Driving Value in B2B PR: It’s Not About Impressions—It’s About Impact

TalentZoo.com | Beyond Madison Avenue | Digital Pivot | Beneath the Brand

Archives | Categories

By: Bulldog Reporter

Over the last five years, a troubling conversation about the (perceived) insignificance of public relations has gotten louder and louder. Amid the ever-changing landscapes of media and business, some say public relations is old hat—a relic of an earlier time, when print media reigned, press releases were king, and “smile and dial” phone pitching was an effective media outreach tactic.

Certainly, many aspects of the field and practice of PR have shifted. While some changes have been for the better (I never particularly enjoyed delivering pre-rehearsed phone pitches myself), others have created immense challenges for both PR professionals and the clients they serve.

Especially when it comes to PR for business-to-business (B2B) companies, extolling the value of a comprehensive PR strategy is only getting harder. B2B executives are rarely eager to allocate big budgets to public relations—often perceiving PR as an expensive cost center, driven by vanity metrics and disconnected from the business development and sales functions of the organization.

In addition, many C-level stakeholders feel that allocating significant dollars to the marketing accounting bucket is enough of an investment to ‘cover’ public relations, too—even without a defined PR strategy or agency partner.After all, the thinking goes, good publicity is simply a byproduct of good business. Right?

Er, no.

KEEP READING HERE