Public Relations For Dummies

Eric Yaverbaum, Robert W. Bly, Ilise Benun

• Publisher: For Dummies
• Year: 2011
• ISBN:
  9781118052792
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Pubbliche relazioni
• Index: Business

Proven techniques that maximize media exposure for your business
A seasoned PR pro shows you how to get people talking When it comes to public relations, nothing beats good word of mouth. Want to get customers talking? This friendly guide combines the best practical tools with insight and flair to provide guidance on every aspect of PR, so you can launch a full-throttle campaign that'll generate buzz -- and build your bottom line. Discover how to
* Map a winning PR strategy
* Grab attention with press releases, interviews, and events
* Cultivate good media relations
* Get print, TV, radio, and Internet coverage
* Manage a PR crisis

Part I

PR: What It Is, How It Works

In this part . . .

M any people have heard of public relations but very few people know what it actually means. Part 1 gives you the umbrella perspective of the industry. Chapter 1 tells you the role of public relations in the overall marketing campaign. In Chapter 2, gives you clear guidelines to establish your goals and the realities of budgeting. And in Chapter 3, we provide you with guidelines and insights so you can determine whether it makes sense for you to do your own PR or hire someone to help (and what the alternatives are if you decide to hire help).

Chapter 1

The Power of PR

In This Chapter

Discovering the meaning of public relations

Exploring what a PR person does

Looking at the differences between PR and advertising

When I was a young man of 24 and almost a complete beginner at public relations, I got on the front page of USA Today with a feature story about the baseball strike and a color photograph of my partner and myself. That piece put my then-fledgling PR firm on the map, so to speak, and helped advance my career in the PR business.

At the time, no one had heard of my agency or me, and I had no press contacts with USA Today — or any other major media. That lack of contacts could easily have become a major stumbling block for our PR firm in getting new clients: The agency did good work, but larger corporate prospects would naturally — and in my opinion, naively — ask, “Who are your key media contacts?” When I confessed that I didn’t know the editor in chief of the New York Times and wasn’t invited to Oprah’s dinner parties, potential clients could have easily lost interest and chosen other firms. This problem was one I wanted to solve as quickly as possible.

So how did I get USA Today to put my picture on the cover? At the time, a Major League Baseball strike was the news of the day. My partner and I sent out a press announcement and called the media to announce that we had formed a new organization, called Strike Back, to protest the baseball strike. The premise was simple: For every day the Major League players refused to play, we would boycott their games for one day when the players did return to work.

Did I do this for the love of the game? Yes — partially. But it certainly wasn’t lost on me that turning ourselves into a national news story would (1) demonstrate the type of PR we practice, (2) showcase our ability to get media exposure, and (3) attract new business. USA Today was the first big media placement for my agency, and it got potential clients to pay attention to the new kids on the PR block.

This anecdote illustrates three basic PR principles that form the core of our agency philosophy and the how-to PR techniques in this book:

You have to be different. The media and the public are drowning in data but starved for amusement. Conventional publicity strategies get lost in the noise. You have to find a creative way to stand out from the crowd and get noticed — and Strike Back is just one of dozens of examples I show you throughout this book.

Getting publicity is fun, but it’s a waste of time and money if it doesn’t help you achieve your marketing objective. If getting on the front page of the Wall Street Journal doesn’t help you make more money or increase your firm’s market share, is it really worth the trouble? In the case of Strike Back, the campaign did achieve a specific objective: getting corporate PR clients to take our PR firm seriously and hire us, despite the fact that we had fewer clients, fewer years of experience, and a fraction of the media contacts of the big PR firms.

You don’t have to have media contacts to get big-time publicity. (Strike Back certainly helped us communicate this principle to our own potential clients!) A creative idea, a clear marketing goal, and effective implementation are what count. You don’t have to know Joe TV Star to get on his TV show; you just have to come up with an idea that will interest his producer. So what if you’re a small business and you don’t have time to schmooze the press? In Public Relations For Dummies, 2nd Edition, you find out how to get all the publicity you need to achieve your marketing objectives — without making public relations your full-time job.

Who Needs PR, Anyway?

If you have all the business you will ever want and are rich beyond the dreams of avarice, you may not need public relations.

A crisis is an obvious exception. A lot of my work as a PR professional is in response to clients who have an immediate PR crisis to solve, like a tainted shipment of food products or a toy posing an unexpected safety risk to children because of a product defect. So in some cases, even if your sales are skyrocketing and you don’t need to promote yourself, you may want to engage in PR activities to avoid negative publicity or correct any bad press that comes your way. (See Chapter 21 for crisis management.) Other reasons a business or person may want to use PR are

To grow the business

To make more money

To increase sales

Doctors, lawyers, dentists, chiropractors, therapists, and other professionals can promote their practices with public relations. PR is used with virtually every product category, from construction equipment and industrial goods to food, health and beauty products, healthcare, travel, tourism, real estate, and investments. In high-tech industries, everyone from hardware manufacturers to software companies, e-commerce Web sites, and service providers has benefited enormously from the power of PR.

So one perspective of PR concerns a person’s goals, where she is now, and where she wants to be. Good PR can turn marginal businesses into profitable ones and ordinary folks into millionaires.

Another perspective of PR has to do with resources. If a business has an advertising budget that approaches infinity (or say, 20 million dollars or more) and it won’t miss the money if it’s spent, the business can probably get its message across without relying on the subtler medium of PR. That doesn’t mean it shouldn’t use PR as part of its marketing mix, however: Many clients find that a relatively modest investment in PR greatly extends the reach of their total promotional program.

And cost, frankly, is one of the great appeals of PR to both small businesses and large corporations alike. Small businesses with limited budgets simply can’t come close to matching the ad budgets of larger competitors. PR can help them level the playing field and get the same or better promotional bang for a lot fewer bucks.

As for the big corporations, if you work for one, you know that getting more money in the marketing budget is always an uphill battle. With PR, you can achieve the objectives senior managers want even if they don’t give you the money you think you need to do it.

Beyond Stunts: The Real Value of PR

It’s fun to see stunts like Calvin Klein’s models swimming in a perfume bottle in Times Square and hot products like the iPod get truckloads of front-page and prime time coverage. Obviously, PR can work wonders for those who seek publicity for publicity’s sake. (See Chapter 19 for more on staging publicity events.)

Actually, that’s the easy part of public relations. The real value of PR is using it to solve a real-life marketing situation for a real product, service, organization, brand, or image. PR can work for any and every industry, from florists to funeral directors, software to soft ice cream. Any organization or indivi...