With the abundance of childrens brands out there, you’re likely to be familiar with the challenge of distinguishing yourself from the competition. It’s no easy task, especially considering the ever-presence of multinational brands with huge advertising budgets. This is where VerriBerri, a specialised PR agency for children’s brands, comes in. We possess extensive experience in addressing this very challenge. But you may be wondering, how exactly can PR help you with this?
Unfortunately, success in the childrens market often comes down to visibility, and just think of how often you see them. TV adverts? Colossal billboards? Sponsorships and partnerships with celebrities and other influential figures? For smaller sized childrens brands, it’s absolutely crucial to adopt a strategic approach to your marketing. Without it? Well, there’s little chance of keeping your head above water.
What actually is PR?
Before diving into all the various strategies and benefits of PR, it’s first important to understand how the concept works. This is because there are a lot of misconceptions as to what PR truly entails. Often, PR is solely associated by many as safeguarding the reputation of high-profile individuals, but it encompasses so much more. A PR agency like ours on the other hand, predominantly looks to promote individuals and companies by securing editorial coverage. By tapping into the pre-existing audiences of these platforms, magazines and newspapers, PR can significantly boost your brand visibility. At our PR agency for children’s brands, we employ two distinct approaches: media relations and influencer marketing.
Media Relations
Media relations involves establishing and nurturing connections with journalists, reporters, editors, and other media professionals to secure favourable media coverage. It aims to generate press coverage that promotes a brand or individual, boost their reputation, and reach a wider audience. This could include articles within national or local press, TV and radio appearances, trade press, podcasts, and more.
Media relations is the most traditional form of PR, and at VerriBerri, it’s something we’ve seen the benefits of first-hand. Depending on your business, however, how you approach PR will impact its overall effectiveness. It’s not just a one-size-fits-all list of tasks. Every pitch idea, press release, interview, and media inquiry must be tailored specifically to both you and the recipient. To ensure this is undertaken correctly, we act as intermediaries in securing you coverage, and that you prosper for it.
Influencer Marketing
Whereas media relations is one of the oldest approaches to PR, influencer marketing is one of the newest. It’s a strategy that we’ve noticed many children’s brands incorporate within recent years, and for good reason.
Influencer marketing involves collaborating with influential individuals (hence the name) to promote a brand or product to their followers. These influencers are typically accounts with significant following on social media platforms such as Instagram, YouTube, or increasingly, TikTok. This marketing strategy acts on the basis that the influencer’s followers are highly loyal. Influencers have built credibility and trust with their audience, making their recommendations and endorsements influential. It’s one of the reasons why brands such as ‘Pretty Little Thing’ have skyrocketed in popularity recently. You can read more about their rise by clicking here!
There are a number of different approaches to influencer marketing, depending on your brand, product, and budget. The premise of the concept, however, remains the same. Brands partner with these influencers to create sponsored content, endorsements, or collaborations for their products. This aims to leverage the influence’s hold over their audience to boost brand awareness, engagement, and ultimately, traffic and sales.
Of course, influencer marketing won’t benefit every brand, and not all influencers are suitable for collaborations either. For children’s brands, collaborations with mommy bloggers, influencers with young children, or family-focused accounts would clearly be most beneficial. At our PR agency for children brands, this is something we can help you discern.
Types of influencer marketing
The main types of influencer marketing include:
- Gifting: Gifting involves providing free products or services to influencers in the hopes of gaining exposure and positive reviews.
- Affiliate marketing: Affiliates promote a brand’s products and earn a commission for each sale generated through their referral code.
- Brand ambassadorships: Brand ambassadorships establish a long-term relationship between a brand and an individual who represents and promotes the brand. Typically, this involves participating in events, creating content, and advocating for the brand.
- Paid collaborations: Paid collaborations are partnerships where influencers receive compensation for promoting a brand or creating sponsored content. This is to maintain transparency with their audience by disclosing the sponsored nature of the collaboration.
Why You Need a PR agency for Children’s Brands to Navigate Ethical Compliance
Without a doubt, one of the biggest challenges for any brand that works with, or targets children is ethical compliance. This means there’s no cutting corners, no matter how much time or money you look to save. The red tape surrounding children’s products and service isn’t there just for the sake of it. Following these legal guidelines and regulations not only protects you as a business, but most importantly, any impacted children. Fail to do this, and well… Your brand is unlikely to recover.
Navigating the complex landscape of safeguarding laws and regulations can be overwhelming for child-focused brands. However, seeking guidance and expertise from an agency like ours can be instrumental in ensuring ethical compliance. Our team specialises in assisting businesses in this domain, providing comprehensive knowledge and support. From understanding COPPA requirements to implementing toy safety standards and adhering to advertising guidelines, we can help!
Contact Us!
Whether you’re a children’s clothing retailer or technology brand, breaking free from the shadow of these multinational businesses is challenging. There’s no two ways about it. If you really want to stand out, strategically marketing your brand through avenues such as PR is a necessity. Hopefully we’ve managed to cover how in this blog, but if you need some further support, we’re happy to help. If you’d like to find out more about our PR agency for children’s brands, then get in touch! To reach out specialist teams, call us today on 01376 386860. Alternatively, we’re just one click away!