PR: Spin or Substance?

There is a hang-over from the overt spin-doctoring practiced by political parties that has tainted PR with a reputation for white-washing unpleasant truths. That may be possible for a while in politics, but Churchill's point still rings true today: You can fool some of the people all of the time but you can't fool all of the people all of the time.
There's a world of difference between public sector PR, which is fighting off media interest, and commercial PR, which is usually fighting for media coverage.
But it's all too easy to get coverage in either the public or the commercial sphere when things go horrendously wrong.
PR is not very effective as whitewash - or greenwash. It's never a substitute for fixing things. But it’s a great tool when you’re in the middle of fixing things, because it allows professional communicators to inject extra clarity into what can become a conflicting and confused scenario. The discipline of clarifying the key objectives, defining the key audiences, and crafting messages for each audience (including staff), and delivering those messages down multi-channels will stand an organisation in good stead long after the incident has passed, although they will do much better in the first few critical hours of a crisis if there has been regularly reviewed preparation, training and practice for potential disasters.
You don't need to practice for every conceivable disaster. A very experienced PR practitioner should have an understanding of the media approaches and the common underlying themes and help you build a broad base to adapt for most scenarios.
PR is not the solution when something goes wrong: speedy and effective remedial action is the only lasting solution, but PR is the best communications tool to communicate that there is a rememdy being applied. Good communications gradually evens up the bad messages with more positive stories and helps restore something that can’t be bought: some people call it buzz, but I call it the confidence that comes out of faith in a future.

Budgeting for PR

Have you ever wondered how you get from the small business to the large business marketing effect? If you have the vision to accelerate out of the end of this recession, understanding the synergy between sales, marketing and PR and budgeting for them, will enable you to do just that: accelerate your business.

We work with businesses of all sizes and over the last 22 years. I've noticed the main difference between the smaller and the larger business is that many small to medium businesses don't think they have a marketing budget. And they rarely admit to having a sales or PR budget.

In reality, most small businesses have made a substantial investment of time and money.
If you add up all the money and the time you spent in the last 12 months on any of these, you have the makings of your budget:

• the website,
• taking a 'special deal' in a directory or an advertising feature,
• your membership subs & meeting fees plus time for attending networking events,
• the online directory listings and forums, plus social networking sites,
• writing sales proposals
• PowerPoint presentations
• responding to sales enquiries
• encouraging referrals from customers or complementary businesses
• signage for a building or vehicle
• maybe some Pay Per Click experiments?
• or a promo item?
• marketing materials - folders, leaflets, brochures?
• a mailing list?
• email flyers?
• a newsletter?
• a blog?
• photos, videos or podcasts?
• local sponsorship in kind?
• stalls at trade fairs
• other sales, marketing, PR promotional activity

Chances are you have already made a fair investment of time and money in some aspect of the golden promotional trio: sales, marketing and PR. But you may be struggling to know what's effective? The standard advice is to monitor what works, then do more of it! And of course there's a lot of truth in the saying: "you can't manage what you haven't measured". But it's easier said than done.

If you ask customers at the point of sale how they heard of you, most people will stop after one answer: probably the most recent thing that brought them to you. Now that is an important clue, but would they have bought if you hadn't come recommended (word of mouth, or in the media, or online)? Would they have bought if your website was out-of date or the branding wasn't attractive and the brand values consistent?

In most cases the 'buy' decision is a complex balance between:

• Your profile and reputation (PR), plus
• A clear understanding and attraction to what you are selling (marketing and branding) plus
• A good sales process to ensure lots of referrals and to clinch the deal efficiently.

Plenty of people will offer clever tools to monitor what works for you, but you'll only really find out by talking to customers and getting their feedback on all aspects of your sales, marketing and PR.

Plus you'll pick up invaluable feedback and ideas for developing your products and services in response to demand and for new markets.

More about the golden synergy between on and offline PR, marketing & sales next time.