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Strategic PR Gives Companies Amped Word-of-Mouth Advertising

A lot of folks say that the best way to advertise is by word-of-mouth. In certain cases this just might be true. My parents owned and operated a successful hamburger joint in Vernal, Utah for over 35 years without ever paying a cent for advertising. They were able to do this because they produced a great product and people in the community spread the word about where you could get the best tasting hamburgers in town. Their business thrived, on word-of-mouth advertising alone, for decades.

Sure, this works great if you are a small hamburger joint in Vernal, but what if your business exists in the realm of modern technology? Word-of-mouth is, more than likely, not going to work the best for you. Technology is a vast world where everything is happening at just under the speed of light. Good technology products and services are a dime a dozen. Focused, strategic PR is the only way that your company’s voice will be heard above all of the others. True, it differs from traditional word-of-mouth as it will cost your company some cash, but it carries tremendous validation and provides a lot of bang for your company’s buck.

Say your PR agency is able to secure you a briefing with, for example, The New York Times. In a way, this is word-of-mouth advertising on steroids. The New York Times is read by millions of people around the country each day. People put tremendous value into what the publication’s editors and writers think and say about products, services and the world in general. Your company will get more ROI out of a briefing with The New York Times than it ever will from traditional advertising methods.

When you feel that your company is at a place where it needs PR council in order to take it to the next level, make sure you pick an agency that adequately meets your company’s needs. Remember, they will be deciding the “mouths” that will spread your company’s “word.”

The Two-Year Mark...

It’s been almost two years since I jumped into the world of agency PR and joined the team at Snapp Conner and I’m happy to say that it’s been a great experience.

Making the transition from broadcasting to PR wasn’t too difficult since I was really just moving to the other side of the fence. Rather than receiving story ideas and pitches, I’m now the guy doing the sending and pitching and so on. However, it hasn’t always been easy.

Here are a few discoveries and thoughts I’ve had along the way, some may be obvious others may not be.

• Being pitched a story and trying to pitch a story are two very different things

• Just because you think your product/service/story is great doesn’t mean everyone else will

• It’s not enough to know everything about your client, you need to know about their competitors too

• Leaving a voicemail really doesn’t mean much

• There are several ways to write the same thing

I’m sure there are other things I’ve noticed and learned along the way, but these were the first to come to mind as I wrote this. It’s nice to be at a job where after 2 years you still feel like you are learning new things.

PR Firms Provide More Value for Less Than Hiring an On Staff PR Person

If you’ve ever heard, thought, or said, “I know we need a good PR program for our business, but we have a tight budget and I’m not sure we can afford it,” then you’re probably a small to medium business owner in today’s economic environment!

We hear these thoughts fairly frequently and with good cause. Every dollar you spend these days requires a solid return on investment. The question always arises, how much then should I spend on a public relations program? Should I hire a PR individual or an agency? How much PR budget is too much or too little?

Frequently business owners may opt to hire an “internal PR person.” The saying goes, “I can hire someone for a lower price than the PR proposal the agency just gave me.” Well that may be true in some cases, but if you look at the real costs you’ll quickly see hiring an individual on staff doesn’t always provide the greatest ROI.

Consider:

• You’ll be hard pressed to find an experienced PR person for under $36,000 per year. (If you’re hiring one person you’ll need an experienced person. More than likely you’re looking at $45,000 - $55,000 for someone with a few years of experience, and anywhere from $60,000 to +$100,000 for someone with a lot of experience.)

• When you add benefits and other employee overhead like technology and office space you’re significantly adding to your expense beyond the salary.

• More than likely one person on staff won’t have the bandwidth you need to do all the public relations activities necessary to make the PR ROI.

• There are also other resources your PR person will need such as wire distribution services, professional membership fees, and media databases (which can costs thousands of dollars per year) adding to the overall costs.

When you consider this, cost-to-ROI comparison becomes significant. You could easily pay anywhere from $6,000 to $12,000 per month for a PR person with just a few years experience—more as the experience grows!

Now, compare those costs to an agency. At Snapp Conner PR we usually recommend small to medium businesses be prepared to spend at least $3,000 to $5,000 per month minimum in order to implement an effective PR program designed to help them grow. That’s a minimum. There are no hard and fast rules on the budget. Some programs are great at that amount, others need to be bigger programs. That’s $36,000 to $60,000 per year, well within the competitive range of hiring one person on staff. Especially when you consider:

• With a PR agency you get the advantages of a PR account team comprised of 3-5 PR professionals all working on your behalf for that $3,000 - $5,000 per month investment. You couldn’t hire that many people for that amount of money anywhere.

• The PR agency has a wealth of knowledge and experience at all levels melded together to strategically plan and execute a program designed to help you meet your goals.

• The PR agency has all of the technology, databases, and other resources needed for a strong PR program on your behalf.

You already know you need a strong PR program. Next time you’re weighing the costs of hiring an individual or an agency, remember how many internal people and resources you’ll have to pay for to get the benefit of a reasonably priced PR budget from a strong PR agency.

Twitter Best Practices for Companies

Be Transparent: Identify who you are and your position with the company when you engage someone on Twitter. Never pretend to be a customer or a casual “tweeter” because you will be found out and cause your company grief.

Set up a corporate account: Ideally it is best for you to be your own person, but by setting up a corporate account you are making sure someone else doesn’t “brand jack” you and pose as your company.

Show who is managing the corporate account: If you decide to use a corporate account to monitor and respond to Twitter activity, show who is managing that account. Salesforce has a customer success Twitter account and indicates who is managing it (see below) with Twitter accounts. This has made it easier for people to identify with them and can begin following them as well.

Don’t be too self-promoting: Talk about your space and not just your products. Make it a nice blend. People are listening, and the more versed you are in your space can lead to better things – panel discussions, speaking ops and inclusion in cover.

Syndicate: I know this sounds like it contradicts what was said before, but use Twitter to syndicate company news. Doing this can score you cover, especially if you are following editors and they are following you.

Follow people who matter to your business: This sounds like a given, but some don’t do this. If you aren’t sure who these people are, go to www.search.twitter.com and use keywords to find people that are talking about what matter to you.

Ratios: Try and keep a good following to followers to ratio. A red flag goes up quickly what someone follows you and they are following 1,000 compared their 23 followers. This doesn’t just appear spammy, it is spam, and people don’t tend to follow people with a discrepancy like this. There have been cases when a new user signs up for a Twitter and immediately starts following the world. Twitter monitors these accounts and suspends them.

Be Active: Don’t set up an account, tweet a few times and then never be heard of again. The most prominent tweeters are out their starting and adding to conversations. They share their thoughts and are open and get involved. Yeah, it sounds time consuming, but it’s a necessary evil if you want to make the most of your social media experience.