Why Taking your Marketing Publicity Efforts In-House Is A Recipe for Failure
Sheer volume of work required, not capability of staff, is the difference between success and failure of business to business marketing publicity programs.
(PRWEB) June 21, 2005 -- The hot new topic in business to business marketing
today is marketing publicity, which involves promoting a company’s product or
service through the mass media – particularly in print and Internet
publications. Based on the power of third party endorsements – both through use
of customer testimonials and the implied endorsement of a publication when they
run the material as editorial – this brand of publicity is a powerful tool that
can generate a large quantity of leads and sales.
However, conducting a
business to business marketing publicity campaign demands a
tremendous expertise, time and effort, which is why most companies outsource to
a professional public relations firm. Still, many companies opt instead to bring
the effort in-house.
“Many companies are extremely interested in this
type of business to business marketing,” says John W. Elliott, Founder of Power
PR (www.powerpr.com), a
marketing public relations firm. “But some start thinking ‘I can just assign
that to my marketing staff and I won’t add to my marketing
budget.’”
According to Elliott, this is a recipe for failure because a
full business to business marketing publicity program must result
in a high volume of published articles over time to build the repetition
required for lead generation and sales.
The result – or lack of results
– becomes painfully apparent about 6 months later. In some cases, Elliott says,
some companies even jump to the unfortunate conclusion that “this type of
publicity doesn’t work for us.”
To illustrate his point, Elliott says
that Power PR conducts literally hundreds of one-on-one phone conversations a
month on behalf of their clients, adding that this often takes thousands of
attempts.
“We literally have Media Relations Specialists whose sole job
is to contact editors to pitch the releases,” says Elliott. “All they do is call
and call and call. I have never met an in-house staff member that has the time
or desire for this level of phone calling.”
Elliott is quick to point out
that quality plays a critical role too - primarily in knowing how to skillfully
approach and pitch editors on the value of each press release.
For
companies like Power PR that rely one-on-one phone calling (as opposed to the
“mass fax” approach of most public relations firms), this is the differentiator
between generating a large volume of quality published articles and getting a
few small hits.
Unfortunately, overburdened marketing personnel often
“skip” the phone calls and instead fax or e-mail material with no follow up. The
result: a few scattered releases, but none of the volume or repetition required
for lead generation.
Writing editorial-quality feature articles and news
releases is also a skill. Although it might be tempting to assign writing to
in-house marketing personnel, they typically know little, if anything, about
crafting a promotional document that can stand up as editorial.
“With a
high volume of quality published article over time, a business to business marketing publicity program is an
extremely powerful tool that directly impacts leads, sales and expansion,” says
Elliott. “On the other hand, a low volume of published articles is almost a
wasted exercise.”
Contact:
Heather Metcalfe
310-787-1940
e-mail
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Source : http://www.prweb.com/releases/2005/6/prweb252594.htm