Former on-air radio host, best-selling author, investor and President of public relations agency ZTPR.
Hinterhaus Productions 2016
You can have the best product or service, but if nobody knows about it, is it really the best? This is a question I pose to all my clients and prospects as to the necessity of public relations (PR).
Business owners invest in PR to present their brand in context through compelling storytelling. Effective PR specialists know how to position a particular product or service within a competitive market to target human emotion — which, ultimately, is what drives purchases. Thus, PR is an investment of both short- and long-term success for a business.
While the lines can blur — with marketers at contemporary companies sometimes also focusing on brand management — traditional marketing is more about promotional and paid efforts and is typically viewed as a "quick spend" for direct results. Its results are relatively quantitative. You can measure and follow exactly where the marketing budget goes with a reasonably instant return period. Though marketers may use storytelling to build a brand's repertoire and messaging, they are still promoting the material, while PR experts use personal and professional relationships to secure content and coverage.
Messages need to resonate in order for marketing tactics to be successful. And how do they resonate? By ensuring your brand is well-positioned with a clear and captivating story. This includes fostering that aforementioned personal and emotional connection (both with the consumer and media), designing a truly unique hook and ensuring the brand's story is timely and impacts a broad audience. (However, sometimes niche products perform best when targeting a certain demographic without being overly exclusive.)
If a user is scrolling Instagram and a flashy ad catches their eye for new sunglasses, that link needs to transport them to a webpage where they can purchase the product (marketing) but also create context and credibility for the product (PR). If there is no brand story or context positioning why these sunglasses are the best, the user may not click "buy." And even if they do purchase a pair of the well-marketed sunglasses, they may not return because there’s no pull — and every brand knows the power of a returning customer.
Such a thing as empty marketing can exist if a brand invests in marketing prior to establishing its story or positioning. This is why I often recommend clients invest in marketing and PR in tandem, as they complement one another. However, for startups or bootstrapping companies looking to save where they can, I always recommend investing in branding first because, as with the sunglasses example, you need to create your story before spending your dollars on marketing tactics.
The story becomes even more important in our tech-savvy digital era where consumer attention spans are short-lived. A brand needs a unified story across all verticals — from its website and social media presence to in-person events and activations. For example, if the sunglass company decides to throw a dinner party to introduce the physical product and create buzz, the party needs to align with the brand. As a generic example, it shouldn’t be black tie and steak, it should be beach-themed with tiki cocktails and tapas (unless you are going for a cool, red carpet GQ-style branding message instead). It's important to ensure your story translates both on and off paper so there aren’t any gaps from that advertisement on Instagram and other social channels to the event.
For PR to work and help you scale, you need the right approach and outside-of-the-box ideas while tying into various marketing strategies when the time comes. A simple rule to keep in mind: To attract attention, you must first generate some noise.
The goal of outside-of-the-box should be something that your competitors aren't doing or something that an editor/reporter looks at and thinks: This is unique. I haven't seen a story like this before — I must cover it!
When blending marketing and PR together, it's important to consider how one piece of content can lead to other opportunities. For example, my agency took out a billboard (marketing) for a client to promote something risqué. While we knew going in that the billboard would stir different opinions, we also knew we could use the photo of the billboard to leverage storytelling media articles (PR) to further give the brand exposure to a variety of audiences beyond just where that one billboard was placed.
We've found that, when done right, joint campaigns — partnering clients and their products with charity organizations and the celebrities behind those organizations — can work well, too. The same can be said with making connections between celebrities and something they are passionate about. For example, Megan Fox teamed up with one of our clients, U.S. Army veteran Colin Wayne, to build more awareness around his company's goal of donating $2 million of military-themed product on Memorial Day to veterans and their families. It is then important to take those partnerships and collaborations and pitch them to media outlets (PR) to give more meaning and exposure overall, rather than just a quick social media post or ad somewhere.
To conclude on a very basic and blunt level, invest in PR if you only have the budget for one vertical. Once your brand grows, when people are connecting to your story/message, and you build credibility through the press, you can then put money behind the story as a marketing push to ensure relevance and, hopefully, long-term success. But please don't think stuff happens overnight. In most cases, it doesn't, and you need to stack the right building blocks first.
If your budget is lower, find partnerships with larger names or people that have the same mission as you, so that you can engage with their audience to boost your own platform, product or service.
No matter what path you choose though, it's critical that you think outside of the box, connect with customers on a personal level, find the right story/stories and leverage PR "wins" into marketing ads and strategies (and vice-versa).
Forbes Agency Council is an invitation-only community for executives in successful public relations, media strategy, creative and advertising agencies. Do I qualify?
Follow me on Twitter. Check out my website.