First things first – I’ll admit, this blog post is self-serving because I work in public relations. Never let it be said that I obfuscate or mislead.
Second – while I invite everyone to read this post, it’s really directed to those businesses that aren’t pursuing public relations pro-actively.
So, the question for me is, how much more successful could you be if you invested in a pro-active, creative and results-driven public relations effort for your company?
This question has been in the back of my mind for a while but two very different experiences brought this to life for me in just the last few days. Hopefully, it will give you something to think about as well.
Last week, I met with a woman who owns a number of daycare centers. She had been referred to me by an editor we both know. In September, she is introducing an exciting new educational program that I believe will be a big hit. We met for over an hour during which time I gave her lots of ideas and explained that this new program was legitimate news; that it could be a great hook to garner coverage in a number of different media outlets. Her marketing efforts to date have been via word-of-mouth and paid advertising.
Are you starting to feel how excited I was for the opportunity to promote this program in New Jersey, the NY-metro area, to online media and through social media? (Yeah, I was pretty eager to work on this!)
It turned out though that she didn’t want to spend any money to actively pursue public relations about this new program. Of course, I told her that I understood but shared that I thought she was missing a great opportunity.
And, it led me to think: how much more successful could her centers be if she invested in a pro-active public relations campaign?
On the other hand, after months of pursuing a commercial real estate auction company, I got the chance to work with them on a project – the distribution of a release with media follow up. One of the partners threw down the gauntlet, saying I shouldn’t spend too much time pursuing The Wall Street Journal because he didn’t think I could get them in there.
Well, where do you think they ended up? Yep! In The Wall Street Journal. They’ve already been featured in the WSJ’s Developments blog, are being interviewed for a longer article, and heard those magic words we all long to hear from a reporter, “I’d like to meet with you.”
Their investment has led, to paraphrase Humphrey Bogart, “the beginning of a beautiful friendship.” They’re very pleased.
What do you think? How much would you invest to increase the success of your company?
