If you’re working in the tech industry, it’s inevitable that you’ve heard someone say, “we need some more buzz.” Quite often, this phrase is uttered in the direction of a PR (public relations) personnel. It’s also a phrase tossed around quite frequently in board rooms. Today, and in tech marketing especially, the notion that PR is a function that goes out and gets (finds?) “buzz” is fairly prevalent. It is, however, the wrong way to look at PR. Obviously, PR does not create “buzz.” PR builds and maintains the relationships, or connections, with industry and market influencers who themselves create the “buzz” on your behalf. Hence, “buzz” is the outcome, not the goal of great PR. “Buzz” also does not come solely from press articles or media coverage.
A powerful PR thrust or campaign is not exclusively focused on media but rather inclusive of all influencer audiences or constituencies (e.g., industry analysts, customers, partners, investors, prospective employees, and even competitors). All of these audiences come together to create the “buzz.” When people are talking about you, a buzz can be heard. Words on a piece of paper don’t create a micro-decibel sound much less the sought after “buzz.”
In high tech, companies most often rely on PR to support major product launches and that’ll be the focus here to illustrate this point. PR is instrumental in building an image of leadership for the company and its product line(s). Likewise, PR is universally considered the most cost effective way to publicize the availability of a new tech product. Those two things are pretty straightforward. Your company wants to launch a new product that’s expected to lead to a XX increase in revenues and XX up tick in market share. Your PR team is asked to go and get ink for the product! Get some buzz!
After the typical 4-6 weeks that it takes to plan and go on a whirlwind press tour (which is increasingly nothing more than a couple dozen phone briefings with press folks and some analysts), a bunch of press articles appear. Everyone is excited to see the company name in headlines. PR people start making treks to the local Kinko’s to put together press clipping booklets to show off to management. Executives tell their board of directors that there’s a lot of buzz about the new product. The sales team appreciates all the publicity and confidently marches on to close some new deals. Several more weeks pass and … your worst nightmare is realized. Nothing much has changed. A few new customers came on board but revenues haven’t really spiked. Sales conversion rates are still stale. Many of your sales leads are still unconvinced and dragging their feet – the only leading they’re doing is leading you to depression and frustration. Let’s get a new PR agency!
You have to remember that press articles are nothing more than that … words that are put on paper in ink. Granted, words alone are pretty powerful stuff. But, remember that words need eyeballs. Customers have to read the articles and be persuaded by them. Getting the media coverage for your company and its products is only the beginning of what is a lengthy effort. Thus, the press articles are not representative of any achievement or end goal. These articles represent tools and nothing more. And, tools have to be used. Great PR people recognize this fact and leverage media coverage in order to “make the needle move” in other aspects of their jobs to truly create industry “buzz.”
Getting positive coverage of a new product goes a long way toward making it a safe bet for industry analysts to support and even recommend to their tech buyer clients. Partners become more enthusiastic about recommending or selling a product that is perceived to be widely recognized and talked about. The critical recruit who has been sitting on the fence for weeks suddenly starts to get enthusiastic about his hot startup or company. Sales folks get more confident about what they’re carrying out to customers. You have to get these articles to be consumed. The best way to accomplish this objective is to work rigorously across the organization to make sure that each of your company’s key external audience (ie., customers, partners, analysts, etc.) is served these great articles.
Too often, PR people think that their job is done once the ink dries on some neat article. Wrong. The work has just begun. It takes a lot of effort to work with so many people internally within your company to figure out the best ways and methods through which to reach even more people in the external marketplace. But, the key point here is that communicating and delivering the results of great PR and influencing key constituents through that communication is critical to creating genuine, lasting buzz.
By the way, this internal work is one fundamental reason why a company needs to have a PR person in-house regardless of retaining an agency or not. There are tons of other more practical business reasons for having at least one person in-house dedicated to PR but that’s a lengthy topic to be covered another time in our Marketing Joint.
Tip #1: If you ask your PR department how customers, prospects, partners, recruits, investors, analysts, and field personnel are receiving the press articles and the answer you get is something like “well, we emailed everyone the links and also posted them to the News section of our website …” be very worried that the buzz is not magically propagating on its own. In business, it’s clearly better to be skeptical than to be naive.
Tip #2: Treat press articles as though they are nothing more than assets. Assets in and of themselves do not do any convincing, influencing, or persuading. Assets must be put to use.
That’s it for now. Happy “buzz” hunting!
- John
Comments