By Jeannette Bitz
I recently met with a veteran CEO who was evaluating PR firms to help raise visibility for his company. While the CEO has been in the high-tech sector for several years, he admitted that he never really understood the value of PR–especially when he could take the money he would otherwise pay an agency and use it for another marketing resource. His perception about the role of PR was that an agency would write releases and schedule meetings for executives when they attend trade shows.
I can tell you that he’s not alone in this perception since I’ve had similar conversations with many other CEOs on this topic –although this particular CEO was more candid and curious about the process. I appreciated his openness and instead of pitching the value of Engage PR over another agency, it was an opportunity to dig into his business; to understand what keeps him up at night and finally to educate him on how consistent and thoughtful PR can enhance his business better than most other marketing resource. If you’re a CEO or marketing executive pondering the value of PR, here are a few thoughts to consider:
- It’s always about the bottom line: For most companies, whether you’re a start-up or a publicly-traded company, it’s almost always about driving the bottom line and that usually means sales (more than driving the value of a stock price, especially in these times). In the case of this
company, they know who their customers are and were able to customer trials without doing any PR. The CEO admitted that they had gotten in the door through a relationship at the operations level; but, the company had not been successful in getting the attention of the executives who make buying decisions. In this situation, consistent PR can help elevate a company’s message to reach higher-level decision makers and increase visibility with prospects and customers. I often hear from clients that they received a call from a customer or partner because of an article we secured for them.
- Do you treat sales activity as one-time event?Chances are no, but many executives are under the impression that the buzz garnered from an initial company or product launch will carry them through the next 12 months. They believe they can put PR on “cruise control” by issuing a few press releases without driving thought leadership in the media. Focusing PR efforts on news-driven events or other low-level tactical activity usually yields few results. Companies are generally better off spending their resources on establishing thought leadership by working with their agency partners to build relationships with influential media and analysts and drive trends in the blogosphere.
- A new approach for reaching and moving your influencers: Take advantage of social media and digital media tools to create thought leadership in your company’s market. For example,
video is becoming a powerful tool to have in your PR/marketing arsenal. Over the past few years, tech companies, including larger organizations like Cisco, are effectively using video to talk about their company, technology and their customers. A good agency will understand what type of video is appropriate for your company, will have the skills and resources to “shoot” and edit the video and use resources such as YouTube to drive traffic to your web site.
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