This June we’re debunking common myths about PR on poseyblog. The role of PR in the sales – especially business to business sales – is something that causes people so much angst. So let’s dive into it.
Huge PR Myth #4: Press coverage is essential to sales
Press coverage generates awareness and bolsters both brand and product credibility. These are absolutely essential things, but very few business customers buy just because they read an article.
In the business-to-business world, do not expect PR to close sales. Sales teams shrewdly use articles, reviews, and analyst reports as powerful validation to move prospects through the funnel. But an article won’t make someone sign a contract. A sales person does that.
Huge PR Myth #5: PR is (or should be) really inexpensive
Well, PR is less expensive than Super Bowl advertising, but your monthly PR bill is often a lot more expensive than your social media team or the freelance writers you hire to create articles for your web site. Why is that?
PR is ridiculously labor intensive. You can’t automate message creation, you can’t automate pitching media, you can’t automate spokesperson preparation, you can’t automate the interviews, you can’t automate the follow up with reporters to ensure they have everything they need to write stories, you can’t automate getting customer references. PR is tedious. You and your agency will spend a lot of hours delivering a successful story. And even then you don’t have a guarantee that the story will be everything you hope it will be.
Huge PR Myth #6: Every company needs to do PR
Here’s the thing. If your company can afford to spend between $5000 – $15000 a month on building the front of the funnel, great. Engage an agency, do the hard work to define your story, assemble your case studies and references. PR can do so much to bolster your credibility and visibility.
However, if what your company really needs is sales, focus on building a great web site and great collateral. Assemble great customer references that your sales team can use. Do webinars and all of those other lead generation tactics, which you can support without any PR at all.
Then start shrewdly using your own platform – your site, your newsletter, your social platforms – to tell your story. This is less glamorous than the Hail Mary pass of trying to get a Fortune cover story, but you can control it.
When you have customers, revenue, a provocative and useful story to tell, and a well-trained, deft spokesperson to tell it, that’s when you’ll reap reputation and awareness rewards from an investment in PR.
Your business must scale, and you must scale with it. Great communicators create the change they want to see in the world. poseycorp helps innovators build powerful messages and the skill to deliver them so they can break through the noise and be heard! Click here to receive pragmatic communications advice in your inbox every month.
poseycorp’s Ask Me Anything About Communications is on vacation in July. Happy 4th! Be sure to join us on August 3rd.
