the shocking truth on public relations
The awkward, yet unsettling question always surfaces in mid conversation as I’m mingling my way through social events, family gathering, and unannounced meetings with people whom I have not seen in years: “So, what do you do for a living?” “PR”, I reply. My simplistic response means nothing to the recipient who’s ears are foreign to the two letters: P and R. “OH, what is that exactly”, replies my disturbed acquaintance. I quickly read the non-verbals and arguably confused facial expressions on the person’s face. No, PR does not stand for Press Releases or Puerto Rico. It is in fact an acronym for Public Relations.
No we are not sales strategist, marketers, nor do we spend most of our time wining and dining with journalist. In fact, we are quiet creatures, thinkers in our own galaxy, constantly drafting and brainstorming creative story ideas, throwing our fishing rod in the vast sea of 15,000 media contacts, hoping one fish will bite the bait. Your goal is to sink or swim, get noticed amongst a plethora of information.
Here are four myths debunked on Public Relations:
•PR is a fun and exciting field because you get to meet CEO’s, celebrities, and very important people across various field
80% of your time is spent in isolation, locked up in some cornered opaque office, researching, reading, and pieces together an angle to your press release. The 20% is enjoyed by networking events, meeting the media, and traveling to new venues – but only until you have done your homework.
• PR will drive sales for your business
PR is quite different than sales. Yes, good PR and strategic product placement will get more eyes on your business, but it is always the job of a marketer to drive sales, not the PR specialist. PR generates brand awareness and credibility so that when your sales team approaches potential leads, they are already familiar with your company and product and trust in your brand. PR builds credibility through unearned media, but it does not guarantee an increase in sales
• You don’t need to hire a PR Company to see real results.
Would you perform open-heart surgery on your family member if it meant saving you $350,000? Just as homebuyers rely on real estate agents to find their ideal dream home, businesses will rely on PR specialist to obtain desired media coverage. To become a PR specialist you need to have strong communication skill, understand the needs of journalist, spend thousands on a trusted database, know how to write a killer press release, and have an enormous amount of time and patience. Unless you have most of these traits, then PR is not as “easy as ABC”, in the words of Michael Jackson.
• It doesn’t take a lot of time
Public relations tactics that gets results requires an investment of time, no matter how much money is involved. You don’t write a press release and see it in the paper the next morning. Lots of time is spent writing (even if you’re a great writer), developing appropriate media lists, and most important, doing follow-up phone calls before anything actually hits the press. If you’re sending out a thousand press releases, you should be making a thousand calls. Spending that time is how you get the best results. The more time you put in, the more you get out of it.
If you Google “Millennials are,” the top searched suggestions that pop up are, “lazy,” “stupid,” and “the worst. Such are the suspicions of the Googling public, hardly an endorsement of Generation Y. But before you target your next Millennial marketing campaign at a vapid, selfish protopersona with pain points that include “the iPhone losing battery power” and “to Nook or to Kindle,” let’s allow the Millennials to speak for themselves.