2023 – The Missed PR Opportunity

It’s definitely not a news flash that we are entering a national recession and for many, this means watching our spending. As a CEO, a leader, or a business, we all know it is important that you do watch your spending.

But in saying that, you need to protect as much as you promote. So many businesses are
missing the low-cost marketing opportunity of PR. It is actually the free way to promote
yourself – meaning $0. So, what is your story? Pick up a phone, and tell a journalist.

Unfortunately, because we are in a difficult economic climate, everyone is just waiting for the right time to do something and as a result, people are doing nothing. For some personality and organisational types, as a result of this current climate, PR is seen as a nice to have, not a must-have. But there is another personality type that sees the opportunity in a tough economic climate for minimum to zero spend if you do it yourself to really increase your profile, and strengthen your brand – just by getting on the phone to journalists and telling your story.

It is understandable as to why everyone is cautious. But on another level, I would suggest that you’re being extremely cautious by spending $0 and getting on the phone and reaching your target audience, and telling stories.

So then take it to the next step. Spend a small amount of money and hire an agency that really knows that they’re doing, and build a quick national, or international profile by using PR, who will be nothing in comparison to the marketing and advertising budget you’re already spending. We are talking hundreds of thousands of dollars to millions, depending on the size of your organisation.

But, back to 2023 and the tough economic climate. I want to give an example of a client of ours ‘Get My Refund’. We got them on A Current Affair, and it led to 40,000 leads. But they didn’t make the phone calls themselves. We created the story and we pitched them for them, which in turn created all those leads. With this, they will never have to do any marketing again. Words from the CEO’s mouth!

Another client of ours in the palliative care space needed $2.5 million to build a new site. 12 months of drumbeat style PR and they ended up raising that figure.

To the people that relate when I say they are cautious and who won’t spend any money, what will happen is you will not start moving to grow your business or to expand yourself until everybody else does.

Then there’s the other people, the braver people, the more resourceful people. They are diving deeply into PR because it’s the zero to minimum dollar investment to really get yourself moving in a tough economic time.