For today’s Marketing 101 Monday — we tackle public relations.
Public relations is more than planning parties. Don’t get us wrong — we love a cocktail, a reason to dress up and an over-the-top theme as much as the next Vegas hotelier, but that’s not the whole of public relations. If you’re looking to take advantage of the earned media, credibility and buzz public relations can bring your company, peruse this “101” overview of public relations and then look for a firm or public relations staff member who understands how to mix all of these to garner maximum exposure for really reasonable investments!
The public relations mix
Anything that falls outside of paid media and social media typically falls under the banner of public relations. Maybe a better way of looking at public relations is “if it can garner credibility, earned media & buzz, then it’s public relations.” And that “earned media” bit is crucial — can the action or event have appeal to press or influencers and make them likely to cover it? Then it’s part of the marketing mix known as public relations.
Generally, public relations includes:
- Press and influencer relations
- Boards and advisory positions
- Speaking and speakers’ bureaus
- Corporate social responsibility (CSR)
- Corporate-sponsored events (Yay! Party planning)
- Crisis management
Press and influencer relations
After party planning, this is the portion of public relations that people are most familiar. This is how you garner that magical “earned media” trophy every PR professional wants. Earned media is the most valuable type of promotions because it (1) gets read more than any type of promotion and (2) gives you the elusive gift of credibility. You talk about you, people shrug. The news media talks about you — people listen. It’s the E.F. Hutton of promotions (psst, reading and generation test…the first company to email us at akendall at sparkrocketmarketing dot com and tell us the famous EF Hutton tagline gets a free press release with 10 targeted editor/influencer pitches — a $1,500 value)
The most critical two caveats we can give you about press and influencer relations are:
- Make it newsworthy: Your internal corporate promotions are not news. Nobody cares if your VP is now an EVP except the sad section of an old business newspaper dedicated to publishing those tidbits. Unless it is life-changing (like disease-eradicating life-changing) your new product is likely not news. What is news is how your new product is used in an application that changes how a community works, how a person’s life is affected, or how an aspect of business is changed. You may have the greatest widget in the world, but it’s not news to tell people about it. It is news to tell people how it affects their lives.
- Know what readers care about: Do not pitch, email or bother an editor or influencer if you don’t know their readership might care about the story. If you want journalists and authors to take you seriously, take them seriously. Know what about your story will matter to them and preface every interaction with them by showing them you’ve paid attention.
Boards and advisory positions
There’s a two-pronged approach to boards and advisory positions. If you’re in the early stage of your company — you should invite well-respected influencers in your industry to sit on your board or an advisory board. Offer them some stock to do it, then train them on how to speak on your behalf, have them attend events and speak for you and let them be sources about you for the media. Having a known expert from your industry on your board lends credibility to both your press and influencer audiences and your general audience.
Conversely — you should work to sit on some boards and advisory boards. If your executive team is young, consider sitting on community boards related to your industry, your local University school of “X” will often have a board or mentor program you can be a part of (we’re proud to sit on these two: UCF’s I-Corps and Catalyst Orlando’s mentor program).
As your team grows in influence in your respected high-tech industries, look for opportunities for your executive team to advise up-and-coming start-ups who you see potential in and who might support your corporate goals. Make sure you’re not picking a supplier in a segment of your business where you might need multiple sources, but if there is no other conflict-of-interest like that or similar, then you may be able to help an organization and increase your earned media and credibility by association.
Speaking and speakers’ bureaus
Submit, submit, submit. Always look at trade organizations, associations and community events that have speaking opportunities and ABS — always be submitting! Have topics at the ready that are important to the industry that your company has expertise in and pitch them as topics for every event in your sphere-of-influence you can afford to attend. As you grow in credibility, you may find associations reaching out to you for your knowledge (and sometimes paying your way!).
In addition, there are speakers bureaus who will develop a profile about you, put you in their database and promote you to organizations seeking high-value keynotes. These are paid opportunities that will arise more often arise as you grow in “fame” — but it’s worth being in the database. You never know when a world-event may happen that makes the use of nanotechnology in helping burn victims a topic of global interest.
Corporate social responsibility (CSR)
We tackle it in detail in last Monday’s “Mktng 101” blog post. Corporate social responsibility is the act of choosing a charitable endeavor that has a connection to your company’s goals, supporting it with more than just a monetary donation and sharing that work with the world.
Really, we’d say more — but it’s all here.
Parties & events
Yes, we love planning parties and they are a PART of Public Relations. Launch parties, fundraisers, kickoffs of campaigns, holiday and community related events can be great Public Relations endeavors. We sweat the details — from the invitation to the takeaway gift we theme consistently and have been told time and again how memorable our parties are. Do something outside your norm. If you’re a traditional, upscale, million-dollar listing real-estate firm, throw a luau or a beach-party and stand out in the arena of stuffy art-gallery openings and black-tie galas. If you’re a high-tech weapons detection system using Millimeter Wave — do a classic movie salute to Hedy Lamar and her role in inventing the technology.
Some key Public Relations-winning party tips:
- Sweat the small stuff. From the first save the date card to the thank yous, you want cohesive theming. And DO pick a theme. It will make your party memorable.
- Don’t sweat the guest list. This is a time to overinvite. If you’re wanting 100, invite 300 and the WORST thing that can happen? You run out of food and booze and have to make a pizza and keg order. You know what everyone will say? You threw a GREAT EVENT that was so outrageous, we had to send out for pizza and beer! But 99% of launch parties, community events, fundraisers and most Public Relations-driven parties? You want new people and shouldn’t be too held up by getting the “wrong” audience. Because the party is all about the post-party buzz.
- If you’re B2B, throw it on a slow-for-events news day. Don’t try and compete with everyone’s Friday and Saturday events. Throw it on Tuesday-Thursday and you are more likely to get press attention. Keep the hours 5:30-8:30 for weekday parties and make the attire low-key biz or biz-casual.
Crisis management
Crisis management is the public relations equivalent of insurance. You may never need it, but you better have it. Look at your product or service and then look at all the potential for liability you may have in applications of your product or service. And be ready if the worst case scenario happens. A headline example we all know? Facebook and its response to the . They were woefully lacking an immediate crisis management plan.
We wrote about crisis management in more detail in one of our “No F*cks left Friday” blogs here. A few days later (yeah, okay, we’re kind of proud of being first) some other influencers added a similar perspective with even more good info about crisis management here.
Sounds like a lot?
It is. And if you’re a marketing team of one or even a few — you might want to consider outsourcing parts of your public relations efforts. Lucky you — you’re in the right place. Give us a call at +1-407-760-7360.