Greg Simpson, founder of Press For Attention PR, shares how the human voice can work wonders in gaining an advantage for your press releases. I had a chat with a radio producer recently that made me realise something rather embarrassing about our industry. Most people aren’t even bothering to send images with their press releases. Images. The most basic visual element you could possibly include. And they’re skipping it entirely. But that revelation was just the beginning. What this producer told me next completely changed how I think about press releases. The pile problem Here’s what actually happens when your press release lands on a journalist’s desk. It doesn’t get binned immediately. It just doesn’t make it to the top of the pile. Think about that for a moment. With journalists receiving over 100 pitches per week and responding to just 3%, your beautifully crafted press release is competing in a brutal attention economy. The radio producer put it perfectly: “It’s almost like a cheat code to get you to the top of the pile.” What’s the cheat code? Audio. Corporate speak vs real human voice Let me show you the difference with a real example. Traditional written quote: “We are delighted to be appointed as chief widget provider for Acme Limited. This is the culmination of a lot of hard work by the team.” Pretty soul-crushing, isn’t it? Now imagine hearing the same person actually say: “This is a big day for us. We’re incredibly excited. The entire team have been looking forward to this. It’s the culmination of a lot of hard work and it’s ultimately going to make a real difference to the business going forward.” You can hear the difference immediately. There’s tone. There’s personality. There’s what I call the “give a shit factor.” You can’t fake that in written text. The iPhone solution Before you start worrying about studio costs and professional equipment, let me stop you right there. I tested this approach with a journalist using nothing more than my iPhone. We recorded it, exported the file, and that was it. You could add a £50 Lavalier mic from Amazon if you want to get fancy, but it’s not essential. What matters is taking the time to add real value and personality to what can be a fairly flat story. You’re bringing it to life with actual human emotion. The journalist’s reaction when we played it back? You could feel the effort, the energy, the emotion immediately. Making journalists’ lives easier Here’s the clever bit that most people miss. When radio producers get a story they like, they usually think: “I wonder if I could get them to comment live on the radio or do a recorded interview.” Most people run scared from that. By including audio soundbites, you’re essentially creating that recorded interview yourself and giving it to the journalist to use if they wish. You’re solving their problem before they even know they have it. This approach works because multimedia press releases receive up to 77% more responses than text-only versions. The complete media toolkit Audio is just the beginning. The producer also mentioned supplementing releases with extra photos that can be stitched together with the audio overlay to create video content for social media. Think about it. You’re giving them more ammunition to create a better story, a more all-around experience. Instead of posting a link to bland copy with one image, they can create engaging video content that actually attracts and engages their audience. With audio accounting for nearly 20% of daily media consumption, you’re speaking their language. The relationship reality Now, a crucial caveat. You’re not sending audio files to every journalist who’s never heard of you. This approach is about building relationships with people who understand you and trust you. You’re making their job easier by giving them content they’d be delighted to have. It’s the difference between being helpful and being a nuisance. The ROI of extra effort I know what you’re thinking. “Christ, now I’ve got to record myself and find extra photos too?” Yes, it’s a bit of extra effort. But extra effort is what delivers results. If you’re looking at return on investment in PR, you sometimes have to make an investment rather than trying to do it as quick, dirty, and cheaply as possible. That approach gets you quick, dirty, cheap results. If any at all. You’re not being asked to record a perfect studio version. You’re not doing a piece to camera. You’re opening your phone and saying what you really feel about your latest story. The human voice, straight from the horse’s mouth, will always beat corporate speak.   A former business journalist, Greg Simpson is the author of The Small Business Guide to PR and has been recognised as one of the UK’s top 5 PR consultants, having set up Press For Attention PR in 2008. He has worked for FTSE 100 firms, charities and start-ups and conducted press conferences with Sir Richard Branson and James Caan. His background ensures a deep understanding of every facet of a successful PR campaign – from a journalist’s, client’s, and consultant’s perspective. See this column in the August issue of East Midlands Business Link Magazine here.

East Midlands Freeport has published its first Investment Strategy and 2025/26 Business Plan, outlining how over £1 billion in funding will be used to drive infrastructure, skills and sustainable energy development across the region. These plans set out how the Freeport is going to use retained business rates and other funding tools to unlock development, attract investment and support growth across its three nationally significant sites: East Midlands Airport and Gateway Industrial Cluster, East Midlands Intermodal Park, and the former Ratcliffe-on-Soar Power Station site. This approach is backed by the UK Government’s Industrial Strategy and developed in close partnership with local authorities, site developers, and the East Midlands Combined County Authority. It reflects the Freeport’s role in delivering targeted, long-term economic growth for the region. The new Investment Strategy outlines how East Midlands Freeport will reinvest £1bn through retained business rates and complementary funding, deliver enabling infrastructure and unlock development-ready sites, launch a Skills and Communities Fund in 2025, support the clean energy, logistics, and advanced manufacturing sectors, help create 28,000 new jobs and deliver £9 billion in wider economic impact. This strategy ensures that investment is deployed in a way that supports national priorities while delivering long-term value for communities and businesses in the East Midlands. The Business Plan sets out how resource and investment will be targeted in the year ahead – supporting site activation, investor engagement and workforce development. It builds on early progress, securing £150m of investment and creating over 850 jobs, and outlines next steps to scale activity across all three sites. Priority areas include infrastructure planning and early works, occupier attraction in key growth sectors, delivery of inclusive skills programmes, strategic collaboration with local and national partners, and governance and impact measurement to track results. Tom Newman-Taylor, CEO of East Midlands Freeport, said: “These plans show how East Midlands Freeport is unlocking development, attracting investment and building value for the region. “This is a Freeport delivering with purpose – backed by strong partnerships and focused on sectors that will define the UK’s economic future. We’re proud to be part of a strong ecosystem supporting growth that is targeted, inclusive and aligned with both national strategy and regional priorities.”

The latest KPMG and REC, UK Report on Jobs: Midlands survey, compiled by S&P Global, indicated that permanent placements in the Midlands continued to fall markedly in July amid reports of lower demand for workers and concerns over the economic outlook. At the same time, temp billings fell for the first time in three months, and at the quickest rate in one-and-a-half years. The decline in hiring activity contributed to further steep increases in candidate availability for both permanent and temporary roles. Improved candidate numbers also reduced pressure on pay, with both starting salaries and temp wages rising only marginally. Vacancies data meanwhile showed that demand for permanent staff fell at a sharper pace, while temp staff demand dropped for the first time in three months. The KPMG and REC, UK Report on Jobs: Midlands is compiled by S&P Global from responses to questionnaires sent to around 100 recruitment and employment consultancies in the Midlands. Sharp decrease in permanent placements Permanent placements fell in the Midlands for the second successive month in July. The rate of decrease was little-changed from that seen in June and sharp overall. Survey respondents indicated that weaker confidence around the outlook and lower job postings had weighed on permanent staff appointments. However, the reduction seen in the Midlands was the softest of the four monitored English regions. Recruiters in the Midlands recorded a renewed decrease in temporary billings at the start of the third quarter, marking the first fall in three months. The rate of reduction was the strongest since January 2024 and sharp. Anecdotal evidence suggested that lower demand for temp workers and higher staffing costs had weighed on billings. That said, the fall in the Midlands was softer than the national average, with only the South of England posting a weaker rate of decline. Demand for permanent staff in the Midlands fell for the fourteenth month running in July, and at the most pronounced rate since February. The Midlands saw a slightly softer fall in permanent vacancies than that seen on average across the UK as a whole, however. There was a decline in demand for temporary workers in the Midlands for the first time in three months during July, albeit one that was modest overall. Moreover, the pace of reduction in the Midlands was softer than those seen across the three other monitored English regions. Sustained upturn in permanent candidate numbers The number of candidates available for permanent roles in the Midlands increased markedly during July, with the latest uptick extending the current sequence of expansion to 28 months. The rate of growth eased only slightly from June’s one-and-a-half-year record, and was broadly in line with the UK-wide trend. Panellists indicated that redundancies had been a key factor pushing up candidate supply. Recruitment consultancies in the Midlands reported that a lack of temp job opportunities and redundancies contributed to a further rise in temp candidate availability in July. The rate of increase remained historically marked, despite easing to a three-month low. The Midlands posted the slowest rise in temporary staff availability of the four monitored English regions, however. Slowest rise in starting salaries for nearly four-and-a-half years Salaries for new permanent joiners in the Midlands continued to rise during July. The pace of salary inflation slowed sharply, however, and was the weakest seen since the current period of pay growth began in March 2021. The rise in permanent salaries in the Midlands was also weaker than the UK average. Recruiters often indicated that higher salaries were offered to attract suitably skilled staff. However, others noted that improved candidate availability had dampened overall growth. Recruitment consultancies in the Midlands signalled a further increase in temp pay at the start of the third quarter. The rate of inflation was only marginal, however, and the softest recorded in the current eight-month sequence of rising pay. Moreover, the Midlands saw a slightly slower increase in temp wages than that seen at the national level. Commenting on the latest survey results, Kate Holt, people consulting partner at KPMG in the Midlands said: “Hiring conditions in the Midlands remain tough, but employers are responding with agility. With permanent recruitment under pressure, firms are leaning into temporary hiring, and the Midlands is leading the way. We were the only region that saw a rise in temp billings and short-term vacancies across England. “At the same time, a growing pool of available talent is giving businesses the chance to rethink how and where they invest. We’re seeing a clear shift in focus toward retaining core teams and building flexibility into future workforce planning.” Kate Shoesmith, REC deputy chief executive, said: “There is a path to jobs market recovery – but it will take co-ordinated action from Government, the Bank of England and business to maximise on any potential upswing. “With starting salaries and temp pay rising in the Midlands but only modestly, it was right to cut interest rates last week. More action like this, to stabilise the business cost-base, is what will support growth and boost the jobs market this year. That is what the Chancellor should be keeping firmly in mind when preparing this year’s Autumn Budget. “Fluctuations in permanent and temporary job placements in the Midlands signal a labour market that remains resilient but uneven. Across the UK, construction, a key economic bellwether, has seen a rise in temp vacancies, an early sign of confidence returning. Demand for blue-collar temp roles and permanent engineering jobs in the UK also remains steady across the country, offering another glimmer of optimism. “At the same time, hiring in retail and hospitality are down in the UK. Employers in these sectors are pausing due to cost pressures and uncertainty around employment law, although when the turn comes, these industries typically rebound quickly. “Meanwhile, widespread skills shortages remain in the Midlands for permanent and temporary staff, which indicates the need for urgent support from government to upskill and retrain people; while businesses need to act now to secure the talent they will require when hiring picks up later this year, as our separate employer sentiment surveys suggest it will.”