Marketing services
Public relations

Potentially a tremendously powerful and rapid way to build awareness (and sales), public relations involves communication that creates "buzz" and stories about you that are conveyed by word of mouth and the media.

Public relations encompasses media relations (getting the news to cover you); buzz/guerrilla/viral marketing that gets customers to evangelize on your behalf; events, such as tradeshows; blogs, tags and more.

And while public relations is sometimes termed "free" advertising, it is not. In fact, even though we often recommend including aggressive public relations in an integrated marketing mix, it is also important to be aware of the inherent limitations of public relations.

First, while you have explicit control over the message you want to communicate when you develop an advertising or a direct marketing campaign or a website, you have no final control over the message that is conveyed by the media, bloggers or evangelistic customers. You can provide information and encourage dialogue, but you are subject to others in what they say and how.

Second, successful public relations requires extending the idea of being customer-centric to the media or other target influencers. You have to communicate with them rather than to them on their terms. A press release announcing that you have the best mousetrap probably won't generate much response, but a carefully orchestrated pitch to specific editors/writers/reporters offering a story idea that will appeal to their audience will stand a much greater chance of generating media coverage.

Our success at garnering media coverage and buzz for our clients stems from finding ways in this ever-noisier world to get more people than ever to listen.

Getting those people to listen is not black magic. It's merely being highly attuned to your customer targets and how they make purchase decisions, along with your business and competitive pressures so as to give your company a voice and ear to your customers and those influencing their purchase decisions. In other words, unconventional PR.

A unique approach to media relations
We can help you determine if you should hire an in-house PR staff or hire an agency. And if you are looking to hire a PR firm, we can assist locating the firm with the best fit for your company's particular needs.

For small companies not yet ready to hire an agency, we can tap our network of freelancers and firms.

Our approach to media relations is unique. While we can—and do—produce press releases, our primary approach to media relations involves careful identification of specific publications or other media outlets ripe for the story of your company, and then then launching a carefully orchestrated campaign to secure coverage in that media outlet.

The precision of such an approach, combined with a sophisticated understanding of what appeals to the media, has been instrumental in securing coverage of startups in the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Business 2.0, CNBC, etc.