Publicity. Check. Event Planning. Check. Reputation Management. Check. We have you covered.
But you need a website, a social media policy, want to do some Facebook promotions and wonder if a link-building campaign might help drive traffic. Check, check, check and check.
We can do that too.
After 15 years in PR, I’m never surprised when people I meet don’t know what it is that we do. Honestly, I think my own father still believes those I write the radio ads he hears for The Clean Air Campaign (I don’t. Credit for those goes to the very talented Radio Outhouse team. Though if you hear a Ready Georgia ad, we did design that advertising buy.). The closest many people get to understanding what we do is by jokingly (or not) calling me a “spin doctor.” The term “spin” doesn’t really bother me though, because I tend to believe there is good spin and bad spin. Maybe it’s because I have a 7-year-old and spinning brings up all sorts of happy childlike images – or maybe it’s just because I’m stubborn, but either way, I digress.
Back to what we can do. I recently had a conversation with a prospective client about how PR could help him grow his business. I had presented him with some initial ideas, and as we talked through the recommendations, he stopped me more than once with the comment, “You do that?” Like many new and potential clients, he was surprised to hear the full range of experience and capabilities that a PR firm could offer. Unfortunately, he had also already talked to a few other vendors about some of those options, leaving him in a place where instead of one or two consultants, he may end up with three, four or five.
In my view, not only will this likely cost him more money, but it will also cost him valuable time, as he manages each of these groups while also trying to launch a fledgling business. But most importantly, it doesn’t give him the full benefit of streamlined, consistent, and integrated communications that he could benefit from, by having a PR firm manage more than just traditional media relations. Here are just five things you might be surprised to find among our expertise:
- Websites: strategy and messaging for what is likely the anchor in your marketing; your “public” face. Within this also fall blogs and online newsrooms.
- Full-service social media strategy and implementation: developing policies, designing promotions, training, online video, and even Facebook advertising campaigns. The media world has merged and social media (to borrow the title from a recent book) puts the “public” back in public relations
- Link-building campaigns: who better to find those influential websites with whom you can share links than the agency that best understands your public positioning? Our expertise lies in the ability to focus on the underlying quality as well as the ingenuity needed to get other websites to link to your website.
- SEO/SEM: While we don’t normally delve into paid SEO, we do know the ins and outs of increasing search engine rankings and traffic through social bookmarking, social media and more
- Market research: Designing polls, surveys and focus groups that will get at the information you need – and can use – to improve sales and drive visibility.
So there you have it: my sales pitch for the day. Next time you need “more than PR,” maybe a PR firm is the first place you should look.