Getting your business noticed by the right people - and for the right reasons - has a direct impact on sales. The challenge facing all companies is how to raise your profile and influence purchasing decisions in a cost effective manner. In times of plenty the solution for big brands was to throw cash at the problem. TV adverts, sponsorships, magazine double page spreads, glossy brochures, incentivised sales promotions, magazine inserts, interactive point of sale and extravagant competitions were the order of the day.
Undoubtedly these medium still play an important role in an integrated marketing campaign, but nowadays companies are increasingly looking to alternative avenues to maintain or heighten their media profile with return on investment being of paramount concern. This is where PR can make the difference. According to the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR), Public Relations is all about reputation. Your public profile is the result of what you do, what you say and what others say about you.
That's all well and good, but the effectiveness and value of Public Relations - PR - is still regarded with a great deal of suspicion. Strangely I can understand this, because how do you ‘measure' the reasons why Joe Bloggs has been out to buy his new putter? In reality, as the survey showed, Joe probably couldn't even tell you himself! However, one fact does remain undisputable - if no one knows about you or your product then they won't buy it.
One man who endorses this opinion and has been grabbing the headlines in the past 18 months is Managing Director of Premium Golf Brands, Grahame Jenkins: "I swear by PR. It is the one essential part of any brand's marketing arsenal particularly when it comes to growing a brand. How can you create demand if your current and potential new customers don't know about you? The expertise that it takes to get the right exposure in the right places and to get people talking about your brand or company is genuinely underestimated."
There is a difference between good PR and bad PR. By that I don't mean the negative impact that a poor product or a terrible incident might cause, but the influence and effectiveness that a well-presented campaign can achieve. To create powerful PR you need to understand who you are targeting and have the right messaging and great imagery to grab their attention. Expectations also need to be managed. For example, some may argue that the strength of a brand influences the coverage that the company receives, but don't be fooled. A name alone is not sufficient to get tongues wagging.
This was definitely the case for PGB when it put in motion a PR campaign to announce its licensing agreement with Calvin Klein Inc as Grahame explains: "We faced a real challenge when it came to the announcement of our global licensee appointment. We had to get the news out to the global media as soon as the announcement was made, but our agreement was embargoed until the 11th hour so we couldn't even forewarn the media to expect the news. Through some clever PR tailored for each market and specific media we saw exposure on a level I have never experienced before. We reached news, business, golf and fashion media across four continents in a
24 hour period! There is simply no other way we could have reached the numerous millions of readers, TV viewers and web users that this campaign hit."
Interestingly as well as achieving their primary objective of raising awareness, this PR campaign also generated trade enquiries, which demonstrates that a well-executed, relevant PR campaign can deliver return on investment. At the other end of the scale, Rife Putters is another brand that has experienced growth as a direct result of appointing a PR company. As well as increasing consumer sales, the putter company has also trebled its grass roots outlets thanks to PR.
Ian Waddicar, UK distributor for Rife Putters explains: "The reason we appointed a PR agency was to make the buying public aware of the brand by getting it featured in magazines and online. What we didn't anticipate was the secondary benefit that PR gives our sales team. They are more confident because they know the brand is being supported with media exposure and it also gives them a fantastic tool to use when they visit buyers who might not know that much about Rife. They can now go along with a folder of 20 or 30 reviews and articles about Rife and show the buyers that these are putters that the public knows about and are going to want to buy."
The key to the success of the Rife campaign has been the clear, concise communication of complicated product technology. If the methodology and benefits of a technology are misinterpreted or misunderstood this can have an incredible knock on effect. This means that education of key influencers is vital to the success of brands such as Rife. When sales people and journalists are communicating the right information it has a genuine direct impact sales.
Reaching and influencing key industry members such as buying groups, magazine equipment editors and famous golfers is an extremely important part of PR. This can be a minefield for new businesses because however small and friendly the golf industry feels to us stalwarts, to an outsider the golf industry is incredibly confusing. Reaching the right people is next to impossible and was certainly the experience of newcomers to the golf industry, Easy Way Golf.
Easy Way launched its first training aid this year at the Orlando Golf Show - a week that has dramatically transformed the company's future, but an event that the company would never have considered attending without the advice of its PR agency. Managing Director Gary Williams explains: "As a new business, and new to the golf industry we didn't really understand the market. Hiring a marketing and PR agency has moved things along quickly as they have been able to explain the complexities of getting products to market. Attending Orlando was the first recommendation they made and we were blown away by the size and interest that Putt Easy received as a result."
PR is no longer simply about writing a press release or placing a product in a magazine. Good PR adds value, increases sales and most importantly it frees up your time to do what you're good at. So when it comes to communication why not give the experts the last word?
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