Promotion has the power to shift opinion. It makes the ordinary extraordinary, it makes products fly off shelves and can make a simple idea a worldwide phenomenon. When looked at on such a grand scale, it’s not surprising that tackling your own promotion can be both a confusing and daunting prospect for many a business, but it doesn’t have to be.
Retail is in great part a sector driven by promotion, but many retailers tend to make the mistake of thinking of promotion only in terms of advertising or sales promotions such as discounting. Whilst these are without doubt a great way to get attention, there’s a whole gamut of other options available to a savvy promoter, one of which is public relations.
PR tends to feel like murky water for a lot of businesses, even those who feel fairly adept at executing other types of promotion such as advertising, but many of the principles remain the same. Strategic advertising to potential customers using the media that we know they read, listen to, watch, or pass on their way to work is something that many businesses already undertake. It seems obvious that if you’re selling a sports related product, advertising in the sports pages or in the ad breaks of a football game will have a better chance of reaching your potential customers than advertising on a website that is predominantly frequented by teenage girls.
PR fundamentally follows the same guidelines and one of the biggest areas of PR is media relations – basically talking to those in the media. Look closer at the media and you’ll see that each day, regardless of what is being discussed, from sports to teen issues, there are literally hundreds of “experts” sharing their opinion on what is fashionable, healthy, scientifically proven…the list goes on. This coverage is also worth thousands of advertising dollars, and yet it’s not advertising. It’s PR.
PR, like any form of promotion, needs to be strategic in how it is approached, and when you’re reading a quote from one of these experts, hearing a new restaurant’s favourable review or seeing the latest fashion being sported by an international celebrity, you’re also witnessing the direct result of public relations. And you can bet that sales of the showcased product jump as a direct result.
The power of PR is in its credibility, but the layering effect that it needs is much like an advertising campaign. It is said that an advertising message must be received by a person in your target market 3 times before it is retained, and similarly, the power of PR comes from each media mention adding another layer of credibility to your business. Unlike other forms of promotion which are viewed as the paid space that they are by the majority of consumers, the results of PR are most often considered to be endorsed by a trustworthy third party – namely the media. This in turn creates a desire amongst your market to actually pay attention to what you (inadvertently) have to say.
No matter what business you are in, or what you may be selling, you’re ultimately selling an image and public relations is a great way to managing that image – your image - whether it be the image of your industry, your product, or your store. When we read the opinion of an “expert” in the paper – someone that the journalist has called for comment, we tend to believe that this person must know what he or she is talking about. They must be good at what they do. As a retailer, chances are you’re already good at what you do. You just need to position yourself as such. The people behind the media need comments, they need opinions, they need stories. You just need to position yourself as the person, or the business, to provide that information.
PR agencies spend years building the relationships that make this type of media inclusion and coverage possible. As many retailers are unsung experts, PR professionals are experts in their area. They are responsible to their clients for consistently getting their message out to the media. This can involve dovetailing a client’s message from topical stories, creating a public opportunity for their clients to voice an opinion on issues of the day and creating timeless stories that don’t rely on particular events to be newsworthy or featured.
It is these results from PR that begin to create a demand for products and services within your target market. Like most good things, it’s unlikely to happen overnight, but with a strategic and consistent approach, it most certainly will happen. And when the media are giving you their seal of approval, PR can be your most powerful promotional tool.
