Leveraging relationships and making contacts through public relations can help increase business.
By Marjorie Wallens, first published in the Canadian Employer, October 2007.

“Today,” said a prominent sage of one of the world’s largest PR firms; “great brands are built with PR.”  Ok so the quote comes from a PR exec and not from the world of advertising, and he was talking about building national brands. So you might ask what does this have to do with me, a small or mid-sized business with a limited budget and just me, an owner-manager to promote my business.

The fact is that PR is not out of the reach of any business and can yield enormous results and is particularly effective at the local and regional level and therefore useful to people in small to mid-sized businesses.

My definition of Public Relations is the act or ‘art’ of building relationships and creating awareness that can be leveraged to increase sales among the various publics that touch your business-your customers, suppliers, community leaders, business and trade associations to name a few.  It is also the delivery of the right message to the right audience at the right time. Activities include media relations, public speaking, by-lined articles in the media or trade in press, publicity, community participation and the development of good professional citizen ship.  It is not paid advertising.

It is usually the opportunity to provide fact based information about your product or service free of promotional hype that is perceived to be objective and editorially neutral which can appear as an endorsement by the forum in which it is presented..
For the purpose of this article, let’s focus on media relations as a way to increase awareness to build sales.

Remember, the media frenzy created by doughnut makers, Krispy Kreme? They entered the market place by spreading the word strictly through the media with no paid advertising.  By creating a ‘compelling story’ about the unique features of their product; the donuts were freshly made continuously and still warm in the box when you walked out the door, it peaked the interest of the media which in turn carried stories about the Krispy Kreme experience.  It created a lot of ‘ink’ across North America resulting in long line ups (another good media story) and soaring sales. However, Krispy Kreme also found that PR had its downside, when the calorie laden products were targeted as a public health hazard number one and ended up taking a big bite out of their sweet sales.

So PR is a double edged sword. However, it can be very effective in getting the word out and building credibility for your business. A story in the media also provides a boost for employees who work for your company, since ‘being in the media’  gives employees a sense of pride that their company in the news, it’ s also good for recruitment, as prospective employees may have heard of your company through the news and may perceive it as an employer of choice.

The first step however, is to determine your goals and objectives-What is it you want to achieve. Do you have a product or service that is innovative, are you doing something that’s newsworthy, will gaining media interest enhance your business reputation and help differentiate your product or service in the marketplace and therefore lead to increased sales?

For example, a small enterprising Toronto company developed a training program that could efficiently train employees to do routine tasks without the high cost of developing training manuals or taking valuable supervisory staff time to teach the new procedures. What was different? The training program was delivered ‘virtually’ or on-line directly to an employee’s home computer.  Each training module contained a follow-up question and answer quiz with the results fed directly back to head office to gage the effectiveness of the training program. It also saved lots of money and training time and was endorsed by one of the company’s clients, which is considered a good ‘hook’ or unique angle that would be of interest to the target media’s audience.
The target market for the training program was human resource professionals, marketing and sales professionals and any industry that needs to quickly disseminate information to employees working in various geographical locations, where a visual demonstration enhances the ability of the sales person or customer representative to sell the product or service.

The PR strategy in this case was aimed at creating media awareness and stories in various publications read by human resource professionals and marketing trade magazines looking for competitive edge products for their clients and the small business section of the city’s largest daily newspaper. The coverage would then be leveraged by sending the articles to potential clients as part of an overall marketing campaign.  The articles could also be posted on the company website. By gaining positive media coverage in a HR trade publication and a daily newspaper in the small business section, the company was able to use the coverage as an endorsement of their product, especially since several of their clients were quoted in the story and offering both examples and testimonials as to the effectiveness of the training program.

So, if you have an innovative product or service, are doing something that is newsworthy and think it would be of interest to a particular media outlet-

• Tailor your key messages to fit the editorial thrust of the particular media outlet,
• Create clear messages that illustrate what makes your product or service different; and What makes it of value to your particular customer audience
• This can be done through the development of a news release or a ‘pitch letter’ and sent to the editor of a relevant section in a newspaper or trade publication or a reporter who regularly covers stories of interest to your particular target audience
  I then follow up with the reporter or editor-to ‘see’ if they got the release. Most reporters and editors don’t like to be ‘bugged’- because they are bombarded by information and can’t review everything. But, follow up calls are crucial-because it gives you a chance if nothing else to remind the reporter about your story and an opportunity to bring to their attention the unique value of your particular service or product and tell your story. Even if its voice mail –leave a message succinctly outlining your story and why it would be of value to their audience.
• Getting to know reporters or editors personally is also a good strategy to better understand their editorial point of view.  But there is no substitute for a relevant and compelling story that matches the needs of the publications’ target audience, Don’t‘ be afraid to contact the media, an astounding xx% of all stories that appear in the media today are a result of being pitched by outside sources as newsworthy or initiated as part of an event that is taking place.
  The virtual online training story attracted inquires about the program and subsequent sales from interested companies. The articles were also posted on both the company website and that of the two companies that were profiled as part of the story…-further extending the reach and awareness and sales of the product.

Entrepreneurs and business owner/managers rarely spend enough time in direct contact with customers. They get too caught up in conducting business to build business, yet the time you spend with your customers lets you do both. The best business development efforts are when you are in front of your customers, potential customers or people who can connect you with potential customers.

And this last part is where networking comes in. The time spent networking face-to-face is every bit as effective in building business as time spent with customers. In some ways this is intuitive – there is a limit to how much face time is effective with customers when it comes to gaining referrals or repeat business. Current customers see your work, know what you do, so it’s mostly building comfort with you as a person. On the other hand, connectors (or networkers) usually have less familiarity with your business style and methods, and stand to gain from exposure. Dedicated networkers also have a broad base of contacts.

Which raises an interesting question: is there more value in a referral from a satisfied customer, or from a trusted supplier or products or services? You may be surprised that in surveys, more business managers will place emphasis on a referral from a supplier. The reason is that they believe their supplier’s integrity is on the line with referrals. A previous customer may have had specific needs which were well satisfied, but which may not match their own. After all, everyone believes that their situation is unique, so a satisfied customer may be of little relevance, where a referral from a trusted source is assumed to be good fit for the issue at hand.

How much time do you spend each day either networking or in direct contact with customers? Most business owners average out at 90 minutes daily. Which isn’t bad. But the number to aim for adds ¾ of an hour to that. Owners who spend 2 hrs 15 minutes on business development, consistently manage double digit growth above the rest of the market. See if you can’t add 10 minutes a day as a great start – everyone can find 10 minutes, right? Remember, it’s an average, so one day with an extra hour of calls or meetings qualifies.

A final word on this – direct contact does not include e-mail, mail or texting. It means a conversation. The phone works, but usually only with existing customers. Phone calls tend to be more directed, as they are less comfortable – people generally want the call to be as brief as possible. For this reason, when it comes to prospects and networking, you need to be face-to-face. But that’s when conversations are easiest to maintain, and develop a life of their own. And hopefully develop into business opportunities.