The Realities of Getting PR as a Small Business

The Fabled Thread has been incredibly lucky with press. We've been featured in pretty much every major UK magazine and newspaper, had full-page spreads, gift-guide mentions, features further afield across the US, Europe and even one in Japan! But we've never had a PR agency and, bar perhaps once, we've never actually pitched for any of it.

So are we doing PR completely wrong?

For the first time ever, we photographed our Christmas collection in June. Part of the reason was so we'd finally have everything ready in time to send to the long-lead Christmas magazines. We did the shoot. The photography was ready. I had journalists I could contact.

And then I did absolutely nothing.

Over the years I've built up a reasonable list of press contacts, mainly because journalists have contacted us in the past. But people move publications and jobs constantly, so increasingly I'd need to cold-email people I've never spoken to. I know there is nothing to lose by doing that. I just find it horribly uncomfortable.

Trying to condense something I'm genuinely excited about into three punchy sentences immediately makes me feel like an irritating salesperson and no matter what I write, it sounds oddly disingenuous. I'd infinitely rather sit down with someone, show them what we're making and have a proper conversation about it. Unfortunately, that isn't a particularly scalable PR strategy or really the way I think things work for small businesses. We just don’t have the capability to run a “press day”.

When I first started The Fabled Thread, I wrote press releases for new collections, hunted down journalists' email addresses and sent them out. I think I got one reply, which didn't result in a feature. I completely understand why - journalists' inboxes must be horrific - but as a tiny business it felt like an awful lot of time for absolutely nothing.

Pretty much every meaningful feature we've had has happened because a journalist contacted us. They had seen a product, were writing an article we fitted into, or were putting together a shopping page where our aesthetic happened to work. They had already decided they wanted to feature us, provided we responded quickly enough.

If a journalist asks for high-resolution images, prices, samples or product information, we get it to them as quickly as we possibly can. Often they're on incredibly tight deadlines and may well have contacted several brands. Being the easiest person to work with seems to me a far easier PR skill than writing a brilliant press release.

For the first couple of years I photographed everything myself. Now Jesse Wild shoots all our photography and completely understands how we want the business to look. More recently Stephanie Windler has helped us create beautiful video with our customers. We haven't invested in PR, but we have invested heavily in having good material for people to use.

We've never held a press event. We've never employed a PR agency. We don't do influencer or affiliate marketing. We don’t gift. We don’t do competitions. We do very very few collaborations. We haven't pursued television or radio. I haven't made any effort to build a personal profile through talks or interviews. Our product launches are very casual affairs – an email and one Instagram post (two if it’s a really important launch).

The biggest benefit for us has probably been credibility. If you've never heard of The Fabled Thread and arrive on our website to see Vogue, House & Garden, The Financial Times and World of Interiors have all featured us, it tells you we're a legitimate business. It also gives a little reassurance that people whose taste you trust think what we make is worth knowing about.

One of our best pieces of press ever was a tiny mention at the end of India Knight's Sunday Times column about three years ago. The sales that day were enormous. I was so excited I went out and bought a winter coat I'd been ogling for months. I still wear it every year, so thank you India Knight for the coat.

We've had enormous-looking features in brilliant publications where I've barely noticed any change in orders. Then one small recommendation can send sales through the roof. I've never found press particularly predictable in that respect. The right audience seems to matter far more than the amount of space you're given.

Online features have historically given us valuable backlinks from reputable websites, which have helped our Google rankings alongside all the SEO content we've created ourselves. It means we are now on the first page of google for all the search terms I really care about, which is mega.

AI search is now changing all of this and I haven't yet worked out exactly how. My current strategy is largely to put my head in the sand and hope someone explains it to me eventually.

When you're new, you are the story. A journalist discovers you and introduces you to their readers. We were once the FT How To Spend It pick of the week, with a full page devoted to us. It was incredible. But we're not going to be their exciting new discovery for a second time. 

We've been featured multiple times by publications like House & Garden and their journalists know exactly who we are. If they're writing something and The Fabled Thread is right for it, I'm sure they'll get in touch. I don't feel the need to email them every few months announcing another new kit simply to remind them we exist. Maybe that’s the wrong attitude though and actually people want to be reminded you exist?

I am sure a good PR agency would find completely new stories. Television, radio, founder interviews, different publications, new audiences, influencers - all the things we've never tried. There may be a whole world of opportunity we're leaving untouched simply because I don't know enough about it.

But there is an opportunity cost to everything. Or in this case, a real cash cost to it. And as I have written about before, I have no interest in a bigger business that generates very little extra profit – that’s vanity over sanity.

I genuinely don't know. Press has given us credibility, customers, backlinks and some enormous sales days. But almost all of it has happened organically.

For now, our strategy remains: make interesting things, present them beautifully, make ourselves incredibly easy to work with, and be grateful when somebody wants to write about us.

And apparently photograph Christmas in June then completely failing to tell anyone about it.

I would genuinely love to know how other small businesses approach this – particularly anyone who has invested properly in PR. What am I missing?