Posts Tagged ‘pay for performance public relations’

Dick Grove

It’s Still the Story That Counts

12.05.11

Small Brands I read a really good article recently by Jack Neff in AdAge, How Little Brands Land Big Bang for Their Buck, that is worth perusing for two solid points….a story with a strong narrative can build a brand…and this kind of strong narrative is usually easier for the small entrepreneurial start-ups than the corporate behemoths.

“The common thread through all these no-cost, low-cost marketing success stories is a good story, one that bears repeating and fares well both in social and PR-fueled traditional media. Almost by definition, such stories are easier for bootstrap entrepreneurs to come by than, say, 65-year-old detergent brands. Many of the brands, from Terracycle to Method, Seventh Generation, Honest Tea and Stonyfield Farms, all have taken on the air of social movement.”

Having made a career and built a PR business working with such “bootstrap entrepreneurs” (a couple mentioned here) I can vouch for both points of Neff’s thesis.   The story is what counts…and the smaller and more flexible the company, the easier to find and tell it.

That’s my opinion…what’s yours?

 

 

 

 

 

Categories: Grove Report, pr marketing, pr news

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Dick Grove

The Long Tale of PR

11.13.11

what's your storyI hope we’d all agree that the most effective communications programs in today’s Internet dependent world are those that incorporate and fuse all the different elements and platforms available to the modern PR practitioner.  In a recent interview of a top executive at Weber Shandwick this point was again well stated…

“Through the rapid rise of social media, Weber Shandwick has helped clients tell stories in multiple formats (text, graphics, photography, audio and video) and to insert those formats into multiple vehicles (blog posts, news releases, FAQs, slideshows, whitepapers, videos, rss feeds, emails, etc.) and to drive those vehicles into multiple destinations (Facebook, websites, blogs, Twitter, events, seminars, YouTube, Slideshare, Scribd, etc.). Obviously, not every story requires video or needs to be tweeted or otherwise splintered. But a lot of them can be brought to many more lives than in the past, when we lived in a media world of words and pictures to and from a handful of sources.”

I couldn’t agree more and woe be to that PR firm or client who ignores the possibilities and benefits of a completely integrated communications approach.  Who, as my old coach used to say, “is stupid enough to go into tough game with half of your best players sitting on the bench?”  Who indeed.  But my concern is not with how a client’s story is conveyed and what formats and social media vehicles are put on the field to do so, which I believe we can all agree upon…but rather the content of the story itself.  Too many times in this business, and more so now than ever, we fall in love with the shiny new vehicle and frankly forget that it still requires fuel.  That fuel is the story itself. This WS executive points out that “that having a good story and telling it well are a big part of their job.”  Is this new?

I am reminded again of how even the largest global PR firms continue to rediscover as if for the first time that which has been obvious to those of us who have labored for years in the non-traditional world of  “pay-for-performance” PR.  Typical of the behemoth PR firms, they’ve given this revelation a catchy corporate title, “Content Fusion.”  Nice name and pretty succinctly covers the subject. But is this just another case of the large agency blowing its own horn by stating the obvious and driving up its own hourly fees with its own corporate speak? I hope not.  The WS executive goes on to say, “– A company talking about itself must say something new, preferably fresh and not in a way that’s rote, bland, or inane.”  That would indeed be revolutionary…not to the hard working PR types that get paid on actual results, but certainly to the media on the receiving end of all those previous  “rote, bland or inane” press releases that this firm and others have been mass distributing for years.

Good story telling isn’t just a part of a PR pro’s job…it is the most important part, and has been since the first publicist reached out and tried to grab the media’s attention.  There is nothing like a good tale to draw us into a story and make us want to continue to know more.  The media…traditional, blog posts, video, online content distribution  in various channels … is no different.  They’re people just like the rest of us, and all love and respond to a good tale.  An interesting and provoking beginning transitioning into a journey of discovery winding eventually to a satisfying ending…good or bad. Sound familiar?  And all wrapped around something truly newsworthy and aimed at audiences eager to read, watch and become engaged.  This may not be new, but it is smart.

That’s my opinion…what’s yours?

Categories: Grove Report, pr marketing, pr news, Social Media Marketing

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Dick Grove

Press Releases are as Outdated as the Paper They’re Written On

10.31.11

It’s time for all of us in the public relations profession to fess up to very basic fact…press releases are a lousy inefficient means to garner the media’s attention.  And if you’re a company or an individual with little to no media profile…as are most…they’re worse than inefficient, they’re a stupid waste of time.

Let me be clear…I am not talking about disseminating information for purposes of self promotion or legal compliance.   What I am talking about is landing media coverage and in the process making a positive impression on the media, and possibly even a detailed news story for yourself or a client.   Real news coverage on the editorial side is a product of news, timeliness, verifiable facts, hard work, opportunity, and yes, luck…not PR puffery, long-winded descriptions of a company or its product attributes, industry jibber jabber, and last but not least, legalisms…i.e., the average corporate press release.

I’m not sure where exactly the origins of the misunderstandings came from, or how long there’s been a belief that press releases actually work. It’s probably been as long as the first press agent took pen to paper and stuck it in the local newspaper editor’s cubbyhole.  And it’s been propagated over the years by traditional PR practitioners and PR educators, not because they’re effective but because they’re easy and the time put against writing them is usually fully billable.  But unless the subject already is familiar to the media…a high profile company like Apple or IBM or tied to the latest and greatest “news cause de celeb”…they find the trash can, real or electronic, faster than you can say “delete.”  I once had a group VP of one of the big three PR firms brag to me that his New York staff was annually billing out $1.2 million on writing press releases alone for a client.  When I asked him if it was productive for the client…did it produce a million dollars in news coverage?… his answer, “who knows.”

Pay-for-performance PR firms understand the fallacy of the press release.  They know because their revenue stream depends solely on producing actual editorial news coverage for clients, not billable hours churning out releases.  Hours are expended all right, but against researching the individual target media and creating a credible pitch to an individual reporter, editor, blogger or producer.  The result, hopefully a billable client story, not billable hours or one more release finding the bottom of the wastebasket.

I’ve been accused over the years of being a press release bigot…of classifying all press releases as pointless and a waste of time.  Not true.  Some of my best friends are press releases…some do serve a very productive purpose.  A few key words here or there and they can do wonders for your SEO…or keep you straight with the compliance folks at the SEC…or make a nice addition to a salesperson’s portfolio…and lastly give corporate lawyers a place to deposit all of their “whereas’s” and “therefore’s” and disclaimers to their hearts content.  But it’s only when the press release gets uppity and tries to create real news that I have a problem.  Does that make me a press release bigot…or just a smart PR practitioner?

That’s my opinion…what’s yours?

Categories: About INK, Grove Report, pr marketing

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Dick Grove

“Checkbook Journalism” is NOT Pay for Performance PR

08.08.11

It must be the doldrums of August when, in spite of Congress and the economy doing their level best to provide fodder for the media’s annual slow period, we are once again treated to news stories or opinion pieces that seem somehow very familiar.  One of these late summer treats is the “news” that journalists and the large corporate enterprises sometimes actually pay for, access to a story or an individual thought to have insight on a story.  The latest comes from no less than the Sunday New York Times in a piece by Jeremy Peters, Paying for News? It’s Nothing New.

Exposing once again the “news” that mainstream media, from ABC and CBS to The Times itself have over the years coughed up some big bucks for the rights to interview everyone from President Nixon to Casey Anthony.

None of these revelations are news anymore than the carefully crafted sound bites or video snippets that such payments produced are particularly news worthy.  But such checkbook journalism stories can be problematic for those of us in the public relations profession…and particularly to those of us who make a sizable portion of our living from what is known as ‘pay-for-performance’ PR.  For it’s easy in our quick read, non-nuanced, short-attentioned-span world of 24/7 news to confuse such articles and even the term, “checkbook journalism” with a completely ethical and legitimate form of PR compensation.  The difference obviously (or maybe not so much so unless pointed out) is that under the first, journalists pay news subjects.  Under the latter, news subjects or clients hoping to be news subjects are the ones doing the paying…in this instance to the PR folks attempting to land them in the media.  And those of us that proudly wear the title of “pay-for-performance” carry it one step farther.  We ask the client to pay for actual published or broadcast coverage…not just the attempt at it.

While I am not crazy about the confusion these articles may cause and I realize that such articles as Mr. Peters in the Times is meant to wag a condescending finger at the media that have actually stooped to partake in paying a source for exclusivity and/or some insight and background into a story, it is a functioning part of the competitive news business.  We should all live in such a perfect journalism world where journalists and their bosses were all-knowing and both the competition for subject stories and the competition for the limited space or time by those seeking it, was regulated not by the all mighty dollar but omnipotence and good will.  But we don’t…never have never will.

Categories: Grove Report, pr marketing, pr news

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Dick Grove

PR…Charging for the Cure and Not the Couch Time

06.26.11

A friend once told me that a hobby is something you do for the fun of it.  It may cost you money and you may even make a little back on it in winnings or even sales, and of course there’s the peer esteem; but over all it’s usually break-even at best.  A business however, he went on, is where you get strangers to write you checks for providing a measurable service or product…real dollars for something tangible in return.  Big difference.

I consider public relations not only a profession but very much a business.  And if I follow my friend’s definition, which means that my PR business must provide a measurable service or product…something tangible…in return for the checks I expect my clients to write.  In my company’s case, this tangible product is media coverage.  It’s what we’re hired to produce for our clients and it’s what we must deliver before we ask for the check.  Simple it would seem.  Nothing particularly nebulous or abstract about it.

And yet, daily, I read or come across multiple instances of PR agencies or individual publicists that are conflicted over what they are charging for, how to charge for whatever it is, and how much to charge.  A recent blog in WSJ.com went on way too long and from a standpoint of very little first hand knowledge about “how much is publicity worth?”

While this particular blogger didn’t show much insight and a good deal of naïveté’, he did explore an interesting comparison of advertising and PR values and pricing.

The problem appears to lie in both how most PR folks define PR and their profession. PR, many believe, should not be viewed like advertising or direct marketing with defined and tangible goals utilizing defined materials and even real mathematical models.  Oh no.  Rather PR is a consultancy that provides strategic wisdom to guide companies and their executives through difficult periods and offer advice on everything from getting customers to buy…to getting elected.  And sometimes they even might provide advice on media relations through the crafting of a dynamite press release or two.  All very nebulous and abstract.  And since these services are often more similar to a psychologist than an ad executive, why not charge the same way…by the hour.  Makes sense.  The more nebulous and abstract the service, the better the hourly fee sounds.  Ever hear of a psychologist charging by the cure?

But what’s wrong with comparing PR pricing to our sister communications discipline, advertising? I’m not saying the value is the same for a positive story in the Wall Street Journal versus an ad of equal length. Not at all.  Individually each has it’s own value in how it affects the reader and the responses it may cause, as well as the credibility it may solicit.  However what is the same is that both the ad and the story are the tangible results of skill and hard work and the intangible strategic planning behind the effort.  Therefore why not charge in a similar manner…for the cure and not by the hour.

That’s my opinion…what’s yours?

Categories: Behind the scenes, Grove Report, pr marketing, pr news

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