The internet is full of free advice, some of it good, a lot of it bad, much of it entirely dubious.

As a PR man with nearly three decades of experience, I remember a time, not long ago, when companies that needed PR and marketing advice had two choices: buy a book or pay for face to face consulting time.Starting my company itpr in 1990, I built a healthy business in the years before SEO—with a fully SEO-optimised company name, (sometimes you get lucky!)—doing the latter.

But then, with the arrival of the internet came an avalanche of DIY tools and advice for companies; simultaneously, being a PR man became a lot more complicated.

Indeed, for the past decade, I have been navigating, negotiating, and at times, stumbling through this seismic transition with nothing but wonder for what has happened to this industry we so quaintly refer to as “public relations”. Needless to say, now that the “public” have more ways than ever to relate, to find, and to filter information for themselves, my job as a PR man has changed irrevocably in response.

Here’s the rub: If you’re an SME business owner who’s deep in the throes of figuring out how to market and create a buzz around your new product or service, guess what? Your job has changed too. If you are doing nothing to raise the profile of your company and differentiate it from the competition, you are losing out on the potential for leads and business that can help your company rise to the top. If you’re waiting for the “gatekeepers” of the old world order—journalists and editors and publishers—to “pick you” and give you the glossy media coverage your company needs for exposure, you’re going to be waiting a long time.

I’m grateful that you’ve found your way here, and in response I am going to take my experience of 25 years of running a PR agency and advising SMEs trying to grow their businesses, and provide you with some ‘no strings attached’ advice. 

To do this, I have developed an idea from the past. If you were a fan of Johnny Rotten and The Sex Pistols you will know the reference—otherwise I will explain it later—and created this site and brand, ‘All that PR & Marketing Bollox explained’  as a compendium of all the most important lessons I’ve learned about PR and marketing in the digital age. Presenting one lesson or idea each week in 2016, I will present 52 bite-sized articles with a goal to change your habits and jumpstart your processes to raise the profile of your SME B2B company in the digital age without a PR firm. That’s right, in true internet style, I’m giving away my hard-earned advice for free.

The name of the blog and site and soon the book (OK so I wanted to let you buy something!) was inspired by an old friend of mine, Jovi Bozic, who one day explained to me quietly that he was glad to be working with me as he “did not understand all that PR & marketing bollox”. This site and the twitter handle @prbollox, “All That PR & Marketing Bollox explained” will keep you posted and hopefully interested in learning something new each week. 

It’s an old adage that we know that half of our marketing efforts do not work—we just don’t know which half. My hope is to give you new ideas and new perspectives so that you will feel confident and comfortable enough to try something new and different in 2016 in promoting your business. And, hopefully, I can introduce you to some new tools and ideas that will help you to measure their effectiveness so you will know what is and is not working for you.

We—that’s me and my team of supporters—hope you’ll subscribe, share with your friends and colleagues, and follow us along.

Happy New 2016!