans, availability of spokesperson, approval on content, approval on plans and everything that enhances the credibility and presence of the brand through the PR Agency. PR Agency and the brand client needs to work in partnership to create a better impact.
About the Author
Devesh Purohit is a PR Consultant with over a decade of industry experience. He is the author of the book Theory of Reference Building: Legacy Matrix developed with 12 years of qualitative analytical research. As a PR professional, in his career journey, he has worked with lifestyle, jewellery, apparel and fashion brands strategizing for their campaigns and narratives. Education-wise, Devesh is a Gold-medalist in MAPR (Master of Arts in Public Relations) from Hinduja College, Mumbai, 2016. He started his MSME-registered boutique PR Agency Legacy Matrix PR in 2022 as a founder and CEO.