Find out why public relations can't just happen on its own and how to choose an agency.
A. So you can't see the blood.
People often think that once a business starts advertising, editors will be lining up to work with them. This does happen sometimes, but it's not usually the case. Public relations are a very important part of the marketing mix, but they require a lot of hard work and attention to detail.
Public relations is not the same as advertising at all. You can't buy media placement, which is one of the biggest differences. Either the story is worth telling or it isn't. Advertising is the word for paid placement. A successful PR campaign gets a third party to say good things about a product or service, which is something that no other form of marketing can do.
Both are important parts of marketing, but public relations can take time to build. Results don't happen in a few weeks or a month, especially since magazines need three months to get ready for print. The three-month lead time is not a problem when working with TV, newspapers, or radio, but competition is.
There have been times when everything went well right away. We planned an event at a small children's museum in Philadelphia that got a lot of attention from the media. Everyone from every newspaper, magazine, and TV station came to this event. We've also had a number of press conferences over the years, which got a lot of attention the next day. This is especially true if the news is shocking or if the product is a big seller.
In one case, we made thousands of stories for a client, but the client wanted an article for a major business paper. It didn't work. The editor was interested, but he didn't get what we were trying to say as the story's "hook." When we finally got the point across about how mass market stores are different from specialty stores, he wrote a great story. Our story ended up on the front page of the business section, minus one column, but it took months and months of work to get there.
A lot of clients don't know how PR works. For example, when I was in charge of marketing a big line of licenced clothes for kids, the client had signed the contract for advertising but not the contract for public relations. He didn't understand the whole thing, so he asked for a meeting to talk about it. Soon after the meeting started, a charming old man with a straight face looked at me and asked, "Why do I have to pay for this? Doesn't it just happen?"
At first, I thought he was joking, but then I saw that he just didn't know how the process or discipline worked. He signed the contract after a long talk about it. Both the campaign and the clothing line did very well.
Some clients don't have enough money to pay for trade advertising, consumer advertising, sales promotion, web site development, public relations, and the whole marketing mix. Many will start with PR and advertising to tradespeople, and then, as time goes on, they'll add to their marketing budget.
How to Pick a Service
When you're ready to think about a PR team, what should you look for? First, there has to be a spark between them. You also need to have experience and know people in the media. Don't be afraid to ask for references from past clients. Once you have them, call them.
Don't assume that the new people in charge of the business will take care of your account. If you think one of your account people has the knowledge you need, you might want to ask that person to be the person in charge of your account. In your written contract, the agency should be willing to agree to what you want. Beware of the "bait and switch" scam, in which new business people try to get your business but then disappear after the contract is signed.
What to look forward to
Some things to keep in mind:
Good PR and advertising kill a bad product faster than anything else. Customers can buy the item only once, and that's it.
When photos are taken of products, the samples must be in great shape. Small flaws are picked up by the camera and made bigger by it. Retouching costs a lot of money, so be careful when choosing samples of products to photograph.
PR isn't used to force stores to sell something. If you do it, it will come back to bite you. When an editor asks a PR agency about how a product or service is sold in stores, the agency should either know the answers or be able to find them quickly. Reporters and editors always need this information right before a deadline, so everything has to be done quickly. The right answer is not something like, "We plan to open stores soon in your area."
Put yourself in the shoes of the editor. He or she wants to write about your product, and his or her readers expect to be able to find it in stores, on reputable websites, or in catalogues. If a product can't do any of these things, the editor won't write about it.
People have come to me because they wanted a certain product but couldn't find it at the store mentioned in the article because it was out of stock. One Christmas, I was almost running a mail-order business out of the agency because customers were so desperate for a certain product that wasn't sold in many stores.
Most trade books come out a month ahead of time. Consumer books come out three months ahead of time. If you want to have a story in a magazine in December, you should start making plans in July or August.
If your agency is creative, it will think of new ways to market your products or services.
PR is a great way to market your business, but you need to know the basics to know how it can help you.
Creston, Diane T.
Advertising by Creston
Your Marketing Partner in a Strategic Way
