The Key PR Question: 'Why Does It Matter?'

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By: Doug Bedell

In the context of small businesses and large, Rebecca Hasulak, of DIY PR, does a good job of explaining that the key question PR reps should be asking about a proposed press release is “Why Does It Matter?" – not to the firm involved, but to its potential customers.

“Talk to any PR agency,” Rebecca writes on CustomerThink.com “and you’ll probably hear about how you need to refine your messaging and better communicate your value to buyers. But somehow this advice often gets lost in translation and interpreted to mean that a business must learn how to tout its own feature more eloquently. Not the case.

“Within any company, but especially if you lead a start-up,” Rebecca continues, “you’d be best served to forget your brand while working on PR.” That’s because customers aren’t buying someone’s name first and foremost, they’re buying a perceived benefit, and that benefit had better be there.

Targeting an offering to people who will benefit from it is what PR is largely about – not broadcasting to the multitude (unless a crisis is occurring, but that’s another subject). Thinking in such terms will help bring the customers in. The same reality holds for business blog writing – Who’s likely to be interested?, not “We’re great!”.

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About the Author

Doug Bedell has a background in journalism and PR and is the owner of Resource Relations LLC in Central PA, focusing on organizational and crisis communication. He’s the community manager of SimplyFair.net, a social network on fairness. On the Web, Doug’s at www.ResourceRelations.com. On Twitter, he’s @DougBeetle.

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