There’s only one thing that outsells a favorable news story about your product, and that’s more favorable news stories about your product. The selling power of publicity is amazing, yet most businesses don’t capitalize on this impressive promotional channel. Why? Because PR firms charge hourly without any guarantee of news coverage. That’s not how we do business… but indulge me for a minute more while I go on a little Charlie Sheen-style rant.
Call me crazy, but I believe that if you pay for something, then you should get it. It’s a pretty simple concept: If you buy a pizza, you get a pizza. If you buy a car, you get a car. If you buy news coverage for your product, you should get news coverage for your product. The way the PR industry charges for its service is akin to ordering a burger and fries at your favorite drive-thru, paying for it at the first window, then getting to the second window and being told “We acknowledge that you ordered a meal, and we tried really hard to make that happen for you, but you won’t be getting your burger and fries. Sorry, but thank you for paying! Please come again.”
No one comes again. You’d have to be an idiot to come back. That’s why the PR “industry” is not really an industry at all. It’s the puny red-headed stepchild of marketing. Almost no money flows its direction. The most powerful sales vehicle on the planet and PR firms price it in a way that ensures no one will buy it. How sad is that? Selling something with no guarantee of getting anything in return has to be one of the dumbest business pricing strategies ever.
Twenty years ago we started a company that sells PR by the story rather than the hour. When you buy PR from us, your product either gets news coverage or you don’t pay.
Media coverage is the most cost-effective way to teach customers how to buy your product and we sell a ton of it. Not every story a reporter does is going to be a roaring success, but as a whole publicity really delivers. Give us a call at 952-697-5269 and buy some stories from us on our Pay-Per-Placement basis and evaluate them as a whole. You’ll be coming back for more.
Sincerely,
Lonny Kocina
CEO, Kocina Branding & Marketing Companies, Inc.
P.S. This is real publicity we are arranging—no money changes hands between us and the media. They can put your contact information in the story if they feel like it, (and most do) but they can also leave it up to their audience to figure out where to purchase your product. It happens. It’s the media, but that’s what makes news stories so trustworthy. If you want to deliver an exact word-for-word message, then you need to buy ads. The problem with ads, though, is that people ignore them. If you want to tap into the selling power of publicity, then you need to embrace the dialog format of PR: it’s what makes your message so believable.
