Your Glow-Up Plan for Visibility: PR, Press & Influencer Power in your Small Business

Episode Summary:

Feeling invisible in your small business? You’re not alone. In this honest and practical episode I share my personal journey of growing my fashion accessories brand, QueenMee, from marketplace anonymity to being featured on This Morning, Elle, OK!, and more — all by harnessing the power of PR, press, and influencer collaborations.

Whether you're just starting out or ready to elevate your brand’s visibility, I'll walk you through how to get noticed without needing a huge budget — and why visibility is about more than just being seen; it's about building authority, connection, and momentum in your business.

What You’ll Learn:

• Why visibility feels hard for small business owners — and how to shift that
• The difference between product visibility and brand visibility
• How I used PR to build QueenMee’s authority from the ground up
• My strategy for writing press releases that get picked up
• How to build lasting relationships with journalists and influencers
• The power of timely storytelling and tying in to cultural moments like Royal Ascot or International Women’s Day
• Why PR boosts more than awareness — it supports SEO and long-term growth

Action Step:

Create a list of local press, radio stations, and online publications where you’d love your brand to be featured. Having that list gives you focus and motivation — and brings you one step closer to landing your ideal coverage.

 Connect With Me:

If this episode sparked ideas or gave you the nudge you needed, let me know!
 📩 DM me on Instagram @amandawaterstone – I'd love to hear your story.

✨ Stay Sparkling:

Loved this episode?
 Don’t forget to subscribe, leave a review, and share it with a fellow product-based business owner who’s ready to shine brighter.

Transcript

Unknown: 0:00

you

Speaker 00: 1:20

So this episode is all about getting visible. Now, I think at times we all feel quite small when we're running a small business and a little bit invisible. We're up against big players, big competitors that everybody knows. And sometimes it can feel so hard just to get seen, people recognize our brand and to be visible. And when I did a survey recently, which I'm so grateful that some of you filled in, thank you so much, visibility came up as the biggest topic that... we struggle with as small business owners and I think there's good reason I mean it is a definitely a really hard one and it's something that I'm constantly working on in my business Queen Me Accessories but one of the ways that I've discovered to grow visibility as well as authority for my brand is through the press now whether that's through an Instagram influencer or it's through like traditional press like local press or printed magazines or online magazines it's all the same idea, really. It's visibility. So you're tapping into their audience. And it's also a stamp of authority as well, because we're getting the authority that they have with their brand against our brand. So it's like a stamp of authority on our brand. And, you know, the fact that they may have a lot of followers, a much bigger audience than us is obviously a a fantastic benefit as well. And it really does help us to get visible. And there's a lovely added benefit to all of it as well. So if we do happen to get a link to our website. There's actually an SEO benefit and I'll talk about that more at the end of the podcast, but that's an extra little, an extra little sweetener. So when I started working on Queen Me full time, so this was after I had been working for seven or eight years, just, you know, a couple of hours a week while I was looking after my kids who were very, very young at the time. When we went into COVID, that kind of closed down a lot of my listings. I was selling on Amazon and on Etsy. I didn't really have time to promote my own website. But during COVID, I made the decision that I wanted to work on Queen Me full-time. Once restrictions lifted and people were able to enjoy celebrations and were thinking about sparkly headbands and hair clips again, then I made the decision to work on Queen Me full-time. And I knew that I wanted to grow a brand, really. I had felt completely invisible what I had done up to that point. So although I had a successful business, I was selling quite a bit. I was selling on marketplaces only. So I was selling on Amazon and Etsy at that point. And I had visibility on there, but there wasn't any visibility for my brand because marketplace selling is really about the products. So I think you're allowed a little bit of story and you get to tell your backstory on Etsy. And there's a small space for branding on Amazon, but people don't pay as much attention on marketplaces. They tend to go to them with the intent to buy something and then it's really about the product that you offer and the keywords that you use people to find you for that product that's how you get visible it's through keywords it's not really about branding in the same way I think on marketplaces people often they don't even realize who they've bought from so they might connect with the photo of you on Etsy but they may not realize what your company name is for example so I had some visibility on the marketplaces, but in terms of Queen Me visibility, absolutely nothing. Nobody had heard of me. And I just wasn't sure where to begin. I kind of felt like I had zero authority as well. I mean, I wasn't... Whilst Amazon, I was very grateful to have done well on there and it had supported me and helped me to pay the nursery fees and... it had been a great way to get started I didn't feel like it was doing my brand any favors being on there really it didn't really feel aligned with the vision that I had and I also had I had many positive reviews I had you know I think a thousand five-star reviews on Amazon at that point having done it for quite a few years but even those they were great for visibility on Amazon but The brand alignment with Amazon, for me, didn't feel like where I needed to be, like where I wanted to go. I had such a strong instinct to create a brand that people really loved and that made you feel good and that was recognized everywhere. But that gave you a good feeling when you saw the logo, when you heard the name, that it made you feel excited, empowered and uplifted. And that was really why I chose the name Queen Me, because I wanted my customers to feel empowered and uplifted when they connected with my brand. during coronavirus as I mentioned my listings all kind of tanked my business almost stopped but it was because customers were not going out anymore everyone was at home and my collection is very much about going out and celebrations that kind of thing so one of the good things that happened was that I did manage to get a coronavirus diversification grant from the local council that was an amazing feeling because I wanted to use the money to get visible you know that was the first thing I felt so invisible and so that was the first thing I really really wanted to do was just to kind of feel like I had a brand and in my previous business which was called Gilda's Trist which I had had quite a few years before that so that kind of came to an end when I had when I was pregnant with my first daughter and had to move on from that business but it was very successful for quite a while and we had invested a lot of resource into PR and it had really really paid off so we had been featured in Vogue, Elle, we were featured in the Daily Mail over and over again which was amazing and so many other magazines as well and it was we didn't pay for the ads it was all through PR And customers absolutely loved it. They loved the fact that we've been featured in these magazines and they could see the design that they'd bought in our shops in Vogue. And I found that it gave us real authority. Customers loved it. Investors loved it as well when we looked to get investment in the business. It was a huge asset for us. It was that stamp of authority. It gave us visibility. So I'd seen it work in my previous business and I knew how powerful it could be. So I decided to focus on PR and getting seen in the press as a way to get going, a way to build my authority and to get visible. And so I used that precious coronavirus diversification grant. I was so so grateful to receive it. I used that grant to hire a PR professional for a month. Now, she provided some wonderful contacts. So that was a huge asset for me. But there was a lot more work to do. So it was a list of contacts. But I really needed to focus my energy and attention, you know, 100% on this goal. It took a lot of work, but I was determined to get featured in the press. I wanted to have, I wanted when customers, when they visited my site to see the press features visibly on the homepage. And so now I have all my wonderful features on my homepage that I'm so grateful for. Elle, This Morning, Heat, OK, Hello, Muddy Stilettos. I've got a lot and I'm so grateful for those and I put them really visibly on my homepage and I knew that that would be a key strategy in terms of online to provide authority. So it's authority as well as getting visible. So when I focused my attention on it 100%, I wrote press releases, for example. So I wanted to give the press stories to write about. I knew that they were always looking for stories. And I created the stories for them and put them into press releases. So, for example, I think my very, very first press release was about the lockdown restrictions and how... there was a lot of talk in the media about how when restrictions lifted, there will be like a new 1920s era that coming out of COVID would be a kind of explosion of celebration and decadence, really. So similar to what happened in the 1920s, that would happen all over again. And so I wrote a press release because this obviously tied in beautifully with my brand. I have lots of 1920s inspired pieces in my collection. And so I put that in a press release and I spoke to the local press and just was persisted. So I put a list together of local press that I wanted to contact and wrote them some emails and sent them the press release. Always thinking of them, remembering that they get a lot of press and that they are inundated. So always being respectful of their time, trying to keep the emails concise. And through a lot and lot of hard work and persistence, I did get some amazing features. So I got local press features. I also got national features. And that came through the contacts that I had got from the coronavirus diversification grants. There were a lot of contacts in there. And I kept trying with all of them. And then a couple of them paid off. But it was a lot of hard work. But one of them was ITV's This Morning, which was amazing. Seeing my pieces on television on This Morning was just unbelievably exciting. And then Gokhwa said some wonderful things about my collection as well and he kept on choosing the pieces for the style edits I think I had you know almost 10 features on this morning it was incredible so that was over the space of a year or so they were very very supportive and through the hard work and the persistence I also enjoyed got featured in OK, the Sunday Express. All of this came from thanking journalists as well and building relationships with them, asking them how I could help, asking them what pieces they might like to see. and giving them newsworthy stories. So for example, the story that was featured in the Sunday Express and OK! involved a charity brooch that I created. I called it the Wonder Bee Brooch with a portion of the sales from the brooch going to a charity, which was the Wonder Foundation. That's why it was called the Wonder Bee Brooch. And this tied in with that year's International Women's Day theme. So it was newsworthy. And so I was giving them something they could talk about but it also tied in with a charity and everyone wants to support charities. It felt good to give some of the sales to the charity from the Queen Me perspective and also from the journalist perspective. They wanted to support the charity as well. So it was a win-win strategy. And I have kept on using that strategy of trying to think of newsworthy pieces for journalists and keeping on thanking them as well. You know, just building the relationships with them If I get a lovely feature, then I will send a gift to say thank you if they'd like one, maybe a pair of earrings or a brooch. And I just always remember to say thank you and be respectful and just grateful for the amazing opportunities and visibility that these features provide. So more recently, I did a pop-up shop in Oxford Street, which you might have heard about. So that was a couple of weeks ago, and I was there for Royal Ascot, which was an amazing opportunity as well. And I managed to get two pieces of lovely local press from that. So it was timely, as it was Ascot, and I created a story that tied in with the theme of of Ascot that year. So it was creative dressing was the theme for Ascot this year. And that tied in really, really well with the Queen Me brand ethos, which is all about expressing yourself and letting your light shine bright through creative accessorizing. So it really tied in well with the Ascot theme. And so I created a press release which tied the two together and also mentioned the fact that I was going to be in John Lewis Oxford Street if you wanted to choose a headpiece. So it all fitted well. And then I asked some local journalists if they'd like to feature it. And yes, they did. So I was so grateful. I had two beautiful pieces of coverage with that. And it was wonderful visibility. And it just reminded me of the power of PR and just building relationships with journalists. Now, I wanted to share all this with you because I am constantly conscious of getting visible at Queenly Accessories and things I can do to get visible. And as I mentioned, I think that it's a struggle for all of us or a challenge for all of us, I should say, in our small businesses. And I just wanted to share with you that I think keeping it top of mind and just keeping on working on it can be a really powerful thing. I was reminded about the power of building those relationships again yesterday because I had a lovely email out of the blue from a journalist that I had helped with some pieces for a feature a few months ago And she emailed me completely out of the blue and asked me to send over some high res images for their September issue. And what I've learned with journalists is that it's really, really important to respond quickly and to give them exactly what they want because they're under so much time pressure. They often have really tight deadlines to meet and they're also inundated with requests, et cetera. So they have to be so focused and work so quickly. So if you can give them what they need really quickly and respond quickly, then that's just a really positive thing. And it really helps you to build a good relationship with them. She wanted the pieces like ASAP in the next couple of hours. And so we dropped everything else and I sent them over within the next hour. And she was so thankful. So we're going to be featured in the September issue of The Field, which is just wonderful. I can't wait to see it come out. And that was just a lovely piece of PR. There was no ad spend required. It's just about being thankful and just building those relationships and putting yourself in the journalist's shoes and thinking what they are looking for when you want to get the coverage. Think about what's going on in their head. They need stories, but they're also just inundated with emails. So keep it snappy, get to the point in your emails, keep it concise. And the wonderful thing is once you get these features, then you can share it with your audience on social media and you can let your customers know about it in an email. So not only are you getting visible, but you're also growing your authority with your own audience as well. So you're growing your audience by tapping into their audience and you're growing your authority with your existing audience. It's... And when you do create the social post and let your audience know about the feature, then you can obviously tag the magazine. You can even do it as a collaboration, which means that you get kind of full access to their audience. It's amazing for growing your visibility. And when you work with Instagram influencers, it's a similar idea. You know, it's growing your audience as well as growing your authority. And the great thing about that is they almost always will do a joint post with you if you're working with them. And it massively grows your reach on Instagram. I have found that to be a fantastic way to grow and get visible. And actually, if the influencer really loves what you're doing and they love your product and they're open to it, they may well do a joint post in exchange for product. You don't necessarily have to pay in terms of cash to do collaborations with influencers. If it's the right influencer and they really, really love what you're doing, then in my experience in building Queen Me, I have found that they're very supportive even if you gift them product and that can be a fantastic way to work with them. Now I mentioned there's also a lovely extra benefit to all of this which is SEO search engine optimization which is quite a kind of can be quite a dry topic but it's such an important one in terms of getting visible and any online links from blogs that you get so for example one of the Instagram influencers that I've worked with at Queen Me has a blog and she has so supportively linked from her blog to my website, that really builds your authority with search engines as well. So there's really so many good reasons to put energy into this. There really are. It's fantastic for growing your audience, getting visible, building authority, and even for search engine optimization. So my action point for today, for you to brainstorm, is that I would like you to look at the local press and radio even that might be interested in hearing about you. I have found that once you have a list of publications where you'd like to get published, then it kind of makes it easier to motivate yourself if you know where you want your brand to be featured. So for example... with the piece I did recently for Ascot that it was this was Bucks Free Press which is our local newspaper and I knew that the journalist contact that I had from before had left the newspaper I knew I needed to make a new contact there and I knew that telephone was the easiest way of doing it so I found the phone number they have it widely available on the internet so you can actually telephone them with any local news stories you had once I had that number I had the motivation to get cracking with actually writing a press release and thinking of a story so I knew the publications I wanted to get featured in and that's when I had the motivation to create the press release I prepared the story I found the kind of ascot hook and then it all went from there and then I had these wonderful two beautiful local press pieces I feel like once you identify the publications you want to be in you're one step closer to making it happen so go for it write a list of the publications you'd like to be featured in and to make it simple local ones always want to hear from you I'd love to know how you get on with this how does it feel for you would you like to be featured in press and would have you done this to-do list have you written a list of the local contacts and the local newspapers you'd like to be featured message me on Instagram to let me know I would absolutely love to hear from you music Thank you for listening, Bright Heart. I so appreciate spending this time with you. If you've enjoyed this episode, I'd be very grateful if you could subscribe and write a review to help this podcast grow and spread the light. Thank you.