From the Chairman
Promoting your business after the GFC
There has always been a popular belief that the most prudent approach to an
economic downturn is to cut all expenditure, but most specifically, marketing
costs.
However, many people now strongly disagree with this approach and argue that if
your competitors have followed this approach, there is a great opportunity to
put your foot on your marketing pedal as you will acquire market share more
cheaply than in times of prosperity.
But where should you allocate your promotional dollars?
Many make the mistake of putting promotional activities into separate silos and
do not see the big picture. In fact, the discipline that I come from, 'public
relations', is the umbrella that looks over all the communication activities of
an organisation and how they can synergistically work with each other.
Many believe that public relations only aims at generating favourable media
coverage. Although this is an important component, public relations involves
much more. I define public relations as the 'management discipline of
communication', which means that the communication function of an organisation
must be carefully planned to ensure that it is working towards achieving defined
and agreed objectives.
In addition to media coverage, the online environment is one of the tools of
communication, which must also be integrated within public relations planning.
This includes looking at how the communication value of your website can be
improved, social networking (including Twitter, Linked-In, Facebook etc),
regular e-newsletters and other means of improving the effectiveness of online
communication.
A PR program is built around the credible key messages that describe the
organisation, its services, experience and expertise. They are the phrases that
are used in media releases, articles, websites, brochures, speeches and
presentations. The repetition of those credible key messages is aimed at
building recall by the target audiences.
So my advice about when and how you should start promoting your business is:
now! And more precisely, consider public relations as one of the most potent
tools in the tool box.
-Dennis Rutzou
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