Shall I compare thee to a competitor?
Thou art more skilful and competitive:
Rough reviews may shake them, yes they may,
And their Google profiles hath all too short a date;
Sometime too hot the eye of Facebook shines,
And often are Twitter’s old reflections binned;
And every share and reshare sometime declines,
By sod’s law or the zeitgeist’s changing course untrimmed;
But thy eternal spotlight shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of your prospect’s mind;
Nor shall your pipeline slow or start to fade,
When in eternal lines in the press thou grow’st:
So long as buyers buy and they can see,
Your profile rise, and this gives leads to thee.
And they say a degree in Philosophy and English Literature sets you up for nothing! Seriously though, this Valentine’s Day, I want you to start to think about how you can stand out. There is just so much NOISE out there, how are you going to woo your ideal customer or even…their most trusted mate who can set you up? “Who is this mate?” I hear you cry. Well, picture the old-school dating scene, you have your eye on someone, you kind of know them, they kind of know you. You want to get on their radar. You want to show them what makes you tick. You want to show them what they’re missing. And, as luck would have it, you have a mutual friend…. “My mate Tess wants to go out with you” – you know the drill! Now, forget about my fumbled approach to dating back in the ‘90s and just think for a minute about how this works in business. You see, I’ve never suggested that PR is the be all and end all when it comes to marketing. In my own business, I have lots of different marketing ‘pillars’ and they include direct mail, e-newsletters, blogs, free guides, lead magnets, webinars, social media (3 different platforms), advertising, events and speaking. However, what PR does give me (and my clients) is an unfair advantage. Why? Because MOST people don’t use it or…if they DO use it, they play at it, they dip their toe, they flirt with it, then get frustrated when they don’t get to date the media right away! It’s like they spot the person they want to date but they never ask them out or they just whisper it and hope someone takes notice. The thing is, when you combine PR with all of the other good marketing stuff, you really will be noticed and crucially, you will be noticed for the right reasons! Imagine the wider marketing approach to getting that date with your ideal customer. Maybe you’ve bought flowers, some chocolates and a card. How about some heart balloons? Now…assuming you have actually sent them to someone that should be a good match for you (your IDEAL customer) you are at least in with a shot. So what if we could tip the scales in your favour? What if we could position you so that your date had ALREADY heard about you and thought you were AWESOME? What if they’d been hearing about you for a few months now and were actually waiting for you to call? What if they just needed you to simply ask for the business (a date to be clear!)? Enter, stage left, the unfair advantage – the media You see, this is the trusted friend. This is the person nudging, suggesting that you two would be great together! This is the person who is bigging you up without you blowing your own trumpet! They have the instruments, you just need to give them a tune to play! As luck would have it, I can help you here, keep an eye out for my “PRkive” launching in Spring, it is designed to help make you BETTER at media dating and even setting you up together. Big love, Greg x A former business journalist, Greg Simpson is the author of The Small Business Guide to PR and has been recognised as one of the UK’s top 5 PR consultants, having set up Press for Attention PR in 2008. He has worked for FTSE 100 firms, charities and start-ups and conducted press conferences with Sir Richard Branson and James Caan. His background ensures a deep understanding of every facet of a successful PR campaign – from a journalist’s, client’s, and consultant’s perspective.
