A. So the blood doesn’t show.
Many people think that once a company starts advertising, editors beat a path to your door. In some cases, that actually does happen, but it’s not the norm. Public relations is a very important part of the marketing mix, but it’s a tremendous amount of hard, detailed work.
Public relations is very different from advertising. One main difference is that you can’t buy media placement. The story is either newsworthy, or it’s not. Paid placement is called advertising. A successful PR campaign provides third-party endorsement of products or services which is something no other marketing element can deliver.
Both marketing elements are important, but public relations can sometimes be a slow build. Results don’t happen in a few weeks or in a month, especially with the three month lead time needed for magazines print deadlines. When dealing with television, newspapers or radio, the three month lead time is not an issue, but competition is an issue.
There have been situations where we’ve had an instant success story. We created a museum event in Philadelphia at a small...