R3 Smaller Practices Group:
PR and marketing
tips for smaller firms
Making the most of online
and offline strategies
August 2015
Contents
Introduction
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
The aim of this document is to provide an accessible
guide to smaller firms on some easy-to-follow public
relations and marketing techniques to help promote both
your own firm and the insolvency profession generally.
Promoting your firm
• Search Engine Optimisation (‘SEO’) . . . . . . . . . . 3
• Pay Per Click advertising . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
• Google Alerts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
• Bad Reviews . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
• RSS Feeds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
• Media Monitoring . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
• Social Media . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
• Paid-for and Offline Advertising . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Promoting the Insolvency Profession
• Value of the Profession . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
• Working with your local MP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
• Dealing with press or journalist queries . . . . . . 9
It covers the basics of: Search Engine Optimisation; Pay
Per Click advertising; Google alerts; online reviews; RSS
Feeds; media monitoring services; social media; paid-for
and offline marketing. We also give a brief overview of
the various ways of promoting the insolvency profession,
including how to engage with R3 in the process, help
for dealing with journalists and tips for developing your
relationship with your local MP.
This guidance document is not intended to be an
exhaustive list covering all possible marketing strategies
or tools, but is designed to provide food for thought
and some useful tips to assist members with online and
offline techniques for promoting their firms.
If you have any questions about the content of this
paper, please contact:
Fay Robinson
(R3 Committee and Policy Support Executive)
[email protected]
Emma Hobson
(R3 Director)
[email protected]
• Creditor website . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
• R3’s Regional Network . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
About R3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
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R3 Smaller Practices Group:
PR and marketing tips for smaller firms
Making the most of online and offline strategies
We would like to thank the R3 SPG Committee for its
assistance in putting this guide together.
For more information about the R3 SPG Committee,
please visit: www.r3.org.uk/what-we-do/about-us/
r3-committees/smaller-practices-group
Promoting your firm
There are a few straight-forward PR and marketing
strategies that can go a long way towards promoting
the reputation and services provided by your business.
These can be both free and paid for.
Search Engine Optimisation
Also known as ‘SEO’, this refers to the process of
improving your website’s visibility in search engine results,
such as Google. Referrals through internet searches are
an important source of work for smaller firms, so this
marketing method is an extremely useful tool.
How do search engines work?
Search engines have two principal functions –
I. To build an index through ‘crawlers’ or ‘spiders’
These are automated robots that reach the many
billions of documents available online, decipher
the code from them, and store selected pieces in
massive hard drives to be recalled later when needed
for a search query.
Search engines are unique in providing ‘targeted traffic’
– they provide access to potential clients who are already
searching for the services you offer. However, if search
engines cannot find your site, you could be missing out on
opportunities to drive traffic (i.e. potential future clients) to
your site.
II. To provide answers
When a person looks for something online, the search
engine scours its database of billions of documents
to return only those results that are relevant or useful
to the searcher’s query, and also to rank those results
in order of perceived usefulness for the user. The
process of SEO is crucial in improving the relevance
and importance of your website in such results.
Perhaps the most important fact to keep in mind is that
approximately 75% of people only click on the top five
search results in Google, so it is crucial to appear in these
results, or as near as possible to them. Doing this is not
as difficult as it might sound – although the world of SEO
is complex, understanding a few basics can make a big
difference to your ranking in search engine results.
In reality, the process of search engine ranking is quite
complicated and is performed through algorithms made
up of hundreds of components used to find the best or
most relevant search results. These are referred to as
‘ranking factors’. However, below we aim to give an
easy, basic guide to boosting your website’s relevance
and importance in order to improve your ranking.
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Understanding your audience
The key is to work on improving your website’s content.
Your content must directly answer the types of questions
that potential clients are searching for. To this end, you must
understand who your audience is and how they search:
• Using web analytics tools such as Google’s keyword
tool (‘AdWord’) or Wordstream is a good place to start.
These tools will allow you to track various aspects of a
particular keyword – how many times people searched
for it, for example. They will also help you to determine
‘keyword difficulty’ – this is the work required to achieve
top rankings against a specific keyword search. So, if
big companies are taking up the top 10 results against
the keyword you’re interested in, it will be an uphill
battle to achieve a high ranking against that keyword.
• Browsing forums on the subject is another useful
technique for understanding what kind of content
users are looking for. They can allow you to see what
potential clients are discussing or asking other forum
users about. For example, if you browse forums or
discussion boards where debt is a discussion topic,
you might come across a number of people asking
similar questions such as ‘Can I pay what I owe to my
supplier before I declare myself bankrupt?’ or ‘What are
my options if I just need a bit more time to pay off my
debts?’ This would then give you an idea of what kind
of content you should create on your website – a good
idea would be to create a Frequently Asked Questions
(FAQs) page on your website which sets out each
question and responds directly underneath.
• Google autocomplete – when you begin to type a search
term into Google, it will often complete your query
automatically. These autocomplete suggestions are
based on accurate representations of what people are
commonly searching for, so typing words relevant to your
business into Google and seeing what the most popular
autocomplete suggestions are can give you a good idea
of the content that web users are looking for in that area
– you can then adapt your website accordingly.
These are useful ways of understanding your audience and
the type of content they are searching for, in order to tailor
the content of your website to the needs of your customer.
It is important, however, that you do not ‘key word spam’
– this is the practice of loading a webpage with keywords
or numbers in an attempt to manipulate a site’s ranking
in Google search results. Often these keywords appear
in a list or group, or out of context (not as natural prose).
Instead, keywords should be used to create useful content
for users of the site – build your website content with your
users in mind, with keywords built into the text.
Other tips include:
• Producing fresh content regularly – search engines,
including Google, give precedence to websites
continually updating their content. Keep your website
up to date by creating news, ‘hot topics’ or FAQs
sections, or consider creating a regular blog space on
your website.
• Ensuring that your <title> elements1 and ALT attributes2
are descriptive and accurate and use keywords
where possible.
• Making sure content (especially keywords) is not buried
inside ‘rich media’ i.e. images or video which involve
some kind of user interaction (for example Adobe Flash
Player, JavaScript, Ajax) – search engines cannot ‘see’
rich media content.
• Don’t put the text that you want indexed by search
engines inside images. For example, if you want
your company name or address to be indexed (and
displayed in search results), make sure it is displayed in
text and not only inside an image of your company logo.
Understanding what your audience is searching for and
altering your website’s content to provide the answers is
an excellent way of improving your search visibility. And,
although SEO requires an investment in terms of time, it is
important to note that this kind of “organic” placement in
search results is free apart from your own effort! This process
will also have the added benefit of improving the content of
your website for users generally, regardless of whether they
have come to the website through a search engine.
These define the title of a document, and are often used on Search Engine Results Pages to display preview snippets for a given page. The title
element of a web page is meant to give an accurate and concise description of the page’s content. It is best to keep your title to fewer than 55
characters long.
1
This is the text that appears as an alternative to an image (usually when the image is not visible on a page), describing the contents of the
image. This description can also been seen when a user who can see the image hovers their cursor over the image. Search engines cannot
‘see’ images but they can read the text alternative to the image (i.e. the alt attribute) – accurate alt attributes containing keywords will improve
your ranking in search results.
2
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R3 Smaller Practices Group:
PR and marketing tips for smaller firms
Making the most of online and offline strategies
Pay Per Click advertising
Google Alerts
SEO should not be confused with pay per click (PPC)
advertising. In PPC advertising, Google shows your result
in advertisement form (see image below) when someone
searches for the keywords you have selected, and you only
pay every time your advert is clicked on.
This is a free application which allows you to set up
alerts against various keywords, so that Google emails
you (or updates an RSS Feed) when that word/phrase/
topic is mentioned online. Alerts can be in real time, or
daily/weekly summaries. This will allow you to track a
specific case, your own firm, a competitor, or industryspecific keywords, and to be alerted whenever they have
been mentioned or discussed.
However, PPC can be risky – if you choose the wrong
terms to advertise against, your budget can be used up
quickly with no tangible benefit. This is because it’s not just
about getting users to your site – it’s about getting the right
kind of users to your site. If people click on your website
through badly targeted keywords, you will be charged
even if the content of your website was not what they
were looking for (i.e. they are not a ‘useful’ or commercially
beneficial visitor to your website). If you don’t want to risk
learning how to conquer PPC advertising alone, many
search marketing companies offer campaign start-up
packages and monthly management plans – this might be
a good idea if you want quicker results and you are able to
allocate the budget.
There are a number of benefits to using Google alerts.
First and foremost, it allows you to track any feedback
specific to you or your work, and to respond where
necessary (for example, keeping on top of positive and
negative reviews of your firm). Secondly, it can also allow
you to track where your firm has been mentioned but
without a link back to your website – you can then follow
up by getting a link added to encourage traffic through to
your website. Thirdly, it can be very useful for monitoring
competitors’ activity – positive or negative feedback, and
any updates or news relating to their business.
Finally, Google Alerts can be very useful for monitoring
insolvency related questions – this ties in nicely with our
SEO section above, specifically how to understand your
audience and what they are searching for in order to
tailor your website’s content to their needs. In addition,
each time you create new content on your website which
answers questions in a certain area, you could set up
corresponding alerts – this would allow you to jump in and
provide an expert answer with a link back to the content on
your site when you’re alerted to discussion in that area.
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Bad reviews on websites
Google alerts can be very useful for bringing good
and bad reviews of your work and your firm to light.
However, counteracting such reviews is unfortunately a
bit more complicated. The first step should always be
to contact the review site (Yelp, Google Reviews etc).
However, this alone is unlikely to be effective – review
sites tend to insist on publishing both negative and
positive reviews, to maintain their integrity. However,
their position may change if you can prove that the
review was left by a competitor, as some review sites
prohibit business owners from writing negative reviews
of their competitors’ businesses.
The best way to combat a bad review is to encourage
good reviews from other clients. If you are able to
counteract them with positive reviews, the bad reviews
may actually not necessarily be negative – the overall
effect of having both positive and negative reviews will
be a more ‘believable’ experience that potential clients
will relate to when they are researching potential IPs.
Having solely positive reviews can come across as
fabricated and the user may not trust them.
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R3 Smaller Practices Group:
PR and marketing tips for smaller firms
Making the most of online and offline strategies
That said, we realise that it is difficult to encourage positive
reviews (whether to counteract the bad reviews or otherwise)
due to the nature of insolvency. Debtors, business owners
and directors are usually very private in this area, and are
unlikely to publicly declare their use of a particular insolvency
practitioner – this would publicise the fact that they or
their business is going or has gone through an insolvency
process. This is unfortunately a characteristic which makes
dealing with bad reviews difficult. However, if you consider
the review to be defamatory in nature, there may be a
potential legal claim against the review website for publishing
it and refusing to remove it – your willingness to seek legal
advice and pursue the claim is, of course, at your own
discretion. As with any litigation, this could be an expensive
and time consuming process.
Other possible courses of action include:
• Responding to reviews publicly, addressing the
issues raised (either defending them or apologising
for them if appropriate – an apology can actually go
a long way). Review websites often have an option
to comment/respond.
• If appropriate, cooperate with the reviewer or find
a compromise which will result in him/her removing
the review.
RSS Feeds
Instead of visiting individual websites, users can
subscribe to feeds from various websites or blogs so
that they are updated of all developments in one place
(i.e. their RSS Feed). This allows them to sign up for
information they find relevant and useful, and to be
notified of any updates.
An RSS Feed would be a useful way of keeping on top
of insolvency hot topics. By signing up to feeds from
various relevant websites (for example R3, the Insolvency
Service, RPBs), you will be updated of any news from
those websites in one place. This will make updating
your own website with fresh content much easier than if
you have to search through each website individually for
news or the latest ‘hot topics’.
Media monitoring
Media monitoring services track the output of print,
online and broadcast media and provide reports on any
‘mentions’ of whichever entity you choose to track. This
could be your company, competitors, or the industry
generally. This can be done on a real time/daily/weekly/
monthly basis and is helpful for tracking media outlets
other than online searches (which you can track using
Google alerts). This is a great time-saver as it means you
will not need to check newspapers or local/national news
broadcasts yourself, and reduces the chance that you’ll
miss something important.
This is a useful but often costly option, and there are a
number of reputable companies offering this service.
Social media
Perhaps the most relevant social media platforms for the
insolvency industry are Twitter, LinkedIn and blogging.
Twitter is useful for sharing industry updates or news
that you find interesting, and can be an excellent way
of raising your profile. The same goes for blogging –
regularly sharing your thoughts on industry news is a
great way to be noticed by colleagues and competitors.
It can also provide interesting and relevant content for
SEO purposes, as discussed above.
LinkedIn is another avenue for networking, and could
have the benefit of increasing referrals through peers
or other professionals operating in the insolvency
profession, such as accountants and lawyers. Setting
up a LinkedIn account, adding colleagues and peers to
your network, keeping your personal profile up to date
and generally being an active user are all quick and easy
ways to raise your profile in the industry.
Paid-for & offline marketing and
Public Relations
In addition to the options we have given you above, there are
of course a number of other paid-for mainstream advertising
options available. Among these are press advertising in
titles targeted at potential clients, directory marketing, email
and direct mail marketing. The benefits of these routes are
numerous – they will raise your brand profile and ensure that
your target audience is aware of your services.
The implementation of media plans incorporating these
methods is complicated and will often require the
assistance of a professional media agency (for a fee), or a
dedicated in-house marketing team.
The alternative to marketing and advertising exposure is the
use of public or media relations activity to achieve editorial
exposure. Mentions of your firm within the editorial parts of
local papers or websites (i.e. articles written by journalists)
can have a bigger impact than advertising alone: being
quoted by a journalist will provide a third-party stamp of
approval for what you are saying. Readers may be more
likely to be swayed by an article that presents your firm as
experts than they would by a simple advert for your services.
Effective media relations work requires planning:
• Determine your objectives and the areas of your
business you want your press work to support.
• Work out what your unique selling point is for
journalists: why should you be quoted over others?
• Decide what your firm has to say. What are your key lines?
What would you say in response to negative questions?
• Choose the key local newspapers or websites in which
you wish to appear. Who are the key journalists that
cover issues relevant to your business? Think about
meeting local journalists to talk to them about the
stories they cover and the work your firm is doing.
• Make sure your press output is newsworthy. Not
everything your firm does is worth sending a press
release out about: don’t ‘spam’ journalists.
Using a PR agency can be a good first step if you are
thinking about media work and you have budget available.
Many agencies are focused on working with small firms
and are a good way of getting to know local press
contacts. Agencies can help generate press content too.
R3’s regional committees also carry out press work on
behalf of the profession. Getting involved in your local
committee could be one way of increasing your firm’s
media exposure.
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Promoting the insolvency profession
Value of the Profession –
“why insolvency matters”
In addition to marketing your own firm effectively, helping to
promote the insolvency and restructuring profession generally
is also important. The profession is a fundamental part of the
UK’s economic landscape. Insolvency practitioners help to
rescue businesses, restore indebted individuals to financial
health, ensure creditors are treated fairly, and bring errant
company directors and fraudsters to justice. By promoting
the value and work of the profession, you can help to protect
the reputation of the profession generally – and therefore the
reputation and health of your firm too!
R3’s most recent value of the profession report, ‘Why
insolvency matters’, provides important information about
the value the profession brings to the UK economy. This
information will be very useful in promoting the profession
to your stakeholders and wider networks. The report
shows that in 2013/14 the UK insolvency profession:
• Rescued approximately 6,700 businesses (41%
of insolvent businesses) through formal insolvency
procedures, helping to save around 230,000 jobs.
Assistance was provided to businesses with a
combined turnover of an estimated £71 billion.
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R3 Smaller Practices Group:
PR and marketing tips for smaller firms
Making the most of online and offline strategies
• Informally advised 3,700 businesses that continued
operation after being advised, employing 310,000 people.
• Helped approximately 60,000 individuals through
personal insolvency.
• Insolvency practitioners help individuals going through a
formal insolvency procedure to repay a total of around
£5 billion of personal debt within five years of the
procedure starting.
A copy of the full report can be found on R3’s website.
R3 also has statistics that show the value of the profession
to each UK region. If you would like more information on
the value of the profession in your local area, please contact
R3’s Communications Officer [email protected] or
on 020 7566 4203.
Where any negative impressions of the profession exist, they
are quite often based on a misconception about what an
insolvency practitioner does or a misunderstanding about
how an insolvency process works. By correcting these
mistakes yourself, or by assisting R3 to do so, you can help
R3 to promote the insolvency profession and the valuable
work that insolvency practitioners and other members of the
profession do.
Working with your local MP
Creditor website
a) Queries from local MPs
R3 has launched a website which provides a ‘plain
English’ guide for unsecured creditors to help them to
understand the insolvency process and become more
engaged in the process (this is particularly aimed
at smaller businesses). Amongst other things, the
website explains the terms that unsecured creditors
may come across and the insolvency procedures that
they are likely to be involved in. The site is supported
by the Chartered Institute of Credit Management and
British Property Federation. The government and
Opposition have also endorsed the site.
Ninety percent of MPs have been asked for help by a
constituent in financial distress.3 MPs will often seek out
advice and expertise when helping their constituents deal
with their debts or where businesses in their constituency
have gone insolvent. This may mean that you are
contacted, particularly where you are the office holder in a
specific case.
Where possible, it is advisable that you assist your local
MP as far as possible with any query about your case(s).
For more general queries you can refer your MP to R3,
which has a support and information programme for
parliamentarians. This includes:
• Insolvency profiles for each constituency along with
key local contacts;
• Concise information about debt management
and insolvency solutions available for businesses
and individuals;
The website can be found at
www.creditorinsolvencyguide.co.uk and we would
encourage you to promote it to unsecured creditors in
your cases. If you would like us to send you a ‘button’
to add to your website which links through to the
creditor guide, please get in touch with the team
at R3.
• Specialised business and personal finance surgeries in
which an insolvency expert can answer questions and
help constituents;
• Researcher and caseworker ‘teach ins’ to equip staff
with the relevant knowledge contacts and information
to help constituents.
b) Get to know your local MP
We would also encourage you to proactively get to
know your local MP, and to educate them about the
insolvency profession and what insolvency practitioners
do as far as possible. If you would like some assistance
with responding to a query from your local MP, or if
you would like to get involved in R3’s MP engagement
programme, please contact Georgina Dowling
([email protected] or 020 7566 4214),
R3’s Senior Public Affairs and Policy Manager.
To find out who your local MP is, R3 recommends using:
www.theyworkforyou.com.
Dealing with press or journalist queries
If you receive a call from a journalist for comment on a
case or the insolvency profession generally, please feel
free to contact R3’s Senior Communications Manager
for assistance in how to deal with the query:
[email protected] or 020 7566 4215.
3
2005-2010 Parliament
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R3’s regional network
The R3 local network and committees (comprising
10 local areas around the UK) are an integral part of
R3’s provision of services and benefits to members;
they provide the most direct and effective way for R3
and its members to engage on issues of importance
to the profession.
The R3 regional and local centre events programme
provides high quality technical meetings (providing
valuable CPD hours) as well as many social events
throughout the year. They are an excellent forum
for networking and meeting other practitioners and
members of the profession in your local area, as well
as for getting to know individuals who represent your
region and local centre at a national level. Your local
centre committee values the support you give by
attending these events.
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R3 Smaller Practices Group:
PR and marketing tips for smaller firms
Making the most of online and offline strategies
If you would like to find out who your local
R3 representatives are, please visit
www.r3.org.uk/contactus/regional-chairmen.
We would encourage you to contact your local
centre with any ideas, views or concerns you
may have.
If you have any queries about R3’s regional and local
centre network and events, please contact:
Emma Hobson, R3 Director
[email protected] or 020 7566 4227
Fay Robinson, Committee & Policy Support Executive
[email protected] or 020 7566 4206
Sara Calvert, Regional Events Co-ordinator
[email protected] or 020 7566 4230
About R3
The Association of Business Recovery Professionals, known by its
brand-name ‘R3’, is the leading professional association for insolvency,
business recovery and turnaround specialists in the UK.
R3 promotes best practice for professionals working with financially
troubled individuals and businesses, and provides a forum for debate on
key issues facing the profession. R3 works tirelessly with government,
key policy makers, opinion formers and the media to ensure that the
work and views of insolvency practitioners and insolvency professionals
are reflected in policy changes and in the press.
As the foremost industry provider of education and training, R3 also
offers a unique calendar of national and regional courses and events
which are both educational and/or social in nature, providing CPD and
networking opportunities for insolvency professionals across the UK.
For a full list of R3 events and conferences, please see:
www.r3.org.uk/courses-and-events.
In addition to this PR & Marketing guide, R3 produces other
guidance and technical documents aimed at assisting its membership
with technical information and regulatory updates, as well as other
information designed to inform the general public about their
financial options.
R3 is a private limited company by guarantee and operates as a
not-for-profit organisation.
To find out more about R3, please visit our website at:
www.r3.org.uk
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www.r3.org.uk