56 | Acquisition International, Influential Businesswoman Awards 2024 May24202 PR Consultancy CEO of the Year 2024 (East Midlands): Michelle Nichols Purple Pitch PR oday, Michelle employs two full-time PR professionals to help her continue to grow Purple Pitch PR into a leading enterprise in Northamptonshire and across the East Midlands. Working predominantly with clients in the policing, cyber security, and tourism industries, Michelle and her team deliver a full-service approach to PR. These services range from strategic communications consultancy, crisis communications, and copy writing, to media and influencer outreach, and social media campaign delivery. Michelle’s previous experience within communications and leadership advisory created a solid foundation that cultivated a strong beginning for Purple Pitch PR as it looked to establish itself in those early days, as she begins by explaining. “Because of my previous roles, I had extensive experience in developing communications strategies to help organisations meet their business objectives. I had managed complex crisis communications at a national level, led multi-agency responses to major incidents, managed media relations and briefings, drafted content and copy for every medium you can think of, and had a passion for driving digital engagement through effective social media.” Saying that, Michelle credits her policing background especially in helping to distinguish Purple Pitch PR from a wealth of competition. These experiences offered crucial experiences through which Michelle honed her skills to a fine-edge, able to weather the most challenging of situations. After all, policing can be a stressful environment, but more importantly, it demands clear, simple, timely, legal, and transparent communication. It’s a landscape that needs a strong grasp of public relations, and ultimately, it proved to be the perfect place for Michelle to become an expert in the industry. PR is also an industry that celebrates a strong women-led presence and has celebrated that status for longer than most others. “Of course, there are some sectors within PR where representation is still too low, but on the whole, in my experience, most of the people I worked for and with were women.” Michelle adds, before continuing, “My company has an all-female team at the moment and that’s something I am really proud of. Neither Tracy or Mia come from a PR background, but both are super bright, hardworking, and I knew PR would suit them with the right training and support.” So, what’s next for Purple Pitch PR? Where does the team plan to go from here? It’s all steam ahead for Michelle and the team with five national law enforcement conferences between now and March 2025. Accompanying those are some “fun campaigns for holiday park clients”, and some national campaigns around crime prevention and behaviour change. As Michelle explains in her closing comments, Purple Pitch PR’s future is defined by marketing and reinforcing what the team have put in place over the last six years. “Top of the list is the development of a new website for Purple Pitch PR. We have gone through a rebrand from Purple Pitch Communications to Purple Pitch PR, but it’s been a bit of a soft launch until the new website is ready. Once that goes live the rebrand will be official!” Michelle’s personal goals revolve around making Purple Pitch PR the best possible company it can be, as she explains. “My goal for the year ahead is to spend more time on developing the business. It’s probably one of the biggest challenges for small business owners. Being able to step away from the day to day doing to focus on the future of the business and bringing in new clients is tough. But I have done some work with a fabulous female business coach who has helped me to identify how I can make time to do this and also helped me really focus on our USPs and priorities.” Company: Purple Pitch PR Name: Michelle Nichols Email: [email protected] Web Address: Purple Pitch Communications | PR and Consultancy | Milton Keynes (purplepitchcomms.co.uk) Address: Suite 7a, Innovation Centre, Silverstone Park, Silverstone, NN12 8GX Telephone: 07719 327987 Michelle Nichols established Purple Pitch PR in early 2018 after leaving full-time employment to ‘take the jump’ into a solo endeavour. Now, some six years on, Michelle and Purple Pitch PR work with a range of clients in multiple sectors as a result of their burgeoning reputation. We spoke to Michelle to find out more on the back of her recognition in the awards programme. T
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