Using Your PR to Supercharge Your Marketing

There are myriad ways your press and media can be utilized.  It’s an integral part of the process and one that I can’t emphasize enough.  This is an area where most people, including PR professionals, stumble.  Too many people look only for the immediate results that a magazine article, radio interview, or TV segment can bring.  In their simplistic equation, if a story brings in clients, sells products, or, at the very least brings in inquiries from prospective clients, it was a success.  If it did not, it was a failure.  Yet the truth is that a story, interview  or media placement that doesn’t bring in immediate response can in fact be  invaluable.  It’s only a failure when it’s not worked. There are countless ways in which you can effectively utilize your articles or TV segments.  This media can be like gold if utilized properly.  But this is where you really have to do both leg work and homework.  This is the one area where, even if you have hired a media relations firm, unless they understand this process of using your PR in your overall marketing program, you can be on your own.

Most firms will place you in the media and use your media appearances to interest other media outlets.  But, unless they’re truly savvy, don’t rely on a media relations firm to fully maximize the various ways that your media can help your business or career grow.  Many don’t see that as their job.  In many ways they’re right, their objective is to secure you media and to implement a successful campaign.  A knowledgeable PR professional will help you maximize your media, but often it’s your job to be inventive and creative and to effectively utilize your media in as many ways as possible.  How?  The following is a list of various ways to effectively utilize your media, study it, add to it, and come up with your own ideas.

 1. Media Begets Media

Use your TV and radio appearances and magazine and newspaper articles to interest other media.  Remember, media begets media.  Copy the article, video, or audio tape and send it out when the media requests further information on you.  Update your biography to include your most recent media appearances.  When writing or talking to the media, let them know about other segments or articles you have appeared in.

2. Display, Display- Utilize Online Marketing

Keep copies of articles displayed in your office or framed on your walls.  Don’t hide your media.  Also consider making copies of TV or radio interviews to show to your clients, customers or patients, as well as to your prospective clients and customers.  Display your press.  You will be perceived differently.  Showing your media also helps to stimulate word of mouth.  People love to tell their friends that they are seeing or working with a “celebrity.”

3. Use The Media In Your Marketing

Mention your media in your ads, flyers, newsletters, and brochures.  Review your articles and interviews, and look for any particularly impressive quotes about you or your business that you can highlight in your ads or marketing.

If you have a staff or employees, teach them to use the media you have been featured in their pitches or conversations to both clients, and prospective clients.  Teach your employees to utilize your media.  If they are talking to a prospective client, patient, or customer, it never hurts to have them mention that you, your product, or service were featured in a magazine or TV program.  Work with them; come up with ways to weave your media appearances into their conversations and discussions.

So there are several ways your media can help your marketing.  Have fun, be creative with it.  The more creative you are, the more successful you’ll be.

Copyright © Anthony Mora 2012