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Lead Generating Pr
Posted By: Dyer on 8/3/2005 8:48 PM (CST) 500 Points
I just finished reading the "Sales & Marketing Alignment" report here on MarketingProfs -- great report!

One of the points it makes is that "aligned" companies are more likely to use PR as lead generation than other companies. My company (B2B financial services industry) uses PR more broadly in positioning but not for lead generation. My question is: how specifically are companies using PR as a demand generation tactic? And, how is it measured?

Posted by: GUCIS* Member Response
8/4/2005 3:42 AM (CST)
I work in B2B marketing analysis company. We are using PR as demand generation tactic. Most popular tool for demand generation in our company is cooperation with business newspapers.
We deal with ideas about articles, comments about market and positive specific information about our clients, results of surveys, information about our products and tools. Last is most important. Business newspapers love information about new approach in issues. And clients love to read that kind of information.
We are not measuring this because it is giving results after long term. But it gives results!
 
Posted by: Shelley, MProfs Moderator Response
8/4/2005 3:42 AM (CST)
Everyone, just FYI... the benchmark report that Donna mentions is downloadable from the Premium Library page. However, only our annual Premium and Premium Plus members have access to material like that.

If you're a Basic (free) member and you want to know more about our membership plans and benefits, look here.

Okay, end of commercial... thanks!
 
Posted by: AndrewS Member Response
8/4/2005 9:30 AM (CST)
Absolutely fascinating, I have never truly seen PR used to generate sales leads, in fact, I would argue right now that PR in its own right cannot generate sales leads at all!

What it does do well is raise awareness and generate interest, and doesn't take prospects down that final path of getting a sales lead. I will admit the PR channel should always promote channel delivery (whether it be website, contct telephone number, email etc), and its always possible that people will contact the business based based on good PR, but as a semi-professional PR person, I would be loathed to see the channel targetted on getting sales leads.

Hope that makes sense!
 
Posted by: Candureactor Accepted Answer
8/4/2005 10:41 AM (CST)
I too work for a financial services company and PR’s role here is best described as building and preserving corporate reputation. Large companies operating in highly regulated arenas may need to be cautious when engaging in awareness and demand building and “lead generation” campaigns due to myriad of constraints.

Many companies seek to measure media and public relations campaigns for their effectiveness in generating press coverage. “Good” coverage in the right publications (as defined by the how closely the readership is to your prospective clients) can help influence people who decide what products and services to purchase. The “share of voice” – much like shelf space in consumer goods – can be a good competitive indicator for how well your company is doing in its industry.

But the dirty little secret of PR professionals is that the tactics they use really are not always about generating press coverage (old school measure of PR success). If PR was still all about press coverage you wouldn’t see the plethora of marginal and uninteresting stories appearing on the news wires. Take a look at www.prweb.com and judge for yourself how many releases are trying to get the attention of news editors? If the intention was to get coverage, you may never see a news release. A good PR person can develop a story that is interesting, pitch it to key journalists, work a network of trusted writers and editors and get much better coverage than a news wire release.

But, in many firms, the news release is what counts because the objectives are: getting listed by the search engines on key word terms; providing sales reps with cheap collateral; and staying top of mind with customers and prospective clients who may want to upgrade or buy into your new offerings. In the minds of many marketing executives, appearing on the Yahoo newswire carries more weight as a mention (6 weeks after the news release) in Fast Company. And who knows, maybe it should if it generates sales results.

There is a lot written about how to use PR activity to generate sales. Much of the current writing revolves around how Internet tools make it easier to track and measure the sales results –with tactics such as unique URLs, click through rates and even tying the release into the standard Web measurement systems used by your Webmaster. For example: http://www.marketingprofs.com/4/ochman4.asp

My view is a PR professional should utilize all the techniques available to him or herself. However, never under estimate the power of a great story in an independent newspaper, magazine or journal. Today’s consumer is more jaded and skeptical of marketing tricks whereas the independent third party “story” carries tremendous weight in the eyes and minds of your customers and prospects.
 
Posted by: Ali JT* Member Response
8/4/2005 12:32 PM (CST)
Hi Dyer,

I believe small companies without marketing budgets are dependent on using PR to generate sales leads. For smaller organisations it not only provides a cost effective method of getting the message to an audience but the medium is more credible than an advert/promotion as it is deemed to have been written by a more independent source.

Many B2B organisations are using awards to generate the PR, and then writing up their own newsletters/email bulletins to let their audience know they have won and with a direct URL link to the press release on both their own website and the media website. When you have an innovative product, service or award to brag about PR alone can generate leads - that is incoming calls to your business.

PR content gives the business a reason to contact the customer/prospect. It is not a compelling event for the customer, but a compelling event for the business and a more compelling reason for the customer/prospect to give their attention once they have been contacted. For example if you are launching a new financial consultancy service to existing business customers – your message would be more credible if you can refer to a recent press release or award for customer service excellence.

PR can generate leads – I have had incoming calls/leads based on PR, specifically after an award has been bestowed by a trade association – however it was an innovative service.

More generally in a very competitive market such as financial services, I think the reality is that PR can bolster and improve the effectiveness of lead generation and must be included as part of an integrated 'lead generation' campaign.

Ali
 
Posted by: AndrewS Member Response
8/5/2005 3:19 AM (CST)
Candureactor, I applaud you, you seem to be a little cynical about others in the PR profession.

So many times they have tried to fob me off with "all you need to measure is column inches!", BULL I say.
I follow a similar approach to yourself and like to measure the favourability of the piece, and measure it in context of the whole page/publication.
Sure I'll do column inches too, but when you take it in context of the rest of the articles around you and the publication itself it makes sense.

I once saw a piece a consultancy I was working with maked as a brilliant story about the profits a company was making, it was a nice piece, well written and in an influential paper, problem was it was next to an article about "fat cat" businesses! They never saw the probem with it!

Sorry for that rant, I was a little off the track there :-)
 
Posted by: BrianL* Accepted Answer
8/5/2005 6:50 PM (CST)
I haven't seen very many practical suggestions for how to use PR to drive sales leads posted so far. We all agree it can be done, but how...?

A couple of ideas from my frontline experience:

1/ Re-package PR for use in direct mail, where you can add a call to action.
2/ Set up a *system* for sales reps to use PR in prospect emails (not technically lead generation, but it is sales-focused).
3/ Whenever possible, give a reporter a specific landing page address instead of just the home page for your website, e.g., www.mywebpage/story. Use the landing page as you would a landing page for direct response email -- to move the reader through to the next action step. Since story opportunities can come up quickly, you have to be ready to create these landing pages fast.
4/ Train your spokespeople to seed their remarks in interviews with invitations to go to a landing page for more detail on something they've mentioned. As long as you don't go over the top by mentioning this every other sentence, you'll probably get at least one mention in the article.

I hope these specific suggestions help --

Brian
 
Posted by: bdennis410* Member Response
8/6/2005 2:09 PM (CST)
Even though you may not be aware of it, or your company may not be measurimg it, yourPR IS GENERATING LEADS. The question is, is there a way or mechanism to measure the WHERE AND When, and WHY OF RESPONSES?
And it is also true that alignment way mean, note 'MAY' better ROI ON PR, but not necessarily. IN SOME CASES THE PR process and function is only indirectly capable of helping MARKETING, PRIMARILY THROUGH IMAGING AND POSITIONING.
But, in most cases PR HELPS Marketing and ADVERTISING, if only by "'GETTING THE NAME OUT."
HAVING SAID ALL THAT, AND WITH 30+ years of experience in financial services, yes, VIRGINIA, THERE IS A Santa CLAUS EFFECT OF USING PR for demand generation. BUT, IT MUST BE CAREFULLY DESIGNED AND IMPLEMENTED, AND MUST be integral to the MARKETING Plan.
The best approach to this concept is through "transparency' IN THE WAY THE CONCEPT IS DELIVERED. IT IS AS IF THE PR message transparently delivers the MARKETING MESSAGE, AND THE PROCESS IS DESIGNED TO GENERATE A LEAD. Maybe something like"'XYZ DEVELOPS PROPRIETARY EASY SOFTWARE PROGRAM FOR ESTATE ANALYSIS AND EVALUATION. Free to good home. Comes with FREE Instructor HUMAN FOR FIRST USE.'
DOES THAT CONCEPT WORK FOR YOU?
Hope this helps,

BARRY

NETWEB/Omni, LLC
 
Posted by: stevea Member Response
8/6/2005 6:09 PM (CST)
I have used PR in a B2B setting for over 21 years to generate leads and ostensibly only to generate leads. Yes, the articles give rise to brand awareness and they raise the profile of the company, but the primary aim has always been to make a reader think, “That’s interesting, let’s make an enquiry” The route from an enquiry through to a sale is then down to the sales team which has also been my area of responsibility.

I can see that in financial services, the generation of a lead can be difficult as it is harder to envisage a new product or service which will leave the reader saying “Must know more about that”, but that is probably my lack of knowledge of financial products.

All PR should seek to inform the reader, not educate them (That’s your job when they contact you). It should not overwhelm, but simply interest the reader. They should be interested enough to want to contact you directly in order to learn more. If the article tells them everything they want to know, it is likely that it will be the last you hear from them!

There are few forms of Bad PR. I tend to classify them as stories which contain lies and misinformation or stories which reflect badly on your company or your industry. Beyond that there is really only ineffective PR and effective PR.

Effective PR can itself be broken down into 4 main categories:

New Product Releases
These seek to let your targets know about the salient features of a new product, along with the odd benefit. It has the tendency to be over-wordy in an attempt to cover all the angles in the cause of accuracy. This is undesirable as few publications will publish the thousands of words needed to achieve this. If they do, having read the article, what are they going to enquire about? You’ve already explained everything. It also has the disadvantage in that you can only do such a press release every time you launch a new product.

Existing Product, New Features Release.
The product might have been around for a few months, but few in the target market know what the hell it is. Take the best 6 or so features of the product or service and write a press release for each one, emphasising the novelty and the benefit it confers. Do this month by month, giving you a press campaign covering a year.

Industry Specific Application Story
This is the most common type of PR in many industries. Some business found your financial product so useful that they agreed to have a story written. Vanity on the part of the customer plays a part and the industry specific journals the customer belongs to will take an interest and publish, as will your own industry journals. Well written, it will get published. It saver the editors the cost of commissioning a 2 page article and you will get your leads. The limitations are that it is very industry specific when it comes to generating leads.

Industry Specific New Product or New Features PR
This one is relatively new. It combines the aspects of the first two PR concepts, but you re-write the release as a story to a particular type of business and then circulate it only to the press which covers those industries. This has a terrific novelty value in that the readers of “What’s New in Glue Production” will probably have never come across anything from a financial services company in the pages of their trade magazine. The relevance must be true, the advantages obvious and the PR must provide enough information to make them want to ask for more information.

It can have only a tangential interest to the primary readers of the specific trade magazine, but remember, for every glue factory manager who reads his industry paper, it is read by the same number of executives from the companies which advertise or should advertise in it. They too need your products and will be quick to spot the synergy and make an enquiry.

I’ve seen this done with industry specific trade finance and some pretty complex derivative products to hedge against future raw material price volatility. The latter couldn’t be explained in an article if you gave them the whole damn magazine, but a few well chosen words, references to some basic feed-stocks and an explanation that the company claimed to be able to assist some, but not all manufacturers and suppliers in the sector produced a bucket full of leads.

And at the end of the day, a lead is a lead. It’s what the company does with it that counts!

Steve Alker
Unimax Solutions
 
Posted by: Dyer Author Response
8/8/2005 11:16 AM (CST)
Thank you for everyone who responded. Some fresh angles here as well as some important reminders. I can see that it will take a little reengineering to think through how how we can maximize the benefit we're getting from the work we're already doing. Thank you everyone for your time and creative thinking!
 


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