Think Beyond the Media
Published: My Business magazine, December 2009
If you think PR is solely media coverage, think again. The most effective PR campaigns communicate through a number of avenues, with media only one of them, explains Julia Nekich.
I would estimate that 90 per cent of businesses that approach us – and possibly many other PR consultancies – are seeking media coverage as the only way to promote their message.
When I spend a bit of time with them to identify their business problems, marketing objectives, target markets, and the dynamics of their industry, we usually discover the public relations campaign will need to include more than media coverage.
It’s true that media is a powerful communication avenue. In promoting your message, at least 50 per cent of your campaign may still be media focussed. But if you don’t look beyond media, you may miss out on some great, longer-term opportunities. Not only that, using media as the sole avenue for PR might actually backfire for some businesses.
Don’t rely too heavily on media
PR is all about building relationships with your stakeholders – and this includes the media. At the same time, the best results are achieved when you saturate the market with your message.
In the media, saturating the market would mean sending as many press releases as possible. A press release every week on behalf of most small businesses would be considered as way too many by most media, and journalists may tire of them. Unless you have something extremely newsworthy to tell, after a couple of months, you might receive emails from some journalists saying, “Please take me off your email list.” Not a good relationship-building exercise.
This is especially the case for most monthly magazines. When you think about it, magazines are not going to run editorial about your business in every issue.
The other factor to consider is that media is often challenging: coverage depends on the editor, journalist or producer accepting the content. Unlike paid advertising space, media coverage is not guaranteed.
Three non-media avenues to consider for your PR campaign:
The online space
If your website is a large part of your marketing or sales, the online space is naturally the place to hit hardest in your public relations campaign. Every online mention your brand gets helps your website’s search engine optimisation – and even more so if these mentions have a link directly back to your site.
There are already myriad ‘how to’ articles out there about blogging, podcasts, videos, and social media. Just make sure that every avenue you use is designed to meet your marketing objectives. Always go back to your objectives, and test and measure, test and measure. Is your online strategy ensuring your target audience communicates with you; is it helping you compile a database of prospects, or bringing people to your website? Is your website conversion good?
Direct customer contact
Often your news may not be something the media will cover. This could include awards you have won, events you are running, or industry changes you want to educate your customers about.
If you have a large database of customers, this is literally a goldmine for PR. Through a database like this, you can get good response rates from email blasts that carry surveys, offers or invitations. These email blasts can direct customers to your website for even more content, downloads, freebies, or research data. An email-to-website strategy does require careful planning and execution – the last thing you want is a good proportion of your database ‘unsubscribing’ from your emails.
Events and speaking engagements
If you offer a service, what better way to promote your expertise than by speaking directly to your audience? PR can also include pitching the right people behind your business as speakers at industry and consumer events.
Speaking engagements are often a by-product of relationships in the PR industry. For instance, for one of my property clients, I worked on introducing him to key industry associations. He was then invited to not only speak at their events, but to distribute his marketing collateral at those events. Third-party relationships like this are also effective when you’re looking to develop alliances. For instance, through industry associations, I’ve developed relationships with similar businesses (advertising, marketing, sales – even non-competing PR agencies), where we can cross refer work to each other.
If you’re selling a product, customer experiences are often essential. Product sampling and giveaways in areas where people gather or pass through are grassroots PR that have helped numerous brands grow into household names. It’s a pretty powerful avenue when you realise that around 3000 people a day might walk through a popular open space in the CBD. You can go even deeper by creating larger, interactive experiences for customers – how far you go depends on your budget and the results you want to achieve.
Keep in mind that particular PR avenues suit certain types of businesses more than others. Whichever public relations avenue you choose, ensure that the strategy is planned carefully and executed by a professional, aligns with your objectives, and can be measured.
Julia Nekich is principal of The Ideas Suite. A former journalist, Julia has written for major media such as Sydney Morning Herald and Sunday Telegraph.
