Integrating Public Relations and Advertising
• No guarantees and it can be time-consuming
With Advertising you get:
• Paid Placement
• Complete creative control
• Your ads will run as often as you’re willing to pay
• Savvy consumers know it’s an ad, and tend to be skeptical
• A guaranteed date the ad will run and it’s easy if you have money to spend
PR builds credibility, Advertising builds visibility. What’s cool about getting PR is because it’s written by a journalist, there’s instant credibility and other people become more interested. If you’re a small business, it can turn you from a nobody into a somebody who can compete against a bigger business.
For a small business owners, entrepreneurs or moms just starting out, just know that a thousand dollars is not a very big ad budget – it might afford you a small ad in your local newspapers or magazines for example. But the same money spent on PR if you get hits in several newspapers or magazines, can mean the equivalent of 5 to 10 times the advertising cost in those publications.
PR can be time-consuming and with no guarantees, but well worth the effort. If you’ve been successful with your PR, please share with us what you did and what it’s brought to your business.
For more tips on how to do PR or if would like to explore doing PR yourself, you can check out my ebook for entrepreneurs, moms and small businesses.