There's A Strategy For Every Budget
There are three ways that I categorize a PR budget. I like to use the $100,000, $50,000 and Shoe String terms just to identify the approaches. These numbers vary depending on the size and scope of the business but the concept remains the same. In all three examples, we are assuming that the entrepreneur is in a somewhat familiar city, starting a new business and has a small base or no base of customers.
General Advice For All Budgets
Your main job as the entrepreneur is to take the PR person's advice unless you have a special, really good reason not to. If you are unsure about your PR person's ability, work ethic, reliability or if you just get an odd feeling then no hard feelings, just get someone else. Sometimes people just trust a certain kind of person. You may feel better with a more experienced person, maybe you want a young aggressive-type, someone in a business suit, a casual approach......whatever it is, you don't need to explain it, it's your business, just make sure you are 'all in' with your person. They are a PR professional. Their advice will be correct more often than yours will. If there are 100 decisions to be made (just an example number) they will make say 80 right decisions, you would probably make 65 right decisions. So going with the professional opinion as often as possible will make you money overall. Ask questions of your PR person. Always tell your PR person "If I (the entrepreneur)suggest something that is ill-advised tell me". This way, you as the entrepreneur will feel more comfortable making suggestions. Your PR person is hired by you. They will go and do your ill-advised suggestions but you should at least know it isn't 'best practice' as seen by a professional. Ask questions about why your PR person did the things he/she did. This will help you make better suggestions as you learn more about PR. Lastly (At least for this brief summary, I could go on forever) There is little time to 'do nothing' in PR. As an entrepreneur, you should always have something going on PR wise. You may be very busy, but your PR person can work on PR while you tend to your business. You need to give that person a wide scope to 'go get'. The times I have been the most successful is when a business/client has a somewhat crazy look in their eye, a bit desperate and says something along the lines of 'go get me business'. If you don't have that thirst as an entrepreneur, it's best to close up shop and work for someone else. It's not a bad thing, most people work for others and it has its advantages.
The $100,000 Budget
This section will be short because most small businesses and entrepreneurs that approach me don't have this kind of budget. This is a terrific position to be in. You can saturate the market and target your precise audience. Using newspaper ads isn't cost effective, but it does work. This sounds contradictory but it isn't. Newspaper ads will help you get customers but it isn't the most efficient way. It is, however, a low effort thing to do. Newspaper ads immediately establish you and your business as credible (as credible as the paper you are in actually). It takes five to six "looks' for a consumer to see your business as credible. A series of newspaper ads can establish this credibility right away. I will leave television out of this because it is so expensive even for a $100,000 budget. Radio is a niche thing. I would only recommend it for this budget if you are a sports-centered business...you can advertise on a sports radio station and get a targeted audience. Otherwise it's tough to justify which is why you rarely hear anything except huge companies and large stores using radio.
Besides newspaper ads, you can send mailings to all people in your target audience. With the increased budget, you can make your sphere pretty large. The reply rate is 'low' but even 3% gets you a nice amount of business/inquiries and is more cost effective then any other method. Find a PR person/firm that does this. It takes a ton of time, effort and expertise to do it correctly. Your first mailing is your very first exposure to the customer/client. Don't expect any replies (remember 3% is high)! You may get some, but don't expect them. You are a total unknown. They are receiving your information, not a recommendation about you. It is biased and they know it. If you send out 100 letters, you have spent $125 (materials) and get no immediate satisfaction (plus the money you pay a PR person, a couple hundred dollars in labor/time). But....They have their very first exposure to you. If you have this large $100,000 budget and target 1,000 places for mailings, it will yield some immediate business and get that first exposure out to a lot of people. The 3% will probably go down to 1-2% because as you expand the numbers, the people you reach get a little farther and farther from your target.
There are a variety of other ways you can promote your business if you have a $100,000 type budget. There may be a trade show where you can rent a both, print and mail postcard coupons to residential address and spend anywhere from tens to hundreds of dollars a day on Facebook promotions/traffic. Hiring a separate publicist is also an option as is creating a state of the art webpage with the best, most targeted traffic routed to your site. One thing to remember is that a large PR budget does not guarantee success. You have to have a great product and use the PR budget effectively.
The $50,000 Budget
This is the entrepreneur or small business that has some, but limited money, to put into marketing. If spent well, this can help plant the seeds to an effective start-up. One main difference is that you can not saturate the market with this budget. Newspaper articles, hiring a publicist (An additional person beyond the PR person. A publicist doesn't do any grunt work. They have extensive connections and hook clients up with free media opportunities) and extensive Facebook or online advertising campaigns are not workable strategies for this budget. What you can do is establish a large, targeted mailing list, start a Facebook business page with limited ads, make and maintain a nice "Landing Page" website (people won't find it in a search most likely but it's a nice page that you can direct people toward) and offer free promotional services. One danger with this budget is to monitor the ins and out of the money. Most people look at this number and feel a false sense of confidence. Plan out your budget. Have an honest discussion with your PR person about the financial realities. They can help you prepare the budget and get the most bang for your buck. The clients that have made the most money working with me ask me to do all kinds of tasks for their business. They have that crazy-eyed hunger and have no shame in asking. PR people can never refuse that! It's the sign that success is very likely. Basically the $50,000 is meant to be carefully planned by cherry picking concepts from the $100,000 budget and the shoestring budget.
The Shoestring Budget
By all logical reasoning, a business should never start if it has a shoestring PR budget. That being said, many entrepreneurs and small businesses do start this way. My specialty is helping these types of enterprises. When I began my own birthday party business I started this way. I was 21, had little money and just put one print ad in a targeted newspaper (this was 1996) and had some business cards printed. From there, one event lead to another. At the end of every party, I handed out a pencil with a pom pom and googly eyes with a business card attached. I also did several free carnival and festival performances. So this is my PR "home".
First off, remember, no business should start this way. If you want to make it with a limited budget (Even $10,000 for PR is limited) you are going to have work hard at PR and you are going to have to find the right PR person and make sure he/she works hard. You will also need to have that crazy look in your eye and tell them "go get me business". That's 3 mentions of the "Crazy Eye", it's important!! You need to understand that it won't be immediate (As previously explained) but give them the freedom to get out there and try whatever they feel is best. If you are unsure about your PR person, find someone else (Another mention of this, it's crucial). It may just be a feeling you get, a difference in style, a difference in approach. Find someone that you are good with 'letting it fly'. If they want to try something, great! A small tip is that when you give a PR person freedom, this is when they do extra. They feel an extra 'pressure' to make this work. So #1 is your mindset: Be ready to work at PR (yourself) and be ready to utilize that PR person properly and fully. You don't have the time and you don't have the margin for error with this budget.
Targeted letters are the centerpiece of a Shoe Strong budget PR campaign. Decide "Who will want my services" and have your PR person prepare the materials and send off at least 100. This first mailing should be quick, nice, briefly informative. It may offer a service, but basically it is your first time getting in front of this prospective client. The research tells us it will take 5 more times. Chances are you will receive 3 replies from the 1st mailing. Don't be discouraged. The mailings will cost about $1.25 not counting labor. The stamp, a color copy and nice stationary are unavoidable. If this isn't the approach your PR person uses (Targeted mailings) listen to their ideas and make a decision. I haven't heard another, better method, but if you like and trust the PR person, at least listen. It's hard to imagine anything being better than contacting the people you want as customers in a personal way. The letters should have some personal flair. Ask your PR person if they individualize the content at all or hand write the envelopes. I recommend both. Mass mailing are not perceived nearly as well as a personal appeal. There should also be a follow up email for every snail mail sent. Often times people will be intrigued by the mailing, but not get around to contacting you. Having to press "reply" may be all they need to get the relationship going. Writing you a letter from scratch is something they may never get around to doing. I like having a joint email between me and the entrepreneur. Ideally, the PR person does all of the emailing.....There is plenty of other work for the entrepreneur to do PR-wise (two paragraphs down).
You need a Facebook presence. You need a Facebook Business "Landing Page". This is extremely easy to create and extremely easy for your PR person to maintain. Just give them the go-ahead. This is a free no-brainer. You connect your webpage to your Facebook page and you have a nice set-up to direct people to. As far as the webpage, tell your PR person to set it up. I actually would start with a weebly.com $40 a year page and then upgrade later. Absolutely simple as can be to set-up and maintain for your PR person. If you don't have a Facebook Business page or a website, frankly, you aren't in business. It's just the reality of the times. I know I wouldn't see any business as legitimate of it didn't have a webpage and Facebook Business page. It's how I now shop and most others are into year five and six of operating this way.
You need to do "Professional Socialization". Only YOU as the entrepreneur can do this. Get onto Forums, Message Boards, Facebook pages and give free advice, ask questions, respond to questions, etc.. Get involved in the community of people you want to serve. If you are a motorcycle mechanic, go to all of the Facebook (local) motorcycle pages and see what you can chime in with. "Like" the pages and post in them. Don't openly be a pain in the butt and constantly promote your business, but be helpful first, then tell them you can offer them more help in the future with your business. When you do this from your Facebook Business Page, they know you are a business.....a business willing to give free (and often extensive) advice. Don't worry about giving away the farm....they may remember you and help you in the future. Keep in mind, you are starting a business with a very small PR budget....you need to offer this free, extensive help...... Go to your neighbors. Offer to put them on your webpage and Facebook Business page for free. Very simple, they gain a positive impression of you and they owe you a little favor. Make sure you meet every neighbor you have. Pick out the vicinity, it can be a block, the strip mall, whatever. Meet them all. They are all potentially helpful. You absolutely must make a database of everybody you know that lives in the area. They are all potentially helpful. They are an untapped resource. Don't think "They know me, they will call if they need it" or "I don't want to bother them". You have to ask them, they will not just call! It reminds me of the story of the man who ran for Mayor of a very tiny Village (A story from the Jewish Talmud). There was a huge storm and almost nobody could make it to vote. The results were announced at it was 1 to 1. The candidate asked his campaign manager "Why didn't you vote for me, I voted for myself and my opponent voted for himself and that's it"? The campaign manager said "You never asked me to". You need to ask! Remember, people like to help. Actually people love to help! Approach everyone you know and ask for 'help'. Mostly, ask them to think about who they know that may need your services. Ask them what they would do to grow the business if they were you. Nothing makes a person feel better then being asked for their expertise. This paragraph is about your part as the entrepreneur. It really gets to be fun to do these things. Space it out, plan it out and do it! If your PR person can help you organize the tasks, great, ask him/her. As far as a time estimate, I would say a minimum of 3 times a week for a half hour and 1 other full hour chunk. So as an entrepreneur, you are looking at about 2.5 hours of "Professional Socializing" and another half hour of back-and-forth emails, calls, etc with your PR person. So on average, about 3 hours a week. The nice thing is that you can fit this in anytime (At least the online part). If you don't get around to it and are consistently neglectful in this area (with your Shoe String budget) you don't need to feel bad or apologize to anyone (You own the business) but you should ask yourself if you are committed enough to helping yourself. You should also remember that this is guaranteed money-maker short and long-term, so if business is down, this is your first and a free option for you!
More to come! There's always more!
There are three ways that I categorize a PR budget. I like to use the $100,000, $50,000 and Shoe String terms just to identify the approaches. These numbers vary depending on the size and scope of the business but the concept remains the same. In all three examples, we are assuming that the entrepreneur is in a somewhat familiar city, starting a new business and has a small base or no base of customers.
General Advice For All Budgets
Your main job as the entrepreneur is to take the PR person's advice unless you have a special, really good reason not to. If you are unsure about your PR person's ability, work ethic, reliability or if you just get an odd feeling then no hard feelings, just get someone else. Sometimes people just trust a certain kind of person. You may feel better with a more experienced person, maybe you want a young aggressive-type, someone in a business suit, a casual approach......whatever it is, you don't need to explain it, it's your business, just make sure you are 'all in' with your person. They are a PR professional. Their advice will be correct more often than yours will. If there are 100 decisions to be made (just an example number) they will make say 80 right decisions, you would probably make 65 right decisions. So going with the professional opinion as often as possible will make you money overall. Ask questions of your PR person. Always tell your PR person "If I (the entrepreneur)suggest something that is ill-advised tell me". This way, you as the entrepreneur will feel more comfortable making suggestions. Your PR person is hired by you. They will go and do your ill-advised suggestions but you should at least know it isn't 'best practice' as seen by a professional. Ask questions about why your PR person did the things he/she did. This will help you make better suggestions as you learn more about PR. Lastly (At least for this brief summary, I could go on forever) There is little time to 'do nothing' in PR. As an entrepreneur, you should always have something going on PR wise. You may be very busy, but your PR person can work on PR while you tend to your business. You need to give that person a wide scope to 'go get'. The times I have been the most successful is when a business/client has a somewhat crazy look in their eye, a bit desperate and says something along the lines of 'go get me business'. If you don't have that thirst as an entrepreneur, it's best to close up shop and work for someone else. It's not a bad thing, most people work for others and it has its advantages.
The $100,000 Budget
This section will be short because most small businesses and entrepreneurs that approach me don't have this kind of budget. This is a terrific position to be in. You can saturate the market and target your precise audience. Using newspaper ads isn't cost effective, but it does work. This sounds contradictory but it isn't. Newspaper ads will help you get customers but it isn't the most efficient way. It is, however, a low effort thing to do. Newspaper ads immediately establish you and your business as credible (as credible as the paper you are in actually). It takes five to six "looks' for a consumer to see your business as credible. A series of newspaper ads can establish this credibility right away. I will leave television out of this because it is so expensive even for a $100,000 budget. Radio is a niche thing. I would only recommend it for this budget if you are a sports-centered business...you can advertise on a sports radio station and get a targeted audience. Otherwise it's tough to justify which is why you rarely hear anything except huge companies and large stores using radio.
Besides newspaper ads, you can send mailings to all people in your target audience. With the increased budget, you can make your sphere pretty large. The reply rate is 'low' but even 3% gets you a nice amount of business/inquiries and is more cost effective then any other method. Find a PR person/firm that does this. It takes a ton of time, effort and expertise to do it correctly. Your first mailing is your very first exposure to the customer/client. Don't expect any replies (remember 3% is high)! You may get some, but don't expect them. You are a total unknown. They are receiving your information, not a recommendation about you. It is biased and they know it. If you send out 100 letters, you have spent $125 (materials) and get no immediate satisfaction (plus the money you pay a PR person, a couple hundred dollars in labor/time). But....They have their very first exposure to you. If you have this large $100,000 budget and target 1,000 places for mailings, it will yield some immediate business and get that first exposure out to a lot of people. The 3% will probably go down to 1-2% because as you expand the numbers, the people you reach get a little farther and farther from your target.
There are a variety of other ways you can promote your business if you have a $100,000 type budget. There may be a trade show where you can rent a both, print and mail postcard coupons to residential address and spend anywhere from tens to hundreds of dollars a day on Facebook promotions/traffic. Hiring a separate publicist is also an option as is creating a state of the art webpage with the best, most targeted traffic routed to your site. One thing to remember is that a large PR budget does not guarantee success. You have to have a great product and use the PR budget effectively.
The $50,000 Budget
This is the entrepreneur or small business that has some, but limited money, to put into marketing. If spent well, this can help plant the seeds to an effective start-up. One main difference is that you can not saturate the market with this budget. Newspaper articles, hiring a publicist (An additional person beyond the PR person. A publicist doesn't do any grunt work. They have extensive connections and hook clients up with free media opportunities) and extensive Facebook or online advertising campaigns are not workable strategies for this budget. What you can do is establish a large, targeted mailing list, start a Facebook business page with limited ads, make and maintain a nice "Landing Page" website (people won't find it in a search most likely but it's a nice page that you can direct people toward) and offer free promotional services. One danger with this budget is to monitor the ins and out of the money. Most people look at this number and feel a false sense of confidence. Plan out your budget. Have an honest discussion with your PR person about the financial realities. They can help you prepare the budget and get the most bang for your buck. The clients that have made the most money working with me ask me to do all kinds of tasks for their business. They have that crazy-eyed hunger and have no shame in asking. PR people can never refuse that! It's the sign that success is very likely. Basically the $50,000 is meant to be carefully planned by cherry picking concepts from the $100,000 budget and the shoestring budget.
The Shoestring Budget
By all logical reasoning, a business should never start if it has a shoestring PR budget. That being said, many entrepreneurs and small businesses do start this way. My specialty is helping these types of enterprises. When I began my own birthday party business I started this way. I was 21, had little money and just put one print ad in a targeted newspaper (this was 1996) and had some business cards printed. From there, one event lead to another. At the end of every party, I handed out a pencil with a pom pom and googly eyes with a business card attached. I also did several free carnival and festival performances. So this is my PR "home".
First off, remember, no business should start this way. If you want to make it with a limited budget (Even $10,000 for PR is limited) you are going to have work hard at PR and you are going to have to find the right PR person and make sure he/she works hard. You will also need to have that crazy look in your eye and tell them "go get me business". That's 3 mentions of the "Crazy Eye", it's important!! You need to understand that it won't be immediate (As previously explained) but give them the freedom to get out there and try whatever they feel is best. If you are unsure about your PR person, find someone else (Another mention of this, it's crucial). It may just be a feeling you get, a difference in style, a difference in approach. Find someone that you are good with 'letting it fly'. If they want to try something, great! A small tip is that when you give a PR person freedom, this is when they do extra. They feel an extra 'pressure' to make this work. So #1 is your mindset: Be ready to work at PR (yourself) and be ready to utilize that PR person properly and fully. You don't have the time and you don't have the margin for error with this budget.
Targeted letters are the centerpiece of a Shoe Strong budget PR campaign. Decide "Who will want my services" and have your PR person prepare the materials and send off at least 100. This first mailing should be quick, nice, briefly informative. It may offer a service, but basically it is your first time getting in front of this prospective client. The research tells us it will take 5 more times. Chances are you will receive 3 replies from the 1st mailing. Don't be discouraged. The mailings will cost about $1.25 not counting labor. The stamp, a color copy and nice stationary are unavoidable. If this isn't the approach your PR person uses (Targeted mailings) listen to their ideas and make a decision. I haven't heard another, better method, but if you like and trust the PR person, at least listen. It's hard to imagine anything being better than contacting the people you want as customers in a personal way. The letters should have some personal flair. Ask your PR person if they individualize the content at all or hand write the envelopes. I recommend both. Mass mailing are not perceived nearly as well as a personal appeal. There should also be a follow up email for every snail mail sent. Often times people will be intrigued by the mailing, but not get around to contacting you. Having to press "reply" may be all they need to get the relationship going. Writing you a letter from scratch is something they may never get around to doing. I like having a joint email between me and the entrepreneur. Ideally, the PR person does all of the emailing.....There is plenty of other work for the entrepreneur to do PR-wise (two paragraphs down).
You need a Facebook presence. You need a Facebook Business "Landing Page". This is extremely easy to create and extremely easy for your PR person to maintain. Just give them the go-ahead. This is a free no-brainer. You connect your webpage to your Facebook page and you have a nice set-up to direct people to. As far as the webpage, tell your PR person to set it up. I actually would start with a weebly.com $40 a year page and then upgrade later. Absolutely simple as can be to set-up and maintain for your PR person. If you don't have a Facebook Business page or a website, frankly, you aren't in business. It's just the reality of the times. I know I wouldn't see any business as legitimate of it didn't have a webpage and Facebook Business page. It's how I now shop and most others are into year five and six of operating this way.
You need to do "Professional Socialization". Only YOU as the entrepreneur can do this. Get onto Forums, Message Boards, Facebook pages and give free advice, ask questions, respond to questions, etc.. Get involved in the community of people you want to serve. If you are a motorcycle mechanic, go to all of the Facebook (local) motorcycle pages and see what you can chime in with. "Like" the pages and post in them. Don't openly be a pain in the butt and constantly promote your business, but be helpful first, then tell them you can offer them more help in the future with your business. When you do this from your Facebook Business Page, they know you are a business.....a business willing to give free (and often extensive) advice. Don't worry about giving away the farm....they may remember you and help you in the future. Keep in mind, you are starting a business with a very small PR budget....you need to offer this free, extensive help...... Go to your neighbors. Offer to put them on your webpage and Facebook Business page for free. Very simple, they gain a positive impression of you and they owe you a little favor. Make sure you meet every neighbor you have. Pick out the vicinity, it can be a block, the strip mall, whatever. Meet them all. They are all potentially helpful. You absolutely must make a database of everybody you know that lives in the area. They are all potentially helpful. They are an untapped resource. Don't think "They know me, they will call if they need it" or "I don't want to bother them". You have to ask them, they will not just call! It reminds me of the story of the man who ran for Mayor of a very tiny Village (A story from the Jewish Talmud). There was a huge storm and almost nobody could make it to vote. The results were announced at it was 1 to 1. The candidate asked his campaign manager "Why didn't you vote for me, I voted for myself and my opponent voted for himself and that's it"? The campaign manager said "You never asked me to". You need to ask! Remember, people like to help. Actually people love to help! Approach everyone you know and ask for 'help'. Mostly, ask them to think about who they know that may need your services. Ask them what they would do to grow the business if they were you. Nothing makes a person feel better then being asked for their expertise. This paragraph is about your part as the entrepreneur. It really gets to be fun to do these things. Space it out, plan it out and do it! If your PR person can help you organize the tasks, great, ask him/her. As far as a time estimate, I would say a minimum of 3 times a week for a half hour and 1 other full hour chunk. So as an entrepreneur, you are looking at about 2.5 hours of "Professional Socializing" and another half hour of back-and-forth emails, calls, etc with your PR person. So on average, about 3 hours a week. The nice thing is that you can fit this in anytime (At least the online part). If you don't get around to it and are consistently neglectful in this area (with your Shoe String budget) you don't need to feel bad or apologize to anyone (You own the business) but you should ask yourself if you are committed enough to helping yourself. You should also remember that this is guaranteed money-maker short and long-term, so if business is down, this is your first and a free option for you!
More to come! There's always more!