{"id":404,"date":"2013-03-12T11:03:58","date_gmt":"2013-03-12T18:03:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gordonbenzie.com\/blog\/?p=404"},"modified":"2023-05-22T21:58:49","modified_gmt":"2023-05-23T04:58:49","slug":"public-relations-on-a-shoe-string-budget","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gordonbenzie.com\/blog\/public-relations-on-a-shoe-string-budget\/","title":{"rendered":"Public Relations on a Shoestring Budget"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"public_relations_on_shoe_string_budget\"<\/a>By Gordon Benzie<\/p>\n

Having just discussed the importance of measuring the incremental marginal value and marginal cost of public relations as a way to determine an optimal level of investment, sometimes that option simply doesn\u2019t exist. If you only have a limited budget, then you must simply learn to make do with what you\u2019ve got.<\/p>\n

For the purpose of this post, let\u2019s assume you have at least some funds that can be allocated to PR. For your initial public relations campaign, you need to start small. Regardless of your budget, spending a high proportion of available cash flow on an untested, unknown marketing activity is needlessly risky, so don\u2019t do it! Instead, set a few targeted objectives and allocate a modest budget to accomplish.<\/p>\n

Most importantly, you must be able to measure these actions with metrics that matter. Then give yourself a minimum of 3-4 months to lay the foundation for your Public Relations campaign to allow for a bit of a \u201crunway\u201d to experiment with a couple of activities. Often a campaign will \u201cgrow legs\u201d and set in motion other, related actions that bring rewards and opportunities you never even considered.<\/p>\n

First Steps<\/b><\/h3>\n

Once you have mentally committed to this \u201cexperiment,\u201d the first step is to identify an objective or goal that can be measured and is a reasonable expectation. You don’t need to talk to a marketing consultant<\/a> to know that if you are currently ranked #50 amongst your competitors, issuing a press release won\u2019t get you to #1 over night!<\/p>\n

To help illustrate, let\u2019s say you own a shoe store, located in a mall. Your customers primarily consist of those who are either already at the mall and see something interesting in your window display, or are repeat buyers. Given your knowledge of the business, you know what a \u201cnormal\u201d traffic baseline is, so for this example, our goal is to increase foot traffic by 20 percent. Note I am not directly targeting an increase of revenue, but instead that increased traffic will lead to more sales. My hypothesis is simply that a rising tide will raise all boats, leading to more sales. If increased traffic does not improve sales, then a different problem might exist.<\/p>\n

The Campaign<\/b><\/h3>\n

Now we have a goal, the next step is to think about is what event or activity can be established and communicated to achieve more traffic at the store. Perhaps you are friends with a local celebrity in the area, in which case you could advertise they will be in your store next Saturday to sign autographs. With this \u201ccall to action,\u201d you can now invest the time (and resources) to draft a press release announcing this activity, which then would need to be published in time for your prospects to read about it and make time in their schedule to visit. You could then reach out to your local paper to make a short announcement, even inviting someone from the paper to attend (if they are available). A few phone calls and some time spent writing the announcement sums up your investment for this trial activity.<\/p>\n

Another example might be to sponsor a local school event by providing running shoes for some (or all) participants. This could be a way to raise awareness to the other athletes in the area your commitment to being part of the local activities, helping to make your store be known as one that is investing in the community. In \u201cmarketing speak\u201d this is referred to as brand awareness. With this scenario, the investment cost all depends on what you want to give away.<\/p>\n

In the end, the activity or campaign will then need to be measured against your objective to see how it fared. Missing your objective can teach you just as much as over-attaining it. Dissecting this activity can reveal enormous intelligence on how your customers perceive you, as well as insights into their buying behavior. From this knowledge, you can then adjust your approach, message or outreach to hopefully continuously improve your results and return on investment.<\/p>\n

And that, after all, is the key to unlocking the future upside in any business.<\/p>\n

Gordon Benzie<\/strong> is a marketing adviser and business plan writer that specializes in preparing and executing upon business plans and marketing strategies.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Gordon Benzie Having just discussed the importance of measuring the incremental marginal value and marginal cost of public relations as a way to determine an optimal level of investment, sometimes that option simply doesn\u2019t exist. If you only have a limited budget, then you must simply learn to make do with what you\u2019ve got. … Continue reading Public Relations on a Shoestring Budget<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4,35],"tags":[38,27,24,74,11],"class_list":["post-404","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-brand-integrity","category-marketing-communications","category-public-relations","tag-marketing-consultant","tag-messaging","tag-press-release-writing","tag-public-relations","tag-right-audience"],"yoast_head":"\nPublic Relations on a Shoestring Budget - Making Every Word Count<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.gordonbenzie.com\/blog\/public-relations-on-a-shoe-string-budget\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Public Relations on a Shoestring Budget - Making Every Word Count\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By Gordon Benzie Having just discussed the importance of measuring the incremental marginal value and marginal cost of public relations as a way to determine an optimal level of investment, sometimes that option simply doesn\u2019t exist. 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