There was a time where a business could hire a 'PR Guy or Gal' and have them either write press releases on the company and/or have them schmooze at various business events.
And the PR hire's salary would be paid for several times over by the uptick in business.
Does that condition still exist today?
CAN a business actually make money doing so-called traditional public relations in the digital age?
Of course the answer is the old stand-by, non-satisfactory answer: it depends.
What kind of business do you have?
Where do 80% (or at least a majority) of your customers come from?
What is your product or service offering? What is changing in the offering(s)?
Have you gained or lost customers and business over the last three years?
What is your industry trending over the last year?
What promotions have worked over the last three years?
And on and on as any good business coach would interrogate you.
Adopting a Feed-the-Winners-Starve the Losers Philosophy
"It's so easy for businesses these days marketing online..." is what a business coach recently told me. Their point was that with Facebook, LinkedIn, and Google Search there are a lot of places to tell an organization's story.
Well, I did not tell him this, but if he reads this, he knows who he is, but the client offerings this business coach is marketing, a first-year marketing consultant would kill to represent!
Now I know a marketer's job is different from a PR person's job, but both of the skill sets have to approach their job in telling their employer's story in a compelling way.
And the main way many of us get to the area of 'compelling' is to test and re-test approaches, press releases, white papers, schmoozing events, teaching or seminar opportunities and joint venture opportunities and...whew!
Public relations has to be compelling enough so that people respond.
It's no more complicated than that.
There is a lot happening to and within public relations these days.
On What Media Do Your Potential Customers Mostly Hover?
Now I've got to be open and transparent here. I have a marketing group and we have guided clients AWAY from their usual advertising mix.
Yes, that includes at times local newspapers, phone books and general-audience publications--both online and off line.
There has been a tremendous online shift in newspaper and phone book publishers. I suppose it is a 'convert or die' scenario.
There are SO many options local newspapers have to be alive and healthy that they are not doing. But that's another story for a different topic!
However , I have also guided potential advertisers AWAY from advertising in the Quad State Business Journal, too! (Gasp!) The QSBJ is in the middle of an 18-month ramp up as an online publication and we are not quite ready to take local online ads just yet.
So where do we steer clients to get business with their public relations activities?
Content Is King--But Distribution of that Content is the Queen!
No doubt about it, businesses face a heavily-packed content world of getting their message out these. There is SO MUCH content online that business owners often throw up their hands and go back to advertising in their local newspaper--often settling for a fraction of an ROI they could enjoy otherwise.
We don't have the heart to throw content in here that we could or even should, but we want to BRIEFLY develop the public relations smorgasbord available to businesses and nonprofit organizations right now.
A Quick Guide on Terms for Quizzing Your Potential PR Hire
You do the work and effort to become familiar with the terms yourself and THEN you will see clearly enough to see if a potential hire really knows her stuff or is just trying to dazzle you with her footwork.
This is where is world of business is heading--or already is profiting. What we will do is state the term and give a 'good for' type of feed for best-for businesses or situations.
Types of Content in the Marketplace:
Advertorial--This is a paid editorial type of presentation. In short an advertorial is simply a display ad written as a news piece. You are seeing more advertorials today in many newspapers as well as in a lot of print and online media. You will know them by the smaller-font 'Sponsored Content' or 'Paid Advertising' message somewhere near the piece.
Newspapers originally rejected these kinds of ads, but now some eagerly accept them. (Don't be upset with newspapers doing this or thinking less of them. They are simply trying to stay in business.)
Good For--There are SO many businesses and situations that advertorials can cover the waterfront. I do not know why more newspapers are not out selling advertorials as a regular part of marketing their advertising division.
Banks and mortgage companies come to mind as first thoughts, but the potential number of types of businesses can be limitless if one thinks about it.
Native Facebook Feeds--This is the win-win nature of Facebook--and why their founders are billionaires. Facebook in the early days refused to be purchased by Google and this is the reason they knew they should not sell out. Facebook endured a lot of flack in the press as to the information they asked from users. (BTW, when you see the word 'native' it usually means paid.)
And now you know why. A business can now target Facebook as to a particular region, a city, a zip code sequence or areas of interest in dozens of ways.
Good For--Restaurants use Facebook targeting a lot, but also a host of other businesses. Physician and dental offices are also getting on the bandwagon here. It is cheap advertising. You are just buying clicks (as per so many other things in our digital age). You don't have to pay the big bucks fee for exact keyword matches as you do with Google's Adwords and it brings you almost the same results.
Native LinkedIn Feeds--Did you know this about LinkedIn? Not too many businesses know this about LI, but this is why their stock price continues to remain strong. LI is an ideal place if your offer needs to reach professionals in any capacity of their life. Targeting is done a little differently than Facebook, but works pretty much the same. Many businesses learn LI well and develop prospecting strategies where they don't have to pay a dime--just their time.
Good For--Headhunters and specific recruiting work, travel and vacation firms also are prominent on LI. Schools and colleges are also developing strategies, but any business with a product or service appealing to people in an executive or managerial capacity.
Native Twitter Feeds--Believe it or not Twitter is now being used more and more for business. Twitter itself is getting a lot of media attention these days. However, I can take you to a photo equipment distributor in our Quad State region who I believe was the first business in our area to sell via Twitter. It was 'way back' in 2007.
Good For--Mostly two-step promotions--meaning a link to a report or white paper a business is offering. Twitter, as of this writing, is not a strong as contender as Facebook or LI. It does not ask a lot of information from its users and therefore targeting can be a chore. The entire Twitter process works best, of course, when one has a large following or a business can buy a large following. Twitter is good for the marketplace in that the creative marketers have another option for their employers.
Native Press--Aka Paid Content with some wonks as seeing only this medium as the go-to medium. This is basically a paid recommendation offering. It may be in the shape of a monthly or weekly column, a full web page or any number of ways. It may not be spelled out like this, but it is what it is. It's a good tool for businesses representing a ton of different industries in my opinion. As to promotion on a website or outright media recommendation ("Buy your car from Fluff Motors!"), it can be a lot more subtler in presentation.
Good For--I believe banks and financial institutions are missing out big time in not taking advantage of this format. They could have their lead trust officer or whomever handles estates and estate planning or business loans or other area write a weekly column and THEN promote the links to customers and vendors. I know the QSBJ would love to see this form of native action take place. We believe it would be extremely profitable over time. Of course banking is not the only industry, but also those whose clients in business--or in the field where the media reaches into.
Native Newsletter (E-Letter)--This is for both online and off line publications. This means that the entire piece/web page is devoted to promoting the things from your business or organization. Probably the worst representation of an offline newsletter by an industry was years ago by the accounting industry. CPAs would sign up for X amount of months of content, slap their name on it and present the same-old, same-old drivel that virtually every other accountant had. And they'd do it because they couldn't stand to write. And they weren't creative. This format has great potential, but it is limited to certain industry usage.
Good For--Accountants and other professional service providers as long as they hired a LOCAL writer and offered local pieces--about local clients, local events and so forth. Therefore make it interesting to read for goodness sake!
The point of ANY public relations activity, at least in the offensive part of business promotion, is to generate interest in the business itself. Maybe even to generate business leads.
If managers and owners cannot see a real ROI for their public relations activity--at least with the above items--it may be time to either hire someone from the outside as an independent marketer, or to hire someone else!
Not many businesses can afford to drift along month after month after month on a process without showing a solid return on that process.
Go forth and conquer your market!
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Article first appeared in www.QuadStateBusinessJournal.com
