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PR is more than just getting “ink.”

So you’ve launched your new product or service.  In the last four months, you’ve had three positive feature articles in the biggest trade publications read by your biggest target market.  Your PR plan is succeeding, no?

Not necessarily.

It’s easy to think of public relations as little more than “good coverage.”  We all want to have our “stories told.”  But when we think that way, we’re thinking of our message from our angle and our perspective.  Just like good marketing, good PR takes into account how the message is perceived by the target audience, and whether or not it induces the desired behavior (a warm fuzzy feeling for the product, the desire to dial us up and buy a widget, etc.)

Let’s take the above example, but from the reader’s perspective.  Reader A reads in his favorite trade publication a story, a marvelous 1000 word feature about a new product (yours), how it leads the market, how it makes things easier and cheaper for the user.  Yada yada.  A month later, Reader A, having since taken in dozens of other advertisements, mailings, e-mails, articles and books about myriad other topics, products and so on, happens across a second article in the same publication.  This article features a hard-working junior executive who has returned from distinguished service overseas with several disabling injuries, but has overcome these obstacles to take a prominent place in some company (yours).  Noble and heart-warming to be sure.  Yet another month after this, Reader A has seen dozens to hundreds of other ads, mailings, e-mails, articles and books about everything left under the sun.  Reader A returns to the prominent trade publication in question to see a nice piece about a green operational facility (yours) which makes use of all the latest technologies in an effort to save energy and, in so doing, delay the latest crack in another Antarctic ice shelf.  Wonderful.

Now.  Go back and read the last paragraph without any words in parentheses.  Get the point?  Three great features.  Three great stories about your company.  No key message.  Little to no positive impact for your brand.

PR is not a basic supplement to marketing or sales.  It is every bit as important as marketing, sales or advertising.  Make sure you give it the same planning you would give to those functions.  Otherwise, the only group you’re helping out is the short-staffed publication.