FAQs
PR
An effective PR strategy means a communications plan that delivers on your business’ unique objectives. At Palm, we don’t believe in a ‘cookie cutter’ approach to public relations, digital or influencer marketing. Instead, setting the right foundations for any campaign is as important as the implementation. That means understanding the commercial and brand objectives, the target demographics and the market sector. It needs to take into account ‘ever green’ activity with a robust always-on press office, along with tactical activations that might tap into seasonal moments or more spontaneous trending themes.
Finding the right PR partners are key, as they will help you define from the outset what you need to achieve from your PR, Digital or Influencer marketing campaign. This will address real world, commercial results, along with brand awareness and visibility, and reputation management. An agency that has a clear system for measuring success is crucial, so that you can agree upfront what a strong campaign looks like. At Palm, we create clear and measurable KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) for targeted press output that are measured each quarter and enshrined in our contracts.
Yes. Palm’s food and drink team specialise in launching FMCG NPD, whether that be to Trade press (eg: an exclusive with The Grocer Magazine), or a press and influencer event (potentially partnering with one of the Hospitality & Travel team’s restaurant, bar or hotel clients). We also specialise in creative mailers, sending out new products in an innovative way that speaks to the brand values.
At Palm, we create clear and measurable KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) for targeted press output that are measured each quarter and enshrined in our contracts. Our KPIs are aligned with the publications, influencers or content that your specific target audience values, for the most aligned and effective results possible.
Digital PR includes online publications, social media channels and influencer campaigns, whereas Traditional PR encompasses print media, broadcast through the writing of brand press releases and media relations. Each client is different and we agree the mix of Digital vs Traditional upfront and refresh this each quarter, depending on the business objectives and the target audience.
An effective PR campaign can grow brand awareness and sales for your company, months and years after the campaign’s completion.
PR is an integral part of the marketing mix, creating long term brand loyalists and positive brand awareness, alongside shorter term sales goals. PR works hand in hand with any marketing campaign, bringing activations to life through influencer marketing, press reviews, thought leadership pieces and founder profiling. All which tell the story of the brand, and in turn, drive an emotive connection with consumers.
Palm has experience in crisis communications and our approach is to consider the strategy up front, planning far in advance so that we are ready with a comms toolkit for any issues that may arise.
The Food & Drink and Hospitality & Travel PR teams speak to the national media every single day. Our approach is tailored – we build close, individual relationships with journalists to ensure the best media conversions. Palm regularly hosts press events, from large scale dinners and parties, to one-on-one coffees, lunches and desk-side visits. We pride ourselves on our strong media relations across print, digital, broadcast, influencer and podcast sectors.
At Palm, we write press releases that inspire journalists and make them want to cover the story. A clear and compelling headline is crucial for this, as is a concise and succinct approach for the first paragraph so that busy media can understand the story quickly and easily. Strong copywriting is something that many lose sight of, but at Palm we love seeing our press releases copied and pasted verbatim into key media titles with our clients’ key messages intact, as it’s testament to our writing skills and means that we get the best results for our clients’ businesses.
Influencer Marketing
A type of social media marketing, influencer marketing harnesses the power of aligned influencers to create real content that can bring your brand USPs and values to life. From earned or paid influencers, content can be seen by their followers or boosted further in social media advertising to targeted demographics or postcodes, as well as used in powerful endorsement campaigns to a wider audience.
Influencer marketing helps raise awareness of your business, as well as educate consumers on your product, venue or service. By aligning with authentic influencers that have synergy with your company’s values, it can raise the profile of your offering.
At Palm, we believe that a successful campaign is all about building a meaningful relationship between a brand and influencer. The more authentic the content, the better the results. We find influencers by doing a deep dive in to the business’ target demographics, the brand purpose and values, and then aligning credible influencers that share these touchpoints. We believe that a ‘scattergun’ approach, gifting vast amounts of influencers and not doing due diligence on each one can actually de-value a brand, and so we only work with trusted and fully vetted partners.
When Influencer Marketing is done correctly, it can be one of the most cost effective marketing tools available. If you have a compelling offering, we advise driving more ‘earned’ influencers than ‘paid’, which brings the cost down even further. As influencers work independently, there isn’t a standardised rate card for any sector – and so, if paid is your approach, choosing the right influencers that will be genuinely interested in your company is key, as well as doing a deep dive on their audience and media packs to estimate ROI.
When an influencer has been ‘gifted’ with a product, a hotel stay, or restaurant visit, it means that the PR company has set up the opportunity to trial this for free. It is then up to the influencer to decide if they want to cover the offering. When a post is ‘sponsored’, it means a company has paid the influencer to communicate messaging about their brand – and key messaging, image direction and content will be broadly pre-agreed between the two parties.
Social Media
Absolutely! Social media is a massively effective marketing communications tool that can really help your brand get noticed, as part of the PR and Marketing mix. From Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Vimeo, YouTube, LinkedIn and TikTok (and so on), each platform needs to be considered depending on where your target audience ‘lives’ and which is most influential to them. As well as a space to bring your brand personality to life and engage directly with consumers, so that you can better understand your customer base and drive all-important brand loyalty, social media is a brilliant route to driving sales and bookings. The Digital Eco-system on Meta constantly evolves and changes.
Having an agency that can keep up with the latest enhancements to machine learning which powers advertising campaigns and continuously testing is key to success.
Content will vary depending on the results your brand wants to achieve. The goal of Paid Media Advertising is to
attract new customers who haven’t heard about your company – and entice them with compelling
creative and copy that piques their interest.
Once we have attracted them we want toraise awareness of the brand’s product to drive bookings and sales.
We will use a retargeting strategy, which is really key in driving online sales and lead generation. We would also suggest targeting
customers in a laser precise way by creating user personas in accordance to the audience profiles that we use for our PR Strategy, ensuring both marketing forms are integrated.
Part of this also includes customer behaviour tracking on the website which can further enhance our targeting and drive more sophisticated ad campaigns. The aim is to attract the right people with relevant messaging at the right time.
Make TikToks not Ads. The beauty of TikTok is the engagement brands can have with their audience. The most successful ad campaigns, in general, are: original, authentic and consistent with the brand persona. They involve user participation and are high energy. Dependent on your company’s individual business needs, content could sit on-feed, as a brand takeover or a TikTok hashtag challenge.
While size can matter, the number of followers on social media doesn’t always correlate with engagement. Social media engagement is more important than followers, because it shows how trusted and listened to and influencer is within their community. A big follower number is irrelevant, if no one is looking at the content. There are hugely successful micro-influencers on Instagram, with as little as 2,500 followers, that can make a real difference to a brand when partnering with them. Micro-influencers with high engagement should always be a part of influencer marketing strategy to get grass roots movement and personal recommendations out to their pods of followers.
Planning is crucial. Social media needs to be a balanced mix of considered and planned content, which communicates a narrative and positioning, along with space for spontaneous posts that can link in with a trending topic or relevant news story. Engagement with the right community is key, as is user generated content from trusted influencers. Underpinning everything is concise measurement – both in terms of awareness, culture and community building and commercial sales results.
Retailer Relations
It is building a relationship between a food and drink product client’s existing stockists, as well as supporting outreach and driving campaigns that attract the attention of new target retailers.
Palm works with a wide spread of retailers, from boutique brands such as Whole Foods Market, Planet Organic, Selfridges and Harvey Nichols to all the main multiples.
Make your product stand out from the crowd, gaining the buyers’ attention from a strategic PR and Social Media campaign, to creative media mailers. Know what the internal goals of each retailer is and see where your product aligns with their values, so that you can speak their language. Tell your individual story and show how compelling your brand is to consumers, with Influencer Marketing, strategic endorsements and testimonials.
Photography & Videographer
| Yes, get in touch with a brief and we can provide a quote from the correct trusted partner for your brand. |
Yes, we have 360 social media services, with video an important part of the mix. Get in touch with a brief and we can provide a quote from the aligned trusted Palm partner for your brand.
Yes, we have a roster of talented photographers and videographers that specialise in Hospitality, Travel, Food and Drinks. Do get in touch with a brief and we can provide a quote from the correct trusted partner for your brand.
Yes, we provide creative direction, linking to your business objectives. Share a brief and we can provide a scope of work and direction.
Yes, being on site is important for large scale shoots. Please get in touch with a brief and we can provide a quote from the correct trusted partner for your brand