Public Relations: Your Most Effective Sales Tool

According to Blue Marble, a PR consultant for Arrow partners, why should your company care about Public Relations?  In a nutshell, it provides the media with material they can use will result in coverage for your company and its products and services… coverage that can build brand and market awareness for your organization, enhance the credibility of your technology, generate inquires on your products and services, increase traffic to your website, increase sales, make your CEO an industry icons, and much more.

Simply put, because when it’s done right, PR can build your brand, generate market awareness and increase sales.

How is this done? There are four basic steps to get you started:

Step 1: Identify Your Target Audiences

Every PR program is executed to reach a variation of three key audiences:

• Buyers (VCs, Shareholders, Advertisers)
• Influencers (Analysts, Bloggers)
• End-users 

Once groups within each specific audience have been identified, focus on what brand messages will resonate with each

Step 2: Develop Your Messaging

• Create succinct, media-friendly messages that correct any anticipated or possible misperceptions and at the same time make sure the new messaging builds an identity for your organization: ACME is the company that ____?___
• Refine the messaging for each target audience
• Create new company fact sheets, press release boilerplates and other communications collateral to reflect the new corporate messaging
• Messaging is NEVER cut and pasted from your company’s mission statement or business plan

Step 3: Engage the Media

      The media (as well as bloggers and other social media channels) are the most cost effective means to deliver your company’s story and they hold the most influence over your target audiences. Create a strategy for approaching your target media, this will allow you to build a relationship with the and in turn they will devote time and interest in writing about your company. Be sure that you are always creatively positioning your company as being new, different and relevant to each media outlet’s readership.

Step 4: Establish Thought Leadership

      Being quoted or profiled by reputable media outlets certainly builds a positive brand perception, but credibility can also be established or reinforced by:

•  Speaking at industry conferences
•  Submitting bylined articles to key trade publications
•  Applying for industry awards and recognitions
•  Producing podcasts, videocasts, etc.
•  Blogging, Blogging, Blogging!

For information on the Arrow SmartCart and available PR Services contact: ibmgroupmarketing@arrow.com