International PR: Reaching the United Kingdom

Doing PR in a new region is a lot like learning to drive in a new country. Some places use the same side of the road as you, and they are a lot easier to navigate. Other countries, well, they can be harder. ?

By Richard Stone

If you are starting in an international PR project in a country where the language is the same and the cultural expectations are similar, you have an advantage.?For instance, if you’re used to doing PR in the United States, and you now want to reach the United Kingdom, you have a clear advantage over someone starting in Dubai.

However, countries where you must, metaphorically speaking, drive on the other side of the road are harder. You need to immerse yourself in the culture a little bit more.?

Researching the market

Do some research online first by reading the magazines and publications you want to target and watching or listening to any relevant broadcast media in the market. Then speak to some people from the region about their culture and how it differs from yours.?

In PR, the biggest cultural differences are around positive and negative feedback, and the word no. British people couch negative and positive feedback in lots of covering words; essentially, we hide our feelings behind euphemism.?

There are many cultures in the world that think this is strange. For them, if something is bad, simply say its sub-optimal and ask for it to be done again. No offence caused and no harm done. ?

Similarly, in those cultures, when something is good, they shower the person who has done the work with praise.?

British people can work well with the former, providing you explain your approach first. If you don’t explain your approach, you might well find that your business relationships suffer, because you will be seen as brutal and difficult to work with.

We will secretly love the latter, but don't expect flattery in return.?Frankly, we are much too uptight for it.

The real work of international PR

When you have established your cultural differences, you need to start doing the real work of a global PR campaign.?

Research the media and establish its views on exclusivity and the kind of content it wants. Do they love opinion and future gazing or products and services for instance?

Don’t rely only on domain authority or other online authority signals to tell you about the best outlets in each sector. It’s easy to create an authoritative website, full of content, which seems like it should rank well, but which nobody actually reads.

Speaking to people in your target sector and asking them what they read is the best way of finding out which titles should be in your tier one. Failing that, check to see how many people search for that publication by name, using a free tool like Keyword Surfer if you don’t have access to a paid alternative. The more people searching for a publication or outlet, the higher its real-world profile is likely to be.

Next, learn a few words of the language. This is mainly for your own confidence, but it will go a long way with a journalist as well. To take advantage of the famous Nelson Mandela misquote, “If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his own language, that goes to his heart.”

Learning a few words - the basics of yes, no, please, thank you, hello, goodbye and how are you - will make you feel more positive about the project. A few words relating to your industry, such as technical terms and generic product categories, will make you feel empowered.?

You do not have to be fluent. Google Translate and ChatGPT exist to help us with emails in other languages and British people are fine with broken English in an email from a non-native speaker. In fact, we find it endearing and we certainly won’t ignore you.?

Your global PR driving licence

When you've done all these things, you can be reasonably confident that you will be able to, if nothing else, drive on the other side of the road. You won’t be Lewis Hamilton, Michael Schumacher, or Sebastian Vettel just yet, but at least you won’t be driving the wrong way around a roundabout.?

Finding your way around, or navigating the media landscape, is the next step in your journey and this might be where some specialist help could come in handy. If you are in that place, give us a call.

Richard Stone was speaking on the PRCA Global Series: Spotlight on the UK webinar . You can watch a recording of the webinar here .

What to do now?

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