How PR and Publicity Can Help You When Times Are Tough

You have to have been living in a cave to realize that times are really tough. And, if you subscribe to the thinking that it’s better to be out there reminding people that you are still around, rather than hide your head in the sand and hope that this whole financial crisis thing will go away, you’re on the right track.

But, since times are tough, how can you get the best value for money for your marketing communication dollar. Well, let’s look at some practical tips to help you get more bang for your advertising (communication) dollar.

The best marketing communication method out there for the B2B marketer is still publicity. Yes, good old PR is hard to beat.

Why?

First of all let’s look at the positives. Believability. Yes, this is very important, as articles in the trade press are more believed than paid ads. One should note that advertising is taken with the proverbial grain of salt. And, allowance is made for puffery that this tends to contain.

Now, with an article, it’s another story. Even if the article was taken verbatim from your PR submission, this is believed, because it is taken as something the publisher/editor would have put together.

There’s a “halo effect” from the trust given to the publication that envelops what is contained therein.

And, there is the cost. Next to nothing compared to paid ads. (Here I’m looking at this as an exercise prepared by a professional communication consultant). Mind you some practitioner’s do charge a packet. But, depending on how the article is taken up by the trade press, this could still be great value.

Now, on the flip-side you only get one bite of the cherry. Sometimes there can be articles that are repeated by some publications, this tends to be more the exception rather than the rule. Corollary to this is the fact that you can send the article to several publications.

Now when you do this for an ad, you have to multiply the cost of insertion by each publication. This can add up to tidy sum depending on the publication and the size of the ad.

Another big plus, is the backlinks that you get with your PR article. The more backlinks you get from the web portals, web zines and the like, the more chances that your search engine rankings will improve. Publicity can be made to work with Web 2.0, which goes more for interactivity and user connectivity than the previous Web 1.0.

Web 2.0 requires the marketer to pay more attention to his audience. And, to communicate with that audience pro-actively, not just passively. In other words, communication is more a two-way street, than just one way.

And, with keyword rich text that you include in your PR article, all the more are the benefits for Search Engine Optimization (SEO). This is certainly another plus that cannot be ignored.

So, if you’re not doing PR, or haven’t done one for a while, this is something worth looking-especially during this tough times.

Read some other articles:

• How to Write a Media Release?
• Making the Best Use of Press Release Marketing
• The Growth Of Social Media In B2B Internet Marketing
• Grassroots Marketing Campaign
• PR – What it is and How to Use it to Your Benefit