Many entrepreneurs and freelancers will be looking at their business now and thinking, I just need to get my name out there and let people know what I’m doing and then the enquiries will start flooding in. This may lead them to start looking at options like PR and you may well be met with promises of instant results, tons of press coverage and lots more business. Jenna Gould, Director of Media Jems asks is it too good to be true?
I have lost count of the amount of times I’ve had clients come to me and say things like, ‘I want to try PR for a month and gauge the results to see if I’m getting the right ROI on it’, or ‘I’ve not got the budget but the money I’ll get from speaker gigs generated by the PR you do for me will more than cover the costs of the publicity’ when really they couldn’t be further from the truth.
I find that the problem tends to be that people view these strategies as having a direct link to sales when they don’t. Promotional strategies like PR are investments which are designed to raise profile, build credibility and encourage people to choose you as their supplier. Very rarely are they a quick fix or produce instant results. TIME I am fully aware that most PRs will hark on about ‘time’ and say that you need to give a campaign time to build momentum to have maximum effect. Sadly, it is a few of the less reputable PRs that have meant this and is now seen as merely an excuse to seek out yet more money from a poor unsuspecting client. Unfortunately, the time issue is valid.
The Media see hundreds of people like you each day, so what makes you different and what is going to make them think you are anything more than these fly-by-nights who are here one minute claiming to be the UK’s leading xyz and then disappear into existence the next? The media are after REAL, long-standing, credible experts to turn to for comments, not just someone claiming to be an expert. You can’t buy expertise and credibility with PR, advertising, rebranding, a new website; you have to earn it by delivering your message consistently time and time again. I know this because I’ve seen it time and time again. I’ve seen media who are tentatively watching a new client during the first 9 months of a campaign, interested but not committing, then suddenly they’ll just decide that person is credible and the enquiries start flooding in.
Any credible PR professional cannot and will not promise that a specific story will get coverage in xyz. They also cannot promise that you will get x numbers of clients through your door – not because they don’t have the skills to deliver, but because there are so many external factors that will influence the success of any PR campaign…
Competitor offerings – So many times I’ve been told that a certain product/service is an industry first only to find that it’s actually not and so neither journalists nor consumers are particularly blown away by it.
Demand – It’s so important to have done your research to see if your product/service actually serves a real need in the marketplace. PRs can get your message out there but if ultimately people don’t want or need what you are offering, no amount of PR will help change this.
Breaking News – No matter how good your story/angle is, if something bigger comes in then your story will always move down the line.
Recent similar stories – You might have a truly excellent product/service that does a specific job in a sector, but if your target media have had a recent feature on it, or perhaps you were featured in it recently, they won’t cover the story editorially until a set amount of time has passed. Period.
YOUR ability to deliver – PRs can line up an opportunity for you but whether you can deliver the goods is critical – be it in terms of written copy or spoken word. Don’t purport to be an expert in something if you can’t deliver the goods.
The moral of the story is; if you are thinking about PR, take some time to really think about why you want the publicity, what it is that you are offering the marketplace, what commitment you can give to the campaign and how it is going to form part of your overall business strategy.
