Long Term PR Strategies To Make More Money
An effective public relations campaign takes planning, time, and work. You need to mine your stories and use the media you garner to land more media. A truly effective PR campaign cannot be launched or realistically measured in two, four, or even six months. Once you do decide to move forward, begin with some clear, specific objectives.
Study your business plan. How can media placement help you meet your objectives? Do you want to increase your business by a third in one year? Do you want to open another store or branch? Do you want to take a product national? What are your long term goals? Without such goals, you have no way to measure the success of the campaign.
Keep your eye on the future. Remember, media placement is a long-term, cumulative process. If you are only looking five weeks or even six months down the line, broaden your scope. Write down your short-term and long-term objectives. Where does media placement fit in? How can an effective media relations campaign help you achieve your objectives?
A plan that has you appearing on Oprah, The Tonight Show, or in Time Magazine and The Wall Street Journal within the first two months of your campaign is not a plan, that’s fantasy. One particular client we’ve worked with for several years has been featured in Time, Newsweek, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, NPR, and countless other media outlets, but those placements did not come about overnight. They were part of a long term commitment to achieving her PR objectives. If the client had stopped her campaign in two or three month’s time, she would never have been in Time or the Wall Street Journal and would never have known that her campaign was on the road to success. That indeed would have been a waste of time and money.
Approach your marketing as a part of your overall business strategy. Remember: launching an effective PR campaign for your company is not a luxury, but a necessary, powerful, key marketing tool. Think of it as being an integral part of your company’s long term marketing strategy.
