The following is an article “Maximize Press Exposure For Your Business” by Marc Primo.
What is more believable: being told by a random person that he is the greatest magician that ever lived; or being told by a reliable source that that random person is the greatest magician that ever lived?
The trouble with advertising
Most companies today earmark a large chunk of their marketing budget to advertising and a significantly smaller amount, if any at all, to public relations. There is inherently nothing wrong with this; in fact, many of the world’s biggest companies owe their success not only to the quality of their product, but to effective ads that ensure that the brand never leaves the consumers’ pysche and is always top of mind among its competitors.
However, we live in an age where consumers have become cynical towards advertisers, where they have finally woken up and smelled the coffee. While there’s no denying that today’s ad campaigns have evolved, with too many brilliant examples out there to mention, the concept of advertising itself has not. Ultimately, it is the brand itself that is beating its own chest and telling you, the consumer, why they are the greatest at what they do.
Why PR matters
When it comes to the press and public relations, you bargaining chip is less on ad spend or chest-beating, and more on relationship-building. With this practice, companies allow reputable journalists from print or broadcast media to experience their product or service firsthand through demos, press conferences, or complimentary loans in exchange for a write-up or “feature” on said product.
This is where the relationship-building aspect comes in. Let’s say the press deem your product mediocre or, worse yet, terrible, a healthy rapport with them is likely to save your brand the unwanted negative publicity if they opt not to write about it at all. And if that were to be the case, all you would have really lost was a little time instead of a six-figures-and-up ad placement.
On the flip side, if your product impresses them, then they will gladly write about it in their respective publications, or feature it in one of the programs of their broadcast network, reaching millions of their readers or viewers.
Nurturing the relationship
But the ball doesn’t stop there. Working with the press is like being in a romantic relationship. It must be nurtured and mutually beneficial to both parties. After all, they have the power to give your brand extensive media mileage at virtually no cost to you, while you have the power to reciprocate through tokens of appreciation or even, ironically enough, ad placements in their publication where the majority of their revenue comes from.
Once a pattern has been established wherein both parties are satisfied that the relationship yields positive results, only then will you know that you have succeeded in achieving sufficient press exposure—which, I might add, has a pass-on rate three times bigger than an ad—since the audience heard the news about you from a reliable source rather than from the horse’s mouth.
And that, my friends, is the magic of public relations.