The Blog on Branding

PR Strategy: Tight vs. Loose Budget

PR strategies vary greatly depending on the resources available. Though the amount of money available for a PR campaign often corresponds to the size of the business in that small start-ups rarely have the funds that large, established corporations do, this is not always the case. This article will discuss PR tips and strategies for those on a tight budget and those on a loose budget, as well as addressing unusual cases that don’t quite fit the mold.

“The little dogs need their own strategies to compete.”

Tight Budget

If a start-up doesn’t have the cash to hire a PR specialist, there are some tactics that can obtain the valuable local media attention that every start-up needs. After identifying your target audience, conduct research into the media that provide a link to this audience. A cheap and sociable way to obtain this information is to ask your existing customers outright how they like to get information. Compile any resulting data and attempt to discern a pattern that could lay the media base for a personalized PR campaign.

The next step is to find reporters that cover your particular industry, review past articles, and obtain contact information. After finding a number of possible media outlets, develop a story that you want to convey to these outlets. Create simple yet informative story angles that incorporate what your business is accomplishing in the overall market environment.

Once you are ready to contact a reporter or some other outlet, take a step back, rehearse what you want to say, and be enthusiastic without being robotic. An article written about your business has far more credibility at far less cost than an advertisement in the same periodical, so present your business as well as possible. After preparation, make contact with your target outlets, such as through a press-release. Keep in mind that you are not the only person attempting to get favorable press for their ideas, so keep your “pitch” as informative yet succinct as possible.

“Reporters are a less expensive form of publicity than advertisements.”

Aside from approaching media outlets, clout for your business can be created by getting involved in the community. Local business leaders almost completely fill the ranks of community organizations like Rotary Clubs, Chambers of Commerce, Lion’s Clubs, etc. By attending meetings and gaining membership you also gain attention from these local leaders. Avoid constantly regurgitating information about your business, because you don’t want people to feel they are being pitched. Ask questions about their businesses, and eventually they will ask the questions that you want to answer. Reporters also cover some events hosted by community organizations, so if you are in attendance, your chances of being interviewed are significantly higher.

Finally, don’t get discouraged if results don’t happen immediately. Be persistent, but not invasive. Make sure any media contacts have up-to-date contact information and always inform them about any new products or services. It might not happen overnight, but if you conduct yourself properly, you can maintain a successful personalized PR campaign on an almost non-existent budget.

Loose Budget

On a larger budget, PR techniques have the opportunity to become incredibly inventive and seemingly unrelated to the product itself. These tactics often involve fomenting name brand repetition or just doing something original that provides good press. Just a few examples serve to highlight this outside-the-box thinking in action.

Pepsi recently created a social medium called Pepsi Zeitgeist, something of a Twitter Mash-Up, that tracked many aspects of this year’s annual Austin-based South-by-Southwest music festival. This engine allowed tweets about the festival to be categorized into six “buckets” (arriving, drinking, registering, eating, connecting or partying). These are then aggregated into easy-to-use visuals that avoid wading through the information that you don’t want to see. It provided a smart and inventive way to manage the thousands of tweets that streamed from laptops and cell phones all over the city. This provided non-attendees an entertaining way to become somewhat involved with the festival (and with Pepsi). Pepsi also set up their own blogs and podcasts pertaining to the festival. Overall, this tactic allowed for great brand exposure by giving their target audience what they wanted without requiring anything in return.

Tide conducted a social media experiment for one night last March that provided valuable insight into the publicity that can stem from exposure involving the new social media outlets. Like Pepsi, they invoked the power of Twitter along with other media like Digg, Facebook, Youtube, MySpace, etc., to sell “vintage” Tide t-shirts. All proceeds went to disaster relief through Tide’s Loads of Hope Project. Specific employees were split into groups which then competed against one another, using their own strategies, to generate the most proceeds. In 4 hours, Tide raised $50,000, $20 at a time, which the corporation matched to donate a total of $100,000 to charity. This is another example of innovative PR designed around the new social networking mediums. When viewed from a monetary standpoint, the sheer volume of positive attention that resulted from the experiment seems to be well worth the $50,000 that Tide matched.

“Getting a nice shirt and helping a charity? Win, win.”



It is important to note here that although a business might be an industrial giant, it may not have mounds of cash to spend on projects like the two mentioned above. GM has lost approximately 82 billion dollars over the last 4 years, and with the recent filing for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy, holds the record for the largest industrial filing in US history. However, they are taking steps to create a link to the public through the new social media. They’ve recently put together a new website, GM Reinvention, in an attempt to reassure the public, gain relatively cheap publicity, and to make their “reinvention” as transparent as possible. Although these tactics will not save the giant single-handedly, they have created a valuable communication channel open to the public as they attempt to rebuild.

These examples illustrate just a few of the different ways you can adjust your PR strategy to your budget and to the demands of your individual company. The most important thing is to seize every opportunity for positive PR, whether through a large-scale campaign or an interview with a local newspaper.

Mark Sheffield Want content written for your Brand that shows up #1 on Search Engines and brings you new customers? Contact us.