A PR firm is an agency that specializes in the marketing and publicity of a product or organization. It’s not just a team of journalists who create press releases and do interviews; there’s also all the work necessary to ensure your product isn’t discovered by competing brands, that potential partners and investors won’t find something better elsewhere, and more.
The truth is people in pr outreach process aren’t paid the big bucks for doing their job, which is to send out press releases about their client. They are paid for getting results that equal real money: new deals, new partnerships and new funding.
The Truth About PR Is About To Be Revealed :
1. It’s All About Money
What PR is really about is not providing information to journalists. It’s not about being nice or friendly to them. It’s about getting media coverage that gets results, like the kind of results that bring in money. You see, while it’s true that a reporter who writes an article that gives your business some free publicity on some blog may be easier to convince than a journalist who wants to get paid for her time, it’s not their job to convince you. Their job is to write articles. If they can write articles and get paid for them, they will do it every time.
2. You Don’t Understand How PR Works
Part of the confusion happens because people in public relations don’t see themselves as in the business of providing information. They see themselves as in the business of convincing journalists that they deserve coverage and getting them to write articles about you without charging them anything extra.
3. You’re Not a Real Client
So if you want PR services and you don’t have money to pay for them, then stop wasting your time sending out emails to journalists who can write articles about your product or organization for free. You’re not a real client. Instead, hire a real public relations firm that can ensure your product or organization gets coverage. If you have money, of course, then go ahead and pay for the service you need.
4. You Don’t Have Information You Can Sell
It happens a lot in corporate communications departments: People will send their marketing team out on the road with nothing to sell and demand that they find media coverage for their product or organization. While that might get coverage at first, the more they put their marketing team out there trying to sell something they can’t afford to buy, the more likely it is that their product or organization will be exposed by other brands and agencies who can afford to do it.
This is a problem that’s been compounded by the growth of the Internet. Now, everyone has information that they could sell. There are people who are trained to create infographics, listicles and blog articles about their product or organization and give it out for free.
5. You’re Confused About What Press Releases Are For
It’s not anyone’s job to write press releases. That’s the job of journalists and bloggers. Press releases are supposed to be targeted at journalists, not written so that your product or organization can get free PR.
The truth is, saying you want to pay a PR person to write a press release for you so that you get free publicity is like saying I want to pay a plumber so I can get free plumbing.
The truth is, your product or organization needs publicity that gets results–not just information that gets published at no cost.
6. You Don’t Understand Marketer-Journalist Relationships
Another problem is that you know how to talk to journalists, but you don’t know how to talk to marketers about your product or organization. You don’t understand the difference between a writer who wants to be paid for his or her time and people who want to get paid for their job.
In other words, you don’t understand that if you hire PR because you think it’s free, or because of its magic word press release, then it won’t work. journalists and bloggers will ignore you.
The truth is, without investing in marketing that gets results, it’s a lot more likely that PR will get you nowhere.
7. You Think The Cure for All PR ills Is Free Press Releases
You might think you’re providing free publicity for your product or organization, but the truth is free publicity isn’t always the best way to get coverage. If journalists have content available on their blog and don’t need to pay for it because someone else has already written about it, then they’re not going to write about your product or organization just because you spent money on a press release and sent it out on behalf of your company or organization.
