Lifestyle PR

What is lifestyle PR – from glossy mags to micro influencers. Where do you start?

In very simple terms, lifestyle PR is the promotion of products designed to enhance your life and the way you live it into the lifestyle media – this sector of the media covers everything from food and drink to fitness, from travel to pet supplies, home décor to beauty products, and just about everything in between.

Once upon a time, carrying out lifestyle PR was very simple, we got journalists to write about your products, readers read about them and then they bought them. Job done.

These days… not so much. These days things are a little more, well, complicated. And knowing where to pitch your product, or spend your marketing budget, can be a real brainache.

For a start, the sheer volume of lifestyle media is huge and increasing every day as consumers engage with new platforms – from social media to interactive versions of your favourite magazines which can come in clickable and shoppable versions available through phones and tablets.

In fact, a quick search of the lifestyle outlets listed in Cision – an influencer outreach app used by PRs – reveals there are more than 5,000 lifestyle media outlets in the UK.

It’s a dizzying landscape. Where do you focus? How do you tell a real influencer from a fake influencer? Well, any PR firm worth their salt (ahem… us!) will be able to advise on the relevant ones for your target audience.

Let’s go through some of the key sectors and some of the most influential outlets for Lifestyle PR.

Women’s lifestyle:

The driving force and by far the biggest sector within the lifestyle press with key publications having been around for decades.

Cosmopolitan established in the UK in 1972, despite moving online, Cosmo still sells over 300,000 copies each month in the UK, mainly to women with a median age of 31 and an income of at least £30k

Good Housekeeping was launched in 1922, and despite stories of how much print media has declined – it still has a circulation of over 400,000 copies per month, to a loyal readership of mainly over 35-year-old women.

Relative newbie Stylist has been a huge women’s lifestyle success. With distribution in six major UK cities, reaching over 400,000 people per week through their print publication. While online they record around 2m unique users and the same number again for their combined social reach.

Glamour moved from print to online in 2018 – with just two special edition print versions each year. It now claims to receive 1.8million (Cision) unique visitors per month, mainly women with a media age of 33, it still boasts sections dedicated to makeup, hair and fashion – the holy trinity of women’s magazines – as well as entertainment and wellness.

The Rise of the Influencer

The buzzword in lifestyle PR right now is “influencer” – especially for accessories, make-up and fashion products. Whereas once we’d give products to celebrities to endorse, influencers are taking over this space.

But there aren’t just influencers. Oh, no. There are ‘micro’ influencers, ‘nano’ influencers – all with different sized audiences and different requirements. Some of them are great. Some are fabricated fraudsters. How do you tell the difference? It’s down to engagement. New post to follow soon on this – subscribe to our newsletter to keep up to date

We love Erica Davies. She is an ex-fashion editor who has become a tour de force in the influencer world resulting in her own range for QVC.  With more than 151k followers between and huge engagement for her posts, her branded partnerships include with the likes of M&S, and Stella Artois.

Other influencers rocking the ‘gram include mother_pukka otherwise known as Anna Whitehouse (258k followers) and cherryhealey – TV’s Cherry Healey – (149k followers) are just two of her fellow Instagrammers who are delivering aspirational content to their engaged followers.

Lifestyle PR on Youtube

It was once the place to go if you wanted to see cats doing cute things or adorable babies biting their big brothers, but today YouTube is filled with influencers, and are a massive draw for the younger markets especially for beauty and fashion.

Zoella has long-reigned supreme in this medium. Her main channel has more than 11 million subscribers while her videos have had more than 1 billion views. Her success has led to her own beauty range for Superdrug, four books and her own branded merchandise, Sugg Life.

And if you’re thinking of working with Ms Sugg, you better prepare to plough considerable funds into your marketing budget. She reportedly charges around £12,000 per Instagram post – where she has 9.5m followers. Pretty pricey, but a snip in comparison to celebrity influencer Kylie Jenner who is rumoured to charge $1,000,000 for a single Instagram post!

Men’s lifestyle 

While the lads mag era is well and truly over, goodbye FHM and Maxim, the well-established GQ has remained strongly popular selling over 100,00 copies per month. Last year saw Shortlist cut its print edition and go online only – where it now receives 1.7m unique visitors per month (Cision).

Influencer wise there are plenty to choose from. Leading the way is footballer turned whisky aficionado and all-round style icon David Beckham. He has a whopping 61.7m Instagram followers and his grid features paid partnerships from the likes of house99 and otro. Following in daddy’s footsteps Brooklyn Beckham is also one of the UK’s top male influencers with more than 12m followers on Insta. He uses his platform to show off his photography skills and promote causes he champions – including Giving Blood.

When it comes to fashion, freelance menswear journalist Jordan Bunker, is your go to for style advice. His Instagram, which boasts an incredibly invested 21.1k followers, is beautifully curated to showcase different looks and promote those brands he is passionate about.

YouTube wise there is a plethora of young men making a name for themselves on the video-sharing site. Strictly star Joe Suggs, his brother-in-law Alfie Deyes and I’m A Celeb almost ran Jack Maynard are some of the biggest. Between them they have almost 15m YouTube subscribers and are all social media savvy, working Instagram and Twitter alongside their channels.

Enthusiast:

Not especially gender-specific, but generally this market has a more male lifestyle focus, enthusiast outlets cover everything from collecting stamps to caravans, from bivouacking to base-jumping.

These kind of outlets will usually have either a high-intention audience (weddings/health/interiors) or a loyal base of readers (sports/activities) and are great for product PR. Also, chaps tend to be more keen on a podcast – with content designed especially for their market, which opens up a whole new realm of marketing and PR possibilities.

For example, if you want to promote a bike pump to cycling enthusiasts then you might want to approach publications such as Mountain Bike Rider and Pro Cycling or approach podcasts such as Singletracks or Shift-Up

If you’re talking specialist men’s magazines, media such as Men’s Health and Coach Mag, are going strong in the newsstands – each selling over 150,000 copies per month and both have very healthy online counterparts.

With the number of lifestyle publications now on the market, PR agencies have more opportunities than ever to get your products and brands in front of the right people.

Don’t get me wrong, navigating the M25 of the PR world can be something of a challenge, but when you reach your final destination you’ll be glad you made the journey.

You can read all about our lifestyle PR services here