How To Think Now About PR Later

With Q4 just days away, so is annual budgeting season. Budgeting, by definition, is a series of tough choices, and especially in unpredictable times. 

Every marketing dollar needs to yield return, and though some say PR can be hard to measure, the same analysis applies. When it comes to thinking about investing in PR, it’s not just one metric but instead a series of factors that marketing leaders and founders should be thinking of when deciding if now is the time to invest. 

PR + your business goals. 

When we look at the value of PR we always start by asking what are the business goals? Is a company trying to build their brand, attract investors, develop a pipeline or retain key talent? Perhaps it’s not one but a combination of all. With business goals as the starting point, we build out communications and PR strategies holistically, so that the impact on these goals can, in fact, be measured. 

When done right, the activity generated from PR is often integral (i.e., not discretionary) to your company’s overall strategy. For example, one company recently landed a feature article, resulting in an inbound call from a new investor that ultimately changed their long-term growth trajectory. Another company put out a strategically timed press release about new executive hires that energized their sales team for weeks, with a related spike in prospect meetings. In both of these examples, PR’s contribution was not discretionary, but a substantial driver of mission critical growth.     

PR + your sales process.

For organizations that are focused on sales process and building a lead generation machine, well executed PR will serve as an important input for several steps along the sales journey.         

First, your company’s brand in the public conversation supports top of the funnel activities in a unique way. There will always be prospects who want to gauge your credibility, beyond your own paid outreach campaigns, before they will engage. Your messages in respected media outlets provide a level of credibility that is hard to duplicate. Second, your sales team will inevitably be looking for “reasons to re-engage” and a regular cadence of your company’s moments in the media are some of the strongest conversation starters. And finally, as the sales process progresses, serious prospects will be looking for a reference check, something that assures them that your company is a reliable and good partner. A regular stream of thought leadership is one of the best “virtual references checks” to support the close of a sale.  

PR + momentum.  

When thinking about PR – especially if you have a program already in play –  it’s important to think about how much you’ve already invested in and gained from recent PR efforts, and the expected cost to rebuild that traction. There are some channels that can be spontaneously dialed up or down to match the ebb and flow of your business (think: social media advertising). PR, on the other hand, is cumulative and works best with consistency. Similar to the training regimen of competitive athletes, a break in training typically results in the loss of accumulated benefits that will often take longer to regain than the break itself. PR is similar, especially if your company has worked hard to get your name into the public conversation. 

Whether or not you ultimately choose to invest in PR for 2023 will depend on a number of factors, including where your business is in its growth trajectory, if you have important company news coming down the pike, or how active your competitors are with the press. In some cases modifying your PR intensity may be better than shutting it off all together. Either way, be sure to engage your PR partner in a discussion of these tradeoffs and look for creative ways to keep your brand top of mind.