Is PR worth it?

Are you even a PR professional if you *haven’t* had this conversation with clients or your boss? Big and small brands want to know they’re getting the best bang for their buck when it comes to marketing their products, so while you know it’s worth it, here’s a few thoughts you can share when you need to be PR’s hype-girl.

Word of mouth is still the most impactful form of marketing.

64% of marketers agree that word-of-mouth is the most effective form of marketing (Thrive My Way), and PR is essentially word of mouth at a much larger scale. While the old ways of measuring PR are antiquated, they do demonstrate that when your brand is shared by the media, influencers or your customers, it’s considered more credible than via a paid ad.

Your brand is what people say about when you’re not in the room.

Did you know that people need to hear about your brand an average of 7 times, from a variety of sources, before they are ready to buy from you? If a consumer reads about your brand in Vogue, then sees it mentioned by an influencer, and is served up an ad about your content, all of these touchpoints contribute to their propensity to buy. 

You don’t need an agency to do PR.

While PR agencies have that industry expertise, little black book of contacts and ability to know exactly what the media want to hear about, you can still generate great PR results by doing it in-house, with or without a dedicated resource. If you’ve got a great story to tell, the media have never been more accessible via social media and email. While you do need to craft a killer pitch and have a subject line that stands out in order to bypass the existing relationships of an agency, DIY PR is a cost effective way to get your brand noticed.

One piece of coverage can be worth 100 ads

The cost of social media and Google ads are rising (particularly as we head into an election in Australia) making digital marketing a more costly way of reaching your audience. While the return on an ad investment is immediately visible, you’re still paying more to reach the same people. With PR, one well placed piece of content can pay off for months on end, thanks to search engine optimization.

Your PR team are on your side

Particularly if there’s a crisis (and according to Hubspot, 69% leaders have experienced at least one corporate crisis in the last five years). The old adage that PR helps you build equity in your goodwill bank is true - the more positive messages you’ve had in the market, the better you’ll be able to weather a crisis if (or when) it happens.

Want more on how to demonstrate your worth as a PR professional? Here's what Jade Roberts of raraPR has to say.

Image by @brittanytyragolden shot by @file.jpg