The Two Biggest Public Relations Mistakes

You want to go into a PR campaign with anticipation and confidence that it’s going to succeed.  But you don’t want to mistake the campaign with your ultimate objective.  The first PR mistake people usually make is failing to understand that a media relations campaign is a means to an end, it is an avenue, not the destination. Sure, there are those people who want to be in the media simply to be in the media, but that’s not a club you want to join.  You want to have definite objectives, specific goals.

There are a number of reasons people launch media campaigns, the objective could be to sell more products, attract more clients, or establish yourself as one of the premiere experts in your field.  All of those objectives are valid and only you know what would best meet your business needs.  Once you define your objectives, you can then structure and define your campaign based on those needs.  You’ll know which stories and hooks will work the best and; you’ll understand which media outlets will most effectively reach your target market and tell your story.

Defining your business objectives needs to be your starting place.  Once you’ve done that, you’ll better understand what stories will work and which media outlets will be the most appropriate.  Once your goals are clearly defined, you can move forward with your campaign.  You’ll have a blueprint, a roadmap, you won’t simply be going after media coverage, you’ll be launching a campaign with a purpose.

The second public relations mistake that people generally make is thinking that garnering media is the beginning, middle and/ or end of a campaign. Landing coverage is the start, an incredibly important start, yet still, it’s simply the start.  Too many entrepreneurs and companies land media coverage and then simply sit back and wait for the flood gates to open.  That is not how effective PR works.  Once you land a magazine article or a TV segment, use that placement to help land other media coverage.  Use your media in your advertising, in your direct marketing and in all of your promotional efforts.  Use it online, post it on Facebook, Tweet it, Digg it, create a YouTube channel and spotlight it.  You can use social media to magnify and amplify your media coverage, no matter whether it’s a small local newspaper article or a segment on a national TV outlet.

But the trick is that you have to work it, you have to use your media.  It’s not enough that you landed a newspaper story or TV segment; you need to utilize and maximize it. PR is cumulative.  It’s an ongoing process.  The more you work it, the more it works.  So, work it.

Copyright © Anthony Mora 2011