June 2006 online newsletter

Public Relations: Who Needs It? Everyone!

A company lives and dies by its reputation.

The key to creating a good reputation is establishing a friendly repartee with not only your customers, but also the public at large. Initiate a healthy relationship and the public will come to trust and respect your integrity. Create a bad impression and the potential customer will be less likely to walk through your door.

Your company’s relationship to the outside world – this is public relations boiled down to its essence.

There’s an old adage: “Advertising you pay for. Public relations you pray for.” It’s true. Good PR is hard to come by. It’s not the same as “paid advertising”. You can’t get it by simply forking over some cash and placing an ad in the paper. The men and women of today simply will not be patronized and are far too savvy to be bought off by such cavalier tactics.

Good PR means working hand-in-hand with the media to spotlight the skills, resources and expertise that your business or organization can bring to the table. It requires a public relations firm that understands the ins-and-outs of print, television and online media and has a knack for developing story angles that are both newsworthy and favorable toward your products or services.

It’s true – no one can guarantee good PR, but with the right public relations partner, you can expect the media to focus on your company, its services and the messages you want to send to the outside world.

Getting the Message Out: The Three-Step Process

Messages are important. They are key to forming that good reputation we talked about. There’s just one problem: most audiences only remember two or three messages at any given time, if that. Burden them with too many messages and they may be inclined to move along elsewhere.

The moral of the story: develop a limited number of messages. Keep it simple. These messages can and will change from time to time, but you only need a couple of arrows in your quiver at any given point.

And how do you get that message out to a public that is ready and eager to learn about your business? The PR process is simple and can be boiled down to three steps:

• STEP ONE: WRITING.  There’s something about the printed word that screams credibility. People believe what they read in black-and-white. An article or essay about your business – whether it comes from you or from a journalist writing about you – will help to establish your expertise in your field.

• STEP TWO:  SPEAKING.  When people hear you speaking in public about your field of expertise – namely the products and services that your company provides – it will reinforce the belief that you’re the real deal. They begin to trust that you know what you’re talking about. Speaking opportunities also enable you to meet with prospects one-on-one.

• STEP THREE:  SELLING.  Steps One and Two were all about “getting found”. They pointed potential customers in your direction. Step Three is all about convincing those customers to choose your company above all the others.

To sell more, “get found” more. The reporter is your friend. He or she can act as a messenger to get the word out about what you have to offer. A good PR firm is your friend also. A professional can get you results with perseverance, experience and established relationships.

Public Relations Planning

Good PR is not something you can obtain through random pursuit. Far too many businesses and organizations fall woefully short of their PR goals simply because they do not have a strategic PR plan in place.

A good PR plan will contain three major elements:

1. Research:  This means knowing which media outlets will provide the best and most complete coverage of your business or organization. Which ones will highlight your strengths most successfully? What is it about you that sets you and your business apart from the competition?
   
   
2. Planning:  Forming relationships with the media. Putting together the perfect news pitch. Crafting the press release that is sure to get the attention of any editor or reporter. All of this must be planned carefully and deliberately. Experience in journalism and PR helps in understanding what the media will find newsworthy.
   
   
3. Action:  You’ve got the reporter hooked. Now it’s time to reel them in and show them your stuff. Do those interviews. Write those essays. Get your name in the paper and be a television star! You’ll gain credibility and prospects will know who to turn to when they need help. (An award-winning PR firm can make the action happen for you.)

Got a plan? Then write that plan down on paper. A written plan will help you to identify new ways that PR can support your business plan, define “success” and serve as a roadmap to achieving that success while allowing you to maximize your budget by helping you coordinate efforts and prioritize activities. Plus you can measure for success if you have a plan that you are implementing.

Got Tips?

There is no magic formula to guarantee good PR, but there are some measures you can take to foster good relationships with representatives of the media. Some simple ideas are:

• Choose your media carefully. Send press releases only to the media outlets that are likely to cover stories related to your company or organization.
  
  
• Address those press releases to the appropriate contacts. Believe it or not, editors receive hundreds of press releases every day. If it’s not addressed to the right person, your carefully crafted press release is likely to find a permanent home at the bottom of the newsroom’s wastebasket.
  
  
• Make sure your news is actually news. It is likely not enough to simply announce the creation of a new product, but some editors would jump at the chance to interview families whose lives were changed by that product.
  
  
• Creativity is key. Packaging is everything. Use creativity when you pitch a story. The launch of a new company might make for a boring story, but if the company president just climbed Mount Everest, it might make for a great feature in a hiking magazine.
  
  
• Make friends with editors and reporters. The better they know you, the better they’ll trust you.
  
  
• Have an arsenal of well-written public relations materials. Bios of the executive officers, a company history, product sheets and line cards should all be on hand.
  
  
• Only put select spokespeople in front of the camera. Representatives of your company should be confident, polite and knowledgeable about your product or service. Training on how to work with the media is a must.

The corecubed Advantage

What will corecubed do to help you attain the PR you’re looking for?

We will act as your liaison to the world of media. We’ll introduce you to reporters, editors and photographers who will highlight the strengths of your business or organization. And we’ll see to it that prospects will know your name and hear the messages you want them to receive. We get results because our team of professionals expects to get results. We plan for getting our clients good coverage.

corecubed differs from traditional agencies in that we understand the importance of the bottom line. It’s not about a following a formula or going through the motions: we’re in the business of growing businesses.

Recently, our commitment to our clients was recognized when we received the Public Relations Society of America’s Bronze Anvil Award for best feature article as it relates to using PR tactics to gain recognition.

Companies all over the nation are experiencing the corecubed advantage. Call us today to discover what we can do for your business.

For more information on how corecubed can help, visit us online at www.corecubed.com, contact us at 1-800-370-6580 x2 or e-mail us at info@corecubed.com.

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© 2006 corecubed