Do It Yourself PR Isn't The Value It May Seem

Anyone who practices public relations has probably run into a business owner of some type who started chatting them up about a new, "do-it-yourself" book on public relations that makes PR out to be something almost anybody can do with only a little reading. If only it were that easy.

As with many professions that don't require licensure or advanced credentials, PR has come to be one of those things almost everybody thinks they can do as well or better than those currently doing it. It seems almost every month, there's a new book by a former TV or print journalist or some type of business expert that promises to tell you all you need to know about PR in about 200 pages. While these books may do a decent job of touching on the basics, they leave out a lot of details that are key in determining the success of a campaign.

The biggest problem with the "do-it-yourself PR" view is it completely overlooks the fact that a business owner will almost never be able to look at their business subjectively. By that I mean, if they were to talk to a journalist about their business, they'd hype to the extreme and often make it difficult for a journalist to tell what their compelling value proposition is. In a world where at best you have about two or three minutes to make your case, a bad approach to a journalist can blow a potential opportunity quickly.

Also, business owners have no formal experience in putting together a message that's part of a larger trend. Anyone whose been successful in PR will tell you that's the difference between success and failure; in other words, don't position your company in a self-serving way, but rather in a way that will have readers and viewers feeling it's "news you can use."

This will certainly be no surprise since I'm in the PR business, but I firmly believe that there are enough "mission-critical" things for business owners – especially small-business owners – to be doing that they should focus on the day-to-day tasks associated with administering the core function of their business.

While it may seem simple to fire off an e-mail or make a phone call to a reporter you've seen write stories on subjects that are similar to your business, a poor approach will not only cost you time, but will potentially leave the reporter with a negative feeling that might be very hard to recover from. As someone who spent a decade as a journalist, I can honestly tell you I remember people who made very bad PR pitches and once I was put through a bad pitch or two, it was very unlikely that I'd consider doing a future story on the company in question.

I also realize that entrepreneurs are often tempted to handle almost everything on their own. Their reasoning is nobody can do things as well as they can and/or no one can understand their business as well. While it's not always easy to think of someone else helping to market your own company, it can often be a smart move. Your options are two-fold: either bring someone in-house to handle the efforts or hire a consultant. The chief benefit of the latter is you'll get a higher level of experience for the fees you pay than if you were to use an equivalent amount of money and put that toward a full-time hire. Not to mention the fact that you'll be relieved of payroll taxes and other burdens associated with employees.

Ideally, you'll locate someone to help you who has substantial experience working with small companies and/or start-ups. They'll be able to sit down with you and help determine what your compelling advantage is and how best to communicate that. You should also be willing to accept honest feedback about your messaging and be willing to put into place the recommendations that your consultant makes. While it's never easy to hear anything that resembles a critical word, it's better it comes from someone working on your behalf than a journalist or other key stakeholder.

When meeting with a prospective PR counselor, make sure you're clear with him/her about what you want to achieve and give as much information as you can that will help the counselor. Even though a seasoned PR pro will be able to give you a lot of guidance on how to structure an effective message, their success will depend on large part on the quantity and quality of information you supply them.

If you retain an outside PR professional, make sure they're kept up to date on new hires, new product/service launches, new office openings and other events that can be translated into stories and briefs in business and trade publications. Most any successful PR pro will tell you the more information they have, the better. This will allow them to respond quickly to journalists they know are working on stories for which you're company will be a fit and/or to answer requests from reporters who might be considering a story on your company but need more information first to seal the deal.

Lastly, when embarking on a new PR campaign, remember to give it time. Just as Rome wasn't built in a day, it's not realistic to expect hits to start rolling in immediately. While I've scored major media hits for new clients right out of the gate, I would never tell a prospective client that it's likely, simply because if relatively few people know about a company and what it does, it takes time to educate them on who a company is and why they're worthy of media mention. However, with the right blend of cooperation and experience, the hits will come.