Advertisers now know that a lot of traditional advertising is not producing a desirable ROI while the cost of online advertising, while relatively more effective, is going up. For many startups and small businesses, a huge advertising budget is simply not an option. In other words, if they can not get creative, they may never be able to get their message across to the target market. (Related article: New advertising options needed to achieve good ROI)
One simple step that almost anyone can take is to focus on public relations (PR), apart from using advertising, word-of-mouth marketing or even guerilla marketing. The reason most business leaders tend to prefer advertising (over PR) is that it is easy to do. You pick what you want, pay for it, and the ad is there exactly as you wanted. However, with PR, it can take months before you see results, it is not easy to do, and you may not get the kind/type of exposure you would like to have. However, it generally costs far less than advertising. Even a casual mention by Oprah on television or in a magazine like Bazaar or Vogue can do wonders for a consumer products company.
What can a good public relations strategy do for your business?
- Bring new business and additional business from existing customer base.
- Lends credibility to your offering. In the current environment, people ignore most advertising messages.
- Pre-sells your offering to your customers (in other words, customers are ready to close the deal).
- Shortens the sales cycle.
- Often leads to word-of-mouth marketing.
- May even allow you to raise prices.
How to develop a good public relations program?
- Have a media savvy person do it. If you do not have anyone in-house, it can be easily outsourced. The investment generally pays off if you work with the right person or agency.
- Treat media people like rock stars. While they may not always be the ones to make the most amount of money, their power is incredible. Anything that they right has enormous power. What they choose to write depends mostly on how they are approached by a company. If a journalist spends a day at a spa and is pampered with all kinds of natural personal care products, she is more likely to mention them than if you sent her a press release talking about how wonderful your product is.
- Do not ignore the new media - the bloggers. Many bloggers are now almost as powerful as mainstream media (MSM). While some carry advertising on their blogs, others don't. As I have said in the past as well, bloggers are more passionate about what they write and are relatively easy to work with than the MSM journalists, who tend to be more conservative in their approach. Since bloggers are mostly independent, they also appeal to consumers since they perceive them to be more direct, honest, and not influenced by company policies. (Related article: Advertisers do not fully understand blog marketing yet)
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