Group Discussions

If you only afford one, which would you choose for your business - PR or advertising?

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  What would you choose for your business - PR or advertising - if you could only afford one of them?

  Flag as inappropriate Posted by SK on 25th January 2008
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  I would choose advertising - because you can STILL get the public relations - do it yourself, for free
  
  
  
  It doesn't take a lot of time or stellar writing talent to write a brief press release (and brief is always better) and send it to a reporter. Reporters and editors want to be contacted - so finding their e-mail addresses and phone numbers usually is not hard. There are some great books out there about do-it-yourself PR - the old "Guerrilla Marketing" books have great ideas although the early books are a bit dated now.
  
  
  
  Depending on what kind of business it is - advertising can make or break your business and isn't the place to skimp on money. If you're thinking about paying an agency to do something for you - pay them to do the advertising. In my experience working with agencies, paying them to develop creative or place ads is worth it because they have a brain trust that can generate unique ideas and they have standing relationships with media agencies that can really help you. PR firms can be helpful but ultimately - the press release is going to get picked up by the press based on its own merits and whether or not it interests the reporter - not based on the agency name on the letterhead.
  
  
  
  Good luck

  Flag as inappropriate Posted by amyella on 25th January 2008
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  I know this is an annoying non-answer, but it depends on the kind of advertising and pr. A rule of thumb I use as a small business owner is that whatever method we're going to try it has to have metrics that I can track to judge whether it was successful or not. So for example, I think google adwords is a great way to advertise -- you can track results very carefully and see whether it's useful. General "brand" advertising is a tougher sell for me -- unless again, say it's online, so you can track link backs and traffic.
  
  
  
  I've become a skeptic about traditional PR - print, TV, etc -- because it is expensive and results are so unpredictable. When I was promoting my book I paid $15k for a publicist. One of the big hits they got me was on a morning show -- not Today, but the other one. Sales of the book didn't budge. But then they got a great blog to write about it and boom, my amazon ranking went up -- so again, depends on kind of PR.

  Flag as inappropriate Posted by Nataly on 25th January 2008
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  Both excellent comments! Right now, I am doing both. Trying to decide if I should concentrate on one over the other...

  Flag as inappropriate Posted by SK on 26th January 2008