How many sales have you got directly from PR?

[daveashton]

How many sales have you got directly from PR and no other sales method? and has this ever produced the best ROI compared to other methods?

[Rob Holmes]

Dave,

Maybe it would be good if you defined what you mean by PR a bit more.

I don't think every one will have exactly the same definition and hence the answers will not be as relevant as they could be.

Rob

[CaroCaro]

Yes, direct sales from editorial coverage in women's mags - so yes to answer you question. I have tried other methods, albeit in a small way, which were OK. I think it depends on the product and the media, mine is t-shirts for pregnancy in pregnancy womens mags and as women read and like to shop - bingo!

[Rob Holmes]

We had an editorial on a new company I launched in January which got in alot of biz for the 3 weeks following the editorial.

The editorial was free so ROI was infinity!

I do believe anything you do for your business should be trackable and tested against ROI AND PR should be designed to maximise ROI.

Rob

[gary]

Yup - had coverage in a couple of magazines and had sales as a result. Had exposure in one mag in April and still getting calls about it. I find PR more about long-term brand-building than short-term sales though.

[ebonybailey]

I have done very little in regards to PR very little indeed, I think the most active I have been is with my own newsletter if you can call that PR, I know I should do some especially with my client list.

[coxadmin]

Dave,

Maybe it would be good if you defined what you mean by PR a bit more.

I don't think every one will have exactly the same definition and hence the answers will not be as relevant as they could be.

Rob

Yes, please. So far I can indentify three possible definitions of PR:

Press Release
Page Rank
Public Relations

Many thanks.

[Arlo]

Hi coxadmin

Public relations is loosely defined (I've written an article about this on our own website). There are lots of communications tools that public relations practitioners use to get their message across. Many are also considered different marketing disciplines in their own right. Generating media coverage is probably the thing that most people associate with PR, but PR practitioners also use the Internet, direct mail and events, for example, to communicate with a target audience.

[10 Yetis]

My two penneth worth:

The most recent major financial services campaign i worked on used the following marketing methods:
Direct mail,
Advertising (national finance sections)
Outbound telesales
Branch promotion
Public relations (press release)
Email link to micro-site

Out of all of these PR came back with the best response rate. It accounted for roughly 25% of all sales. This was easy to measure as the press release had its own dedicated consumer freephone number so we could identify that anyone who had rang it was doing so having seen the press article.

There are of course other times where the PR has not worked as well as the advertising, and if I am honest it is only in the last five years that PR has started to seriously compete with advertising in terms of generating sales (maybe this is because the public relations industry is getting better at measuring ROI?)

I consider myself to be a marketing AND public relations person (worked on both areas for a long period of time) and as such I value both sides. PR can work well in its own right if the right angle is found and if the right journo's are targetted BUT... it will work even better if used in conjunction with a full marketing campaign (which I would always encourage).

There is no doubt that consumers are starting to switch off from "mainstream" advertising and this is one of the reasons why Public relations and other areas from the "marketing mix"* is now such a big business... when done properly it has presents a much more credible front (i.e. it is written by a source that consumers trust - journalists).

Oh yeah, and I think it was Arlo who made a comment that PR agencies are no good at measuring ROI. I would really echo this comment.

This is one of the reasons I decided to take the plunge and start 10 Yeti's. I got sick of sitting in agency meetings being shown pretty graphs of how many opportunities people had to see the brand i worked on, and how much we would have had to spend to get the same coverage in terms of advertising, when I already had the results I needed in front of me, how much money had a campaign generated, how many times did the phones ring, and did it beat our last campaign... see, see what you have done now, is everyone happy, i am ranting, there is no stopping me.... nurse, nurse.... bring my medications....

*sorry, marketing jargon, "marketing mix" is the list of various methods you use to market your business/service

[daveashton]

Paid media coverage is handled by advertising agencies.

Mail shots: not sure how that is PR, because that comes under direct marketing and is often contained within formal marketing courses
Page Rank is done be SEO which some people call web marketing and again for us this is marketing.

[10 Yetis]

Sorry dave, I meant from my list that only the press release was actual PR.

Thinking about it, not sure if you post was in reference to mine?

[Arlo]

I think it might have been in reference to mine, so here goes!

Yes paid media coverage is 99% placed by advertising agencies. But even advertising is a tool that can be used by PR practitioners. Example: I worked for an agency which placed adverts for missile systems in the national newspapers. The objective was not to sell missiles to readers of the newspapers, but to lobby the government - a PR initiative, rather than advertising as such. Richard Gere's advertisement in The Times a few years ago was another example of a PR initiative (a failed one, as it happens, but a PR initiative nonetheless).

Yes, I agree that mailshots are considered a separate discipline. However, direct mail is something I've often recommended as a public relations tactic. Example: a calendar of beautifully photographed dog messes, coupled with captions that challenged accepted thinking about the need for regular worming of dogs, sent to veterinary surgeons in the UK. Was it a PR campaign that used DM, or a DM campaign that generated PR? Well, it was commissioned from the PR agency, so I'd say the former. But I wouldn't argue about it!

When I said the Internet, I didn't mean search engine optimisation, which I agree is a totally separate discipline. Although again, the boundaries are sometimes blurred, because search engine optimisation is only a part of search engine marketing, and an effective part of search engine marketing is the publication of linked press releases / editorial on third party websites.

What I meant by the Internet is PR-led electronic communication. Example: a few years ago, my agency recommended that a client set up a community website for a group of its customers - a well-defined professional group that many argue is underpaid and undervalued. The site we recommended has gone on to become the leading information resource for that target audience in the UK, with more members than the official association. A website, but a PR-led website.

I believe that the role of a public relations consultant can be summed up in one word: "advocate". Most people probably think of that in the legal sense, but the dictionary definition is 'champion'. That, ultimately, is the job of a PR practitioner - to champion his or her clients to the target audience. Most commonly, I'm championing my clients to the public via editorial media coverage. But I don't like to get too hung up over what communications platform I use. I'll recommend whatever I think will do the job most effectively on a given budget.

[stagetec]

I don't think there is real answer to this question as it really depends on the business as to what form of marketing works. My business is B2B and very specialist so I am never going to get sales directly from PR, however it serves as a very useful tool for getting my products in front of potential customers, so at least when I contact them they have heard of the product, which makes my life easier.

I'm sure that there are other business, particular local businesses who deal B2C where PR would have a much greater impact on sales.

Andy

[Arlo]

Hi stagetec,

I think we're talking at slightly cross-purposes here. My point is that PR often uses communications platforms other than editorial media coverage, and therefore can be used just as effectively B2B as B2C. We've used it very successfully to generate sales for a specialist B2B product.

ATB

Arlo

[10 Yetis]

Has anyone seen the new Virgin campaign?

Started out as a PR campaign using Jason Donavan. Virgin mocked up that he was selling his car and that he had put a "for sale" note in the car complete with his mobile.

They then fake "papped" him and sold the pictures into heat and closer as a real story, meaning his number was everywhere...

Virgin then leaked a fake document saying that Donovan's had a Virgin phone and he was getting so many calls he was thinking about changing his number.

They even went to the extent of sending around an "official - warning" to all virgin staff warning them about disciplinary action if anyone was found to be ringing him... and the warning, you guessed it, got leaked to a paper so the story continued.

Two weeks ago it all came out that it was all a marketing campaign (executed by a PR company) to increase Virgin sales. Very clever...