Win ‘How to Get a Job in PR’ book in this Apprentice-style competition

If you are hoping to get a job in PR – or wondering what to expect if/when you do – I urge you to read the very experienced Sarah Stimson’s book, ‘How to Get a Job in PR‘ (available to buy on Kindle and paperback on Amazon here, or by clicking the image to the right).

Having been both sides of the table, the book addresses issues that come up time and time again when interviewing and gives an insight into what agencies and in-house teams are looking for from applicants both at the time of recruitment and early on in their career, too. I’d go as far as to say that every person hoping to get into PR should have read this by the time they’re sat in front of a prospective employer.

To win the book, I want to address something everybody hoping to work in PR should understand, something too few people already in the industry pay attention to. And I want to make a competition out of it – which will also benefit charity. So, you might win and money goes to charity from it, too. Win-win.

An introduction to affiliate marketing and the competition to win

I have an Amazon affiliate account. As you may know, affiliate marketing is a type of marketing where you promote something on behalf of somebody else and, if that ‘something’ is bought using the trackable links you promoted, you earn a percentage of the total sale. And you can prove it, too. See the link at the top of this post to Sarah’s book? That’s an affiliate link. If you click it, a ‘cookie’, identifying me as the referrer, will be stored. If you go on to buy the book (or anything else on Amazon within a certain period of time – however long the cookie lasts), as a thank you for referring the sale, I will receive a small percentage as commission (though commission rates vary, with Amazon, they’re about 5%). So, not mega money by any stretch.

If it sounds dull, it shouldn’t – the richest client I’ve ever worked with started out in affiliate marketing, was a multi-millionaire by 27 and his house in Barbados, award-winning mansion just outside of London and garage-full of top-end cars say anything but ‘dull’ to me.

Why am I telling you this? Surely I should just make this as easy as asking a question?

PR people care too little about the ‘why’ of what we do. Column inches aren’t enough and we should care more than to believe they are – clients pay good money because they want to see a return. With site analytics and goal-tracking and things like affiliate marketing, we can PROVE our worth. We can prove that social media can make money. And I promise you, if you go into an agency with this knowledge and the attitude that you want to provide a measurable return for clients, your agency and clients will love you.

So, here’s how the competition works:

1. Click here to email me (rich at PRexamples dot com) BEFORE SUNDAY 19th January and tell me you want to be involved. I will create a tracking ID for you, and send you a shortened affiliate link to the paperback version of Sarah’s book (see the T&Cs below for relevant dates).
2. You must promote this link to as many people as you can. Here’s where it gets all Apprentice-like – the person with the highest number of sales wins – and I will be able to track this using my Amazon affiliate account.
3. 100% of the commission from competition entrants will go towards the fundraising efforts of a friend of mine currently running across Canada, Jamie McDonald. He is raising money in the UK for children’s charities The Pied Piper Appeal and Great Ormond Street.
4. 10% of the book’s royalties are donated to the Taylor Bennett Foundation

That’s it, good luck. Click the email link above if you have any questions, or tweet me @RichLeighPR.

Terms and conditions:

1. On Monday the 20th January I will email the necessary affiliate links to people that email me using the above link (1.) to say they’d like to be involved. Any emails after this date will not be entered into the competition.
   
2. Entrants have until midnight Sunday the 26th January to make as many sales as they can. I will then check reports and announce the winner throughout the week of Monday the 27th January.
3. Entrants can use any legal method of promotion. If they can get a blogger to feature the book and their affiliate link – great, that’s PR. If they share the affiliate link to existing social media audience(s), or encourage their audience(s) to share it, again, that’s PR. But be aware, and this is the point I’m making with this entire competition – shares mean absolutely nothing if they don’t convert to sales, in this instance.
4. The competition is open to everybody, but is most likely of benefit to students, recent graduates or simply those looking to break into the world of PR.
5. I will send out a maximum of 50 affiliate links. This is due to the fact Amazon only allow up to 100 Tracking IDs.

ALL Off the Record