Think public relations might be too expensive for your company? Think again. There are several easy, cost-effective PR strategies you can use to help your company increase its visibility.
The goal of public relations is to develop the story about your company and then to deliver that story to appropriate audiences. Depending on your corporate goals, those audiences may include investors, potential buyers, M&A markets, partners and of course, your customers.
The first step is to develop your story. This includes figuring out who your company is and why your products/services are unique.
Even if your company cannot afford to invest significant sums of money into a full-scale PR campaign, it could pay off in spades to use just a few tactics to attract the attention of your target audience. I’ll cover those in a moment. But first let me outline what a traditional full-scale public relations program looks like.
In the traditional PR world, you do not communicate directly to customers; instead, you communicate by “influencing the influencers.” That means getting your company’s message out through journalists, analysts, bloggers and other key audiences, such as attendees at tradeshows.
In fact, speaking at a trade show – one that your potential customers and partners attend – can be very effective in raising your company’s visibility – especially if you conduct other public relations activities in conjunction with the show, which I will talk more about later in this article.
Of course, in the increasingly social media-based world, PR can also mean communicating directly to your customers. But we’ll save that topic for another article…
Telling the World How Your Company is Unique
When you begin a full-scale public relations program, your first step is to create a short list of “key messages” for your company. These messages not only describe your company and its market space but also communicate how you are different from (and better than) your competitors.
Then you expand on those key messages with a list of “proof points,” which consist of quantifiable examples that back up every message you’re delivering regarding your company.
For instance, say your company is a developer of an online game. Your differentiator might be that the game offers a better user experience than the competition. A supporting point would list a specific way that the game actually offers a better experience, such as the fact that it offers 10X faster performance or enables gamers to do something they could not do before.
It is best to limit your key messages to just three or four messages – those that best describe your company and its differentiators – because having too many key messages can actually dilute your brand and confuse your audience. Having just a few strong messages helps the influencers you are targeting understand better what your company does – and how they should describe your company and your products in their stories and research reports.
In contrast, you can never have too many proof points backing up your key messages. The more proof points you have – ranging from customer examples to quantifiable benefits – the more credibility you build for your company. You use your proof points to demonstrate that what you’re saying about your company is real. Your proof points will vary based on which audience you are communicating with.
Once you have finalized your key messages and your proof points, you then start communicating those messages to your key audiences. Those audiences include companies interested in buying from you, partnering with you or even acquiring your company.
To accomplish this, you first create a media list of the individuals who are most likely to influence your target audience. This could be trade publications, bloggers, particular analyst research firms, business press, conference organizers and the like.
Then you execute. You start pitching those influencers about industry trends that your company could address. You send them news and information about the company such as press releases. You also email them when one of your executives could give an opinion on breaking news.
You examine the editorial calendars published by trade publications – which outline the topics these publications will be covering in particular issues – and see if your company has a good story to tell that relates to those topics. You suggest potential bylined articles on other topics as well. You also start pitching your executives as potential speakers at well-attended trade shows to deliver your message directly to the potential customers and partners attending these shows.
Working with a PR and marketing firm that knows your business – and is well-connected with the editors, analysts, conference organizers and other influencers you want to reach – is critical when executing a PR campaign. When you hire a PR team that has decades of experience in your industry, they can help you create stronger company messages, and they can also quickly introduce you to the right people and set up introductory interviews with them. This allows you to tell the influencers directly what your company does and what differentiates it in the marketplace and begin building relationships with them.
The overall goal is to build and continually increase the awareness of your company within your key audiences. This will happen through a variety of PR methods, including articles that mention your company and products; articles that are written by your company executives; speaking sessions at conferences and tradeshows; online venues such as blogs, webinars and social networks; and any other venue that can be used to create awareness.
Three Cost-effective Ways to Get Your Name Out There
In a nutshell, those are the basic elements of a full-scale public relations campaign. But there are a few (albeit less effective) ways that you can increase your company’s visibility with a smaller investment of both your money and your time. These include:
PR Tactic #1: Begin Posting Responses to Blogs and Online Articles
One of the easiest ways to get your company noticed is by posting comments on popular industry blogs – or by posting comments to online stories published in trade or business magazines. Make a short list of the blogs and online publications that you read on a regular basis and then determine whether your potential customers might be reading those too.
Then begin posting comments to these blog entries and stories online, making sure to mention your company name in the posting (also of course making sure to get the required company approvals first). You can even include a link to a relevant area on your Web site when appropriate. You might be surprised by the response.
PR Tactic #2: Get Published
Another way to increase your company’s visibility involves taking a look at the trade publications your customers are reading to see if they accept articles written by outside industry sources. If some of the articles have company executives listed as the authors, chances are good that the publication accepts bylined articles – and that the editor might publish one written by you.
Before you actually write a story, it is a good idea to gauge the interest of the publication beforehand. This can be as simple as writing an ema
il to the editor asking if they would be interested in an article that explores a particular topic. The more timely your topic, the greater the chances are that your idea might be accepted by that editor.
Also take a look at the editorial calendars of trade publications – which are often posted on the publication’s website – to see if you could effectively write about any of the topics the publication has planned to cover already. Then email the editor to suggest an article on one of those topics. Remember to do this well in advance of when the article is scheduled to be published, however, as some publications still have relatively long lead times for accepting bylined articles.
Also, be sure that the topics you propose are not self-promotional. The goal here is to position yourself as an expert by writing an informative article on a critical topic – not to get a marketing brochure for your company published. Asking an editor to publish what is clearly a promotional piece for your company is a sure-fire way to get blackballed by that publication.
PR Tactic #3: Maximize Your Trade Show Investment
For the next trade show you are attending, consider maximizing your investment by making an announcement in conjunction with the show – and by setting up meetings with industry analysts, members of the trade media or bloggers while you are at that event to discuss that announcement.
Now you can try to do this yourself, but chances are that unless you have an established relationship with one of these influencers, you will not hear back from them when you try to call or email them to set up a meeting.
Instead, you can hire a PR firm that will support a smaller-scale PR campaign on a project basis. This can make it very affordable to get some publicity surrounding a show.
In fact, trade shows can make great venues to launch new products or new business initiatives, particularly if you are trying to drive traffic to your booth.
For example, Calysto helped one client secure more than 1 million media impressions on a new product that was launched in the 24 hours surrounding a major trade show. This in turn helped drive ten times more traffic from tier 1 customers to the company’s booth during the show compared to the prior year, despite a lower number of attendees at the show. It also helped the company secure an RFP from a large potential customer.
Calysto also helped a project-based client launch a new product in conjunction with another major trade show – in just 45 days. The client hired Calysto to support the product launch just weeks before the show, and Calysto booked 10 analyst briefings and 12 media interviews for the client as a result.
Thanks to these meetings and Calysto’s other pitching efforts, Calysto secured more than 1.4 million media impressions for the client in key publications in the days and weeks surrounding the show. This included coverage in the first page of the exhibitor news section of the Show Daily. The total cost: less than $12,000.
As you can clearly see, public relations is an effective tool to help you increase your company’s visibility among potential customers, partners and even potential acquirers. Even if your company cannot afford to invest six figures or more in a full-scale PR campaign, using just a few key tactics to attract the attention of your target audience can result in more sales, better partnerships and even a successful exit strategy for your company.
Originally published on MobileDevHQ http://www.mobiledevhq.com/pr101-aprimer-13/article.