A recent article in Inc. called “5 Most Common Startup Marketing Failures" has some incorrect information for business owners.
It talks about the mistakes one could make with marketing, particularly as you're starting out.
The first mistake is to hire a PR team early on.
It's fairly easy to do some DIY media relations in today’s digital age. You no longer need a communications professional and their rolodex to earn some media attention.
There are occasions when you would not want to hire a communications professional to help you with media relations, particularly if you have the wherewithal to do it yourself.
PR Is More than Media Relations
But the article goes on to describe the things you should be doing in place of "PR."
You don’t need to have a PR team when your business is just starting. What you need then is a solid customer base that has formed a brand loyalty, and this is done best organically by interacting with your customers through social media accounts and being open about your business. People love to read blogs and follow Twitter accounts, so give the people what they want! You can spend the money on the PR team on something that will be a bit more useful.
What bothers me about it is that PR is not just media relations. PR is social media and content marketing.
How, pray tell, will you start your business, find your customers, sell your product or service, innovate, develop new products or services, make tweaks, and be ready to go to market if you are also writing blog posts and tweeting without any help?
Even if they’re not treated as PR, you still have to do them … and if you don’t hire someone to help you, you have to do them yourself.
As much time as I spend on the road with business owners as I do, I know most do not have the time—and do not have the passion or skill—to do social media and blogging on their own.
Integration of PESO
No matter where they “belong,” I am building a communications firm around the PESO model: Paid, earned, shared, and owned media.
PESO Model \u00a9 Spin SucksPhoto credit: This is the image we use to show prospects and clients how we can help them and what types of work they can expect. Matt Camp created it for us.
PR is an integration of those four media types. You’ll see that media relations—earned media—is only a quarter of the larger strategy.
You’ll also note that shared media—or social media—is also only a quarter of the larger strategy. And so is blogging, or owned media.
The four have to work together for an organization to not only create its message, but to distribute it and get third-party endorsement of it.
It takes an experienced professional to do that.
But, by all means, startups, don’t make a mistake and hire a PR professional or team when you begin to market your company.
You can definitely grow if no one knows anything about you (where is that sarcasm font??).
