I half-joking tweeted to my pal, the absurdly prolific Chris Brogan, that I’d happily run with his “cast-off” blog ideas: posts he’d mused about but never got around to jotting down.  Fortunately for me, he took me up on it. 

This is post #1 of 4 that I intend to write, inspired by Mr. Brogan’s “reject pile.”

There are many ways that Public Relations can fail for a company.  Sometimes it’s the Agency’s fault; sometimes it’s the company’s fault.  Sometimes it’s nobody’s fault: sometimes the story has missed the moment.  (Imagine you invented a kick-ass word processing application: it might be a worthy competitor to MS-Word, but, no one would care.)

Never mind who’s at fault. The fact remains: PR is not working.  What do you do now?

Priority #1: Focus on Findability.  Take the PR budget you’ve got left and pump it into SEO and SEM.  Anytime anyone searches for something remotely related to your product, your competitors, your industry, make sure they see you in the Google results.

Priority #2: Concentrate on Content.  As I’ve noted before, Content Marketing plays a key role in maintaining interest in your brand, keeping pace in organic search results, and offering value to prospects.  Prospects should not only find you at your website; they should see your brand play a more “social” role, i.e., by finding content kernels across the web.  So, place 1–minute demo videos on YouTube, and screenshots on Flickr; answer pertinent questions on LinkedIn forums; become a helpful presence on Twitter; start a blog and become a friendly presence as a commenter at other industry blogs.  Etc. 

Priority #3: Act like an Animal.  When an animal is desperate, it does unpredictable things.  A wolf caught in a trap will gnaw off its own leg.  A plover gets its meals by hopping into a crocodile’s maw, where it picks at stray bits of food stuck to the reptile’s sharp teeth: just imagine how desperate the plovers’ progenitors must have been, to look for a meal in a croc’s mouth!  So, if PR didn’t work, and Advertising is too expensive, what will you do? 

Will you park a breakfast cart, bedecked with your logo, in the parking lot of your biggest prospect, and offer free bagels to their employees? 

Will you strip down to your skivvies and wear a sandwich board to proclaim your wares at an industry trade show?

Will you create an invitation-only geocaching scavenger hunt for prospects, offering them a chance to get fearsomely filthy in search of a grand prize?

I don’t offer this “Act like an Animal” advice lightly.  Back during the Dot-Bomb Days, I got pretty desperate to keep our S.F. office afloat.  Did I “act like an animal?”  Hell, yes. 

I reached out to “friends of friends” (2–degrees removed) on LinkedIn, and offered them a “Free PR Fitness Test.”  Basically, for the price of 1–hour’s time, we’d create a full-on, creative PR Plan — no strings attached.  “If you like it, we hope you’ll hire us,” we told our newfound prospects.  “If you like the plan but still don’t care to fire your current firm, then feel free to use our plan to take your program up a notch… and we hope you’ll think of us first, when your PR agency situation changes.”

Did it work? — I’m still here, ain’t I?

PR may fail.  But you may not.  Do whatever it takes.

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