May’s meetup was about PR. The question most of us are dealing with ourselves, without a budget, while also making things and running a business and trying to figure out what platform we’re supposed to be on this week.
The room had a lot to say.
PR comes before marketing.
PR is the work of shaping how your business is perceived. The relationship between you and your audiences — customers, press, peers, the broader public. It’s the story you tell, the trust you build, the reputation you maintain over time.
Here’s the part people often miss: PR isn’t marketing. It comes first. It’s the foundation. You can’t market effectively to people who don’t know who you are or why you matter.
Sustainable PR is centred on clear messaging. It sells your story — and why your brand exists.
And like most things worth doing, it never really stops.
The influencer era is fading.
Paid influencer contracts are declining. The trust that once came with a familiar face recommending a product has been eroded by years of obvious sponsorship. Audiences know when they’re being sold to.
What’s working is direct communication with your own community. Building genuine relationships with the people who are already interested in what you do.
Social media still matters — as a discovery tool, a way to surface new creative talent, to connect with suppliers and stylists. But the group kept coming back to the harder question:
Does social media deliver consumers to the trading space?
Visibility and conversion are different things. Everything needs to be in place so that once you are seen it’s a no brainer for your audience to spend.
Get in the room.
In a conversation about digital PR, this kept coming up: nothing replaces being physically present.
Face to face builds community. It deepens trust and creates what the group called the human connection – the sense that your brand is run by people who care about what they make.
Events can be powerful — for visibility, yes, but also for audience curation. The right event brings together the right people.
VIP treatment for early adopters came up specifically. Giving your most loyal community members something meaningful – early access, personal acknowledgement, a great experience – turns customers into advocates.
Collaborations. Choose well.
Several people spoke about the value of aligning with complementary brands — businesses with overlapping audiences and aligned values. Shared events, co-designed products, cross-promotion. Two independent businesses can do together what neither can afford alone.
Know who you’re talking to.
Before you choose a platform, plan an event, or write a word of copy — be clear on who you’re trying to reach.
- Who am I speaking to?
- Where are they?
- Is what I’m saying useful or interesting to them?
- Am I connecting, or just broadcasting?
Market research — formal or informal — helps you answer those questions. And once you know your audience, speak their language. Clarity of message delivered in a voice they recognise is the art of persuasion.
Two words worth knowing.
Onlyness.
The quality of being uniquely, irreplaceably yourself. The perspective only you can offer. In PR terms, it’s your most powerful asset – the thing no competitor can copy, and the clearest reason for your audience to choose you.
Phygital.
The merging of physical and digital into a single consumer experience. Your online presence and your physical trading space working together. As AI-generated content accumulates and digital reality gets harder to read, the physical space creates something online cannot. You can touch the fabric. You can meet the maker.
A note on transparency.
For decades, fashion brands traded on opacity. Where something was made, how, by whom — deliberately unknowable. That mystery was an asset.
That’s gone. Materiality, sourcing, place of make, planetary impact, animal welfare – questions now asked often by people who want to make informed decisions.
Price is a consequence, not always the precipitating force.
The PR implication: your story is not just about the product but how it came to exist. Brands that tell that story honestly have an advantage.
Know your story. Tell it – in person and online – consistently.
Love your brand. Centre yourself in that love. Then find the clearest way to share it with the people who are looking for what you make.