And then as they go to work, they look at the newspaper, and reflect on the advertising all around them promising to get their brand recognised.
And for many businesses that’s as far as it gets for several reasons…
First is inevitably budget. The perversity is that the accountant’s bill gets paid, and the solicitor gets paid, but the marketing budget and often the training budget goes begging. Yet developing the people and developing the brand are two of the biggest factors in growing sales.
If we take just marketing, businesses tend to see this as advertising, and the round of golf. But the reality is that even the captivating adverts rely on a fair few views before the brand penetrates, and even then they are often discounted as unproven propaganda.
The smarter businesses recognise their best new business leads come from satisfied customers and trusted people saying good things about you. They won’t trust you, but they will trust others talking about you.
Which puts the spotlight on how best to create that positive chatter. Call it spin, call it recruitment, call it what you like but the broad title of PR captures the principle of raising your business awareness in a positive way. Probably the most effective win is convincing the extensively read, and generally trusted, media journalist to do your profiling for you. The general wisdom is that a brand mention in the media, whether newsprint, broadcast or social, is three times more valuable than traditional advertising when it comes to sales growth. And it’s invariably free provided you avoid the costs of a mainstream PR firm.
But there are DIY solutions such as JournoLink that are very affordable. JournoLink gives you the platform to get your brand name in front of the journalists writing the articles, guiding you on how and when to promote yourself. Connecting your business directly to journalists and social media commentators JournoLink allows you to share your news, whilst giving journalists the chance to get in touch with businesses, such as yours, when they are sourcing spokespeople for comment.
Without sales growth, any business is ultimately over. So minimizing the cost and maximizing the opportunity of brand profiling should be firmly added to the ‘contact win’, and ‘payment’ list as you spring out of bed to challenge the new day.
And that’s why PR is so important.