Why activity is often the worst thing in a PR campaign

I have had the chance to speak to a lot of marketing and PR people of late and one thing I have noticed is that there is a lot of pride taken by smaller and less well informed individuals that they have achieved regular interviews with the news media. In most cases they are like a kid with their first credit card and only see what they can buy. The don't realize that sooner or later, the bill is going to come due!

I have seen so many companies run a laundry list of all the big names publications who have supposedly covered their organizations. I still laugh when I think of the start up CEO who actually took offense when I disagreed with him and said that publications want interesting stories and aren't really interested in the cult of the CEO. He felt that business was personality driven.

No the sad but true fact is that as far as business publications are concerned, hard news is what sells. As a result, going out for a lot of "puff" pieces that do not clearly communicate to your market, who you are, what you do and why that matters are of no good. Many organizations invest vast sums of money and time in trying to get covered by big and prestigious publications like the Wall Street Journal for example and all they end up with is a waste of both time and money.

The smartest course of action is what I call the sniper's route. In the military, they train every soldier in how to care for and fire their weapon. However they take time to see who is the best sharp shooter in the bunch and then train that person even further and turn them into a sniper. Of the many elements of their training, one of the most important is how to identify the best target from a sea of possibilities. One of the great sayings among snipers is that any sniper can hit the target, but only the great ones can select it!

So picking targets for your PR campaign is one of the most essential elements to its successful execution. Trying to bring in a large number of busy bee results or picking some publication without a clear line drawn from story to customer to sale is the needless type of PR activity that is all too common among PR agencies today. Clients need to realize that it is up to them to go to the agency with marching orders and to expect in return results based on your expectations. Otherwise, you will see a bunch of busy work that in the long term, six months or more, will result in no net gain of sales.

How to wean your CEO from a PR addiction

One thing is very true in public relations today, far too many press releases are being issued. Furthermore, no one is reading them! The sad part is that many corporate executives see the way to dig out of a hole is to dig deeper into the earth.

The appeal of the press release is not hard to see. It allows senior executives, in most cases CEO's to pontificate on what they believe is important news that the entire world must hear. Sadly, in many cases, they are speaking to an empty church. So many releases are going out and most are of such dubious value that important things like messaging and reaching customers is often overlooked in the interest of simply issuing another release. Keep in mind that it is in the best interests of your agency and the wire services to have you issue a release any time you sneeze.

So that your public relations can accomplish its real goal of delivering your message to your target audience and ultimately helping you sell more of your product or service you need to manage your PR program the way you would protect family valuables. There are some steps you can take to ensure that your PR program is run properly. Some require basic steps but like a lot of things in life, the simple things lead to the greatest result. Here are some of my key tips to reduce PR addiction.

• Bar the use of the term press release. Instruct your management team that the company only issues news releases. It may seem like splitting hairs but it forces you to ask such questions as, what is the news value of what we are saying? Will this help us sell our product or services? Will this help reinforce our message to our key target markets?
• Put the management team on a diet when it comes to issue news releases. Pick a number and limit them to roughly half a dozen releases per quarter. That is an arbitrary number but what it does is it forces prioritization on what is really valuable. Hard choices often need to be made and rather than take an easy out by issuing a press release, make a tough choice and issue a news release.
• Look for non-traditional means of connecting with target audiences. While we are evolving in our use of technology, not to many companies are using Web 2.0 technology, such as blogging, Facebook and Twitter among others, to successfully disseminate their message to their market at large.
• Use more established methods in new ways. For example, opt-in email distribution services are vastly under-utilized and as such do not people who are interested in hearing about new developments within your organizations to hear from you. Therefore in a sad irony, information is being distributed to people who don't care or who are not an appropriate target.

Many senior executives believe that they know what is the best way to disseminate information and as a result hijack the PR process. Sadly many communications professionals allow this to happen because they place temporary job security over the long term success of their careers. The ones who truly succeed at public relations are the professionals who establish a rigorous program. The organization's success is the ultimate goal and only through this type of rigorous program can the success be assured.

Getting it right the first time!

One thing is sure, we live in a deadline oriented universe. This is sometimes a good thing but not always. There is an old football adage I remember that a player fumbles because he focused down the field, not on securing the football. Many companies do this because they are focused not on marketing the best product possible, but on meeting some arbitrary deadline or some financial goal and draw the proverbial line in the sand.

So then what is marketing supposed to do. Well marketing still has the role of being the defender of the brand. It is the role of the marketing professional to ensure that any actions taken by the organization have the long term effect of enhancing the brand and ensuring that in the long run, sales will be increased. Marketing should also be the voice for ensuring that the product is truly ready for market. Yes there are engineers and product managers who are responsible for ensuring that the product is ready, but they are more susceptible to deadline pressures which exist only to push a product out.

Marketing and communications need to have a pulse on the market and know what is happening and most important what may happen if the product is pushed out too early. The tunnel vision that can often overtake an organization during the push to get a product out and meet some deadline can often be persuasive and frequently intense. It's tough to fight this headwind but by doing so you actually help the company in the long run survive the urge to make poor decisions.

Think of it this way, by doing this marketing is acting like the good parent who makes their child eat vegetables and keeps them from only eating snacks and treats. While the result isn't always a happy child it is a healthier one and the ultimate parental responsibility is a healthy and productive child!

When the boss is the cause of the crisis!

Boy oh boy, there seem to be a lot of cases lately of people, almost all men, in positions of authority using their positions to undertake improper relationships with subordinates. What is amazing about this is the sheer stupidity of these people who partake in these hi-jinks and the fact that a number of them knowingly do so, fully understanding, and in some cases having crafted their organizations policy regarding sexual harassment.

I say this as a marketing and communications person but it is never in the best interests of the organization for the CEO or president or what ever the title to step out and have an affair on their significant other. Doing so, not only opens up a tremendous can of worms from a legal stand point, it generally acts like setting off a bomb as far as employee morale. Think for a moment, how does someone given a reprimand for making a stupid comment feel when they see that the CEO is getting away with far worse. How does a member of the opposite gender feel when they see someone promoted whom they feel is much less talented then they are?

Most importantly from a marketing perspective, think of what this says to the customer? If you are an advertiser on the Late Show with David Letterman, are you in the long term going to keep your product with him, if your demographic is married women? I would say probably not. If we're talking about a B2B organization it could cause serious concerns about the judgment of not just the CEO but of the entire senior staff. The simple fact of the matter here is that the personal behavior of senior executives does directly impact how the organization is seen within the marketplace.

The past 25 to 30 years have been focused on building the cult of the god like CEO. As a result, the luster of the CEO can, and often times does, outshine that of the organization. In most cases, this is what the CEO likes to see even if they do not say so. Sadly, there are a great number of negative effects to this change not the least of which is that the behavior of the individual, now impacts the entire organization. It is now the requirement of the marketing and communications person to have in place a plan which will focus on how to deal with the misbehavior of senior executives.

Tabloid PR has entered the building!

Preparing for when the rain will end!

I have spent time speaking to marketing professionals and senior executives and have found out something I consider very interesting. About 10 percent are very excited and believe that we've made it through the storm and in the midst of a recovery which will be quick and robust. The other 90 percent think we are in the middle of a terrible storm and that any recovery, if it comes, will be weak and tepid. As you may guess, only one group is actually planning for the future and investing in marketing.

I was thinking of an analogy which would describe these two opposite opinions and am struck by how successful one may be and how the other may miss the boat entirely. Imagine two companies which sell personal care products. The first company is always pessimistic about the weather and when he/she looks outside and sees gray skies all they see is rain. So they have the stock team move all of the sun glasses to the back of the store and instead fill the front with all types of umbrellas.

The store across the street sees the gray skies and knows that while there are gray skies today, the skies will not always be gray. As such, they put out some sunglasses and sunscreen along with the umbrella. While it might be raining that first day, some people will see the wisdom of being ahead of the curve and will respect the second company for being strategic enough to not only weather the storm, but also to plan ahead for the days when the sun comes out. No one wants to buy an umbrella on a gorgeous sunny day. But if you're selling sunglasses, you can almost name your price.

The point here is that the companies best prepared to prosper from a recovery are those who don't mind being on the starting line before the other fellow is finishing their warmups. In fact, the truly wise ones are willing to sacrifice a few sales in the very short term but see the opportunity to drive sales in the long term. They realize that it is better to give up a few inches now to gain a yard on down the line. Sadly, very few of their contemporaries see this goal and as a result will pay the consequences.

Keeping the message inside the box!

We are all familiar with the tired old cliche of "thinking outside the box." Well there is one area where we need to stay within the box and just as we were told when young, to color inside of the lines. This comes with the development and execution of the corporate message.

More often than not the corporate message is an afterthought when the brand is developed. I have seen, and been depressed by, other marketing professionals who will focus on minor details such as what shade of a color to use. Cardinal Red versus Vermilion is one argument I can remember going on for hours. These people think that all of these components will subtly influence the target audience and the result will be greater sales. Sadly, this is not the case and a marketing plan that does not revolve around a strong message is almost guaranteed to fail.

A strong message leaves the targeted consumer with a clear idea of what the end result of the purchase of their product will be. Who can forget Coca-Cola with the "Pause the Refreshes" or McDonald's saying "You Deserve a Break Today." I can remember buying services from a vendor who were more or less equal in all aspects such as price and ease of use. What ended up being the decision maker for me was a very direct marketing message. The winner said, "We help you do your job better." That was a very direct message to me that told me my life could be a lot easier if I used them.

Of course the hardest part of keeping the message in the box is that higher ups will always want to tinker with it. As many of my dear readers know, one of the most lamentable occurrences in business has been the emergence of the shortsighted mindset which only sees from one quarter to another. Great American companies tend to become that way not because they manage earnings better, but due to the fact they have a vision which extends beyond one quarter and a deep seated faith in what the organization is doing.

In addition, a good CEO listens to their smart marketing person who will tell them that changing a marketing message is similar to painting a house. You check on the damage, you make repairs along the way and maybe every ten to 15 years you do a complete overhaul in the message. In this day and age you have to fight to keep the CEO or some other senior executive from changing the message every quarter out of fear they are not meeting next quarter's numbers or even worse, out of boredom with the current message.

The corporate message is what helps influence your customers. It is something you need to keep an eye on for threats and the need to change but you also need to keep a spare eye on the number of elements who would like to change it for the simple sake of change. The message should always reinforce the mission and by doing that you're ultimately helping to sell more product.

Why fear failure?

No one likes to admit failure. That is something I find ironic because not only is failure a fact of life, in some aspects it is a cathartic action which allows for self examination and for the best to be made of a bad situation. Sadly, due to the mismanagement and in incompetence of many leaders and CEO's failure is seen as something terrible but irrational risk is not. Now that is a truly head spinning contradiction one could only suspect coming out of Lewis Carroll.

That being said, there is a point where despite all one's best efforts and every possible positive step taken, a certain product or initiative is just not working and needs to be killed. Now current corporate dogma says avoid blame and find someone to pin it on. Sadly, very little time is spent saying what did we do wrong and even more important, what did we do right? Failure unto itself is often a tremendous learning experience and something that, in the long term, can benefit the organization.

Now this is not an ode to the glories of failure. It goes without saying that an organization needs to succeed much more than fail in order to achieve its goals. However the path to success often comes from what at first glance seems a failure. Think of it this way, were it not for a failure, we would not have antibiotics or the microwave oven or teflon. In many regards, failure can be the first step on a different path to success. The irrational fear of failing is indicative of a short term viewpoint which says that only immediate and unquestioned, chest thumping success is appropriate. Sadly, that means that even a success which is 90 percent of the goals expected is often seen as a failure.

In order to succeed one can not fear failure. There is no need to aim for failure of course, nor should one just shrug your shoulders and say "oh well I have tried my best." But inversely, failure should be seen as an opportunity for self examination and quite possibly for the chance to create future opportunities down the road which will far and away dwarf the failure you have just completed.