When it comes to the relationship between Public Relations and advertising and how each impacts your business, they offer two contrasting, yet complementary opportunities. And when opportunity knocks – especially at two different doors – you are best to open both.
As a business owner you know that nothing should function within its own silo. Everything must be integrated and designed to work together to eliminate inefficiencies and to get the most out of the time and effort you put into a task. This is absolutely true of public relations and advertising within any given business.
If you’re created an advertising strategy without including a PR component, or vice versa, you could be making a costly mistake that could hinder the effectiveness of the resources you’re pouring into these efforts. First, take a look at the reasons why public relations actually helps to make your advertising go further.
Leverage Relationships
When you’re spending a good chunk of change with any particular media outlet, you grow your relationship with that outlet. They’re there to serve you and make you happy as a customer. Any smart media sales person will do whatever it takes to ensure you’re satisfied so that you continue to come back for me. Use this leverage to your advantage! As a paying customer you have negotiation power to request to earned media in addition to your paid media. Ask your sales rep for the best contact within the outlet to pitch your story to. Ask for them to throw in a social media shout out for your business. Or ask for them to run an op-ed you’ve written. Think of what will be most valuable to you and your business – and ask for it! The worst they can say is no, but remember you hold the check book, and the leverage.
Stroke Egos
Public relations is a great way to stroke the egos of your stakeholders and decision makers. How? When you gain PR opportunities such as a guest spot on a television news show, you can plug in key people who love to be in front of a camera and give them a chance to shine – all while representing your business or organization. By pitching your story to the media and earning a feature story, you now bring real value to your business. This is especially helpful if you’re trying to give sponsors or investors the biggest bang for their buck. What better than to give them a media opportunity they simply cannot buy?
Guaranteed vs. Earned
There is a huge value in paying for your media placement. It’s guaranteed coverage you can count on. You know exactly what will be placed where and when. But this comes with quite a price tag. The beauty of incorporating public relations into your strategy is that this is earned media. If an outlet picks up your press release, does a feature story on your business or covers an event you’re hosting or associated with, you’re not paying for this publicity. Additionally, research shows that most consumers view earned media as more authentic, trustworthy and persuasive than traditional advertising. This isn’t to say one is better than the other. Really, it demonstrates why you need to use both public relations and advertising if you want to take your public outreach to the next level!
Greater Outreach for the Same Price
Another benefit of using both public relations and advertising tactics to promote your business is that you will reach exponentially more people for virtually the same investment. Why? Because advertising has hard costs, while public relations is the earned media aspect we discussed above. Aside from the time you, or someone you hire, might put into implementing public relations tactics to enhance your business’s advertising, there are no hard costs such billboard placement, printing of marketing materials, etc. Rather, the PR component utilizes media channels that are already in place to take your communications to the next level.
Go Deeper with Your Message
Let’s face it. Paid advertisements are very limited. For a billboard, you should really have fewer than eight words. And how much can you really say in a 15 second commercial or radio read? Really, you can only communicate just the basics. But people rarely buy on the basics. They want an emotional connection, and that is really hard to achieve with traditional advertising alone. When you include public relations as part of your overall strategy, you open up the flood gates to communicating your whole story. This can be achieved in a wide variety of ways from op-eds, feature stories, publicity events, community partnerships, blogs and social media and so much more. If you feel like you don’t have the platform to truly tell your story and have the masses hear it, it may because you’re lacking in the PR department. Give it a try!
Do your current advertising and public relations efforts work together to create more effective outcomes for your business? Why or why not? Share your examples by leaving a comment below!
