There is a flip side, and a potential pitfall to my post Turning PR into a Sales Lead Generating Machine. The post counseled that tough economic times mandate PR programs specifically designed to boost sales, and offered tips about PR tactics that can drive sales leads.
The counter argument occurred to me during a recent PR planning meeting. The client, a CEO with a sales and marketing bent, insisted on a fairly limited set of PR goals. “We don’t have the deep pockets of larger vendors to do brand building programs. We need to drive sales, and do this in a very targeted way.”
I can understand why budgetary constraints might limit a huge ad spend on image building, but PR can play a role in brand development as well, and PR budgets are usually much smaller than branding focused ad budgets.
What I should have brought up at the time – and want to emphasize here – is that branding happens, whether you intentionally set out to invest in brand building or not.
People will by themselves fill in the blanks you create when you don’t talk about your brand (assuming they have any awareness of your company and its products). Their perceptions will be drawn from and colored by a range of sources: peers, first-hand experience, articles, blog posts, analysts, etc.
Furthermore, it is undeniable that, in competitive sectors like the legal industry, establishing your very own brand identity is crucial. Above all, if you want people to choose your law firm to represent their interests, you need to market your services in a way that feels authentic.
Moreover, this is why it is so important to have an established presence online.
Don’t you want to have a say in this dialogue?
I still think PR needs to do its share of short term demand generation. However, I think most will find that using PR exclusively as a business development tool would be a mistake. PR can and should play a role in building brand and company valuation. It is more of a long term strategy, but should not be ignored or left out of the equation when implementing programs and calculating the ROI for PR.
