Why Is Local PR Support Important?
There are a few things Manitobans know for certain:
- Our winters make Mars look warm and cozy;
- Our provincial bird is the mosquito;
- And our provincial drink is the slurpee.
While these three points are more commonly accepted, there may soon be a fourth point to add to the list: Manitoba is a national and international business hub.
Increasingly, we’re seeing large, international brands choosing Manitoba as a regional hub to do business. With so many national and international businesses operating in Manitoba, our team fields quite a few inquiries from companies seeking local public relations support.
Why look local for PR support?
When a tourist goes to New York, who best to show them around the Big Apple? If you answered a local New Yorker, you’re correct.
Someone who has lived–or worked or specialized–in a specific location most of their life will have detailed knowledge of the location’s past, present and future. They’ll understand the social, cultural and political landscape in a way that would take a person from somewhere else years to grasp.
The same can be said in the context of local media and public relations.
As PR professionals in the Canadian Prairies, we understand the social, cultural and political landscapes, and we understand the region’s past, present and future. Most of which, by the way, has at some point been highlighted in the local media.
We’ve also developed a robust network of media contacts throughout the region that can only be acquired through years of experience and collaboration.
As a result, we’ve become experts on which news items are likely to get picked up. And if your news just isn’t newsy or relevant to the Manitoba market, we find ways to re-frame your stories in a way that localizes it to our market.
If a national company is establishing itself in the Canadian prairies, we have a robust media list and pre-existing media connections all across the region. National businesses may be used to the spotlight provided by national media outlets–which we can help with, too–but local people want to read local stories and news. We take national and international brands and their stories, and turn them into stories Prairie people care about and want to engage with. Local stories are often more positive than national stories, too.
We’ve done this with an array of national and international clients including Dynacare, Ubisoft and Roquette, just as a few examples. We won national and North American awards helping Dynacare with its #Dynacare4Diabetes campaign; we recently helped Ubisoft announce amazing business growth; and last year Roquette worked with us as it opened the largest pea processing plant in the world.
For Roquette, we divided our efforts into two initiatives:
- Long lead pitching – where we reached out to media outlets well in advance of the grand opening in an effort to secure advance coverage and to introduce the company to our target list.
- Grand opening event PR – where we invited reporters to attend the grand opening event and subsequent virtual news conference.
We secured a number of local media clippings for the French multinational, including the Winnipeg Free Press, Global News and The Western Producer, leading up to the grand opening and a number of clippings afterwards. In total, we secured 118 clippings for Roquette.
To read about our full efforts with Roquette, check out this past Dooley Noted blog.
Is the reverse true?
In short, yes. We work with businesses based in the Canadian Prairies and work to acquire national and international media hits as well.
And while we know the Manitoba market better than any other, we’ve developed a large national and international media network over our many years of experience. In addition to our network, we utilize tools like Propel My PR to help us reach your business’s desired audience at the right time.
When we work with clients to generate national and international press, we often like to engage local experts (like us) in other markets. We have well-established relationships with PR firms in cities across Canada and in major US markets.
If budgets are too tight to pull together a multi-market team, we still have a strong track record of generating positive publicity on our own. A great example of this is a Winnipeg-based company called Innotech Nutrition. During the COVID-19 Pandemic, Innotech – a manufacturer of natural health products – called on us to help them share some company news.
Innotech Nutrition saw its COLFLEX Oral Spray sales quadruple throughout the pandemic, after a March 2021 study by the Penn State College of Medicine showed the spray to be effective in inactivating human coronavirus.
Of course, Innotech wanted to share the good news locally with Mantiobans interested in this local story, touching on a variety of different journalism categories including business and health. We achieved media clippings in the Winnipeg Free Press and CJOB.
But then we expanded upon our local efforts, receiving national clippings such as the Toronto Star. We’ve completed this process several times over for a variety of local clients.
Whether a local, national or international business, why choose Dooley?
Our company has been on a mission to build a team of specialists who can create and manage online brands and sales funnels – from branding, design, PR and web development through to email marketing. We continue to add skills in various areas to support our clients.
Our mission is based on a simple observation: it’s too difficult for most small and mid-sized companies to manage their digital marketing on their own. We offer a team of experts specializing in different areas, and we can do a better job often for less than the price of one or two full time employees.
To book a free consultation, visit our website or give us a call.
