Seven Ways to Reduce Your PR Budget

SEVEN WAYS TO REDUCE YOUR PR BUDGET BY $161,620 THIS YEAR Go WITH A VIRTUAL AGENCY Much of the hourly rate or retainer A The Internet, collaboration tools, screen sharing, instant messaging and web conferencing tools have now made it more possible than ever to conduct business from anywhere around the world. Such adoption of technology has given rise to a new crop of businesses which run virtually, of which virtual public relations firms are a part of as well. Employees work remotely from the client site or from home rather than a fixed office goes to paying for high fixed costs such as expensive office lease, furniture, equipment and utilities, By bypassing these high fixed costs, virtual PR firms are able to reduce their rate and save customers money. On average, a virtual PR firm may be able to shave off as much as 50% from the average retaimer lor a сопрапу, уоur monthly retainer is about $10,000, that's a savings of $5,000 per location. In many regards, this makesa lot of sense for the customer month. SAVINGS: $60,000 PER YEAR ($5,000/MONTH) USE A DIFFERENT WIRE SERVICE FOR DIFFERENT NEEDS In the past, there weren't many choices for wire service distribution. Again, technology has spurred a new crop of news wire services which can distribute your press release. Gener- ally speaking, the cheaper the wire service fee, the worse the distribution. But in some instances, a low end wire For important releases such as prod- uct launches, new corporate initia- tives and earnings releases, you may continue to use top wire services. But using a low end wire service for other releases can end up saving you a lot of money over the course of time. Using 12 press releases per year as a guideline (one per month), six might service may do just fine. For instance, more generic press releases such as a new hiring or promotion, new office expansions or other low impact releases may not require a full distri- bution on PR Newswire. If you just want to get it live, a low end service use PR Newswire while the other 6 use PR Web. $600 X 12 = $7,200 if you used a high end service for every release. Using a hybrid mixed model would be (S600 X6 = $3,600) + (S80 X 6 = $480) = $4,080. That's a savings of $3,120 per year. such as PR Web can do the trick for S80 per release. Compare that to national distribution on PR Newswire or Marketwire which could cost upwards of $600 per release. SAVINGS: $3,120 PER YEAR RETHINK TRADESHOWS The recent recession has spurred new ways of looking at trade- shows. Besides some vendors who completely pulled out of major When times are tough, one of the most attractive areas to cut are tradeshows. Truth be told, most executives have a love-hate relationship with tradeshows (more hate than love). And don't even ask the poor employees who have to set up, stand around for 12 hours and tear down. Trade- shows seem a necessary evil more than anything; your competitors and the press will be there, so you feel forced to have a booth pres- EXPO shows such as the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, some major companies signifi- cantly scaled back their floor presence and opted for smaller suites. While some may argue suites don't generate the floor traffic that booths do, ask your- self how many quality leads are actually generated by that expen- sive booth? ence as well. The savings of forgoing a traditional booth are significant: the actual booth and graphics, shipment, insurance, electricity, wiring, accessories, hiring union personnel to set it up or modify, the cost of the space itself, as well as travel and accommodations for personnel. Going with a private suite and a targeted pre-show outreach program can put less stress on your marketing budget and your employees/co- workers. Tradeshows generally fall under marketing events, so we've not included it in the final tally of savings. But it still can be a significant amount. 4 QUALITY, NOT QUANTITY FOR PRESS RELEASES Speaking of press releases, maybe it is time to review the quality of the press releases sent out. Is it really necessary to announce each promotion? Are product launches newsworthy enough to put an individual release out on? Is that customer win truly important enough for a news release? Editors and reporters get bombarded with hundreds of press releases a day, most of them either completely unrelated to their COverage area or simply not newsworthy. If you spam press releases to the media and they deem them to be not newsworthy, you will quickly find yourself in their blacklist where you may never emerge. Instead of spamming press releases, why not look at other opportu- nity for news coverage? These can include writing opinion articles and getting placed in prominent magazines or websites. Or how about setting up a question and answer with the editor of a maga- zine in your indlustry? How about conducting a survey and releas- ing the results to the target media of your choice? Simply by cutting the number of press releases in half every year, you can save on the time to write them as well as the wire service distribution fees for a total of roughly $6,500 a year. SAVINGS: $6,500 PER YEAR SCRUTINIZE OVERBILLING BY PR AGENCIES One of our customers had a typical horror story about PR agencies that I hear all too often. This agency had them on a retainer for $10,000 a month, which is pretty standard for more mid-sized com- panies. What wasn't standard was the work they were receiving, For ten grand a month, they were only getting albout one press release a month and some light industry pitching. Fortunately for this PR agency, the president who hired them pretty much forgot about them and let them do their own thing, Thus this agency flew under the radar for quite some time, pocketing the $10,000 a month for relatively little work. INVOICE When the previous president was let go and a new president brought in, he was aghast at the waste of the previous agency. More than the waste of money was the dishonestly in overbilling and hoping no one would notice. Thankfully they contacted Firecracker PR, and we were able to work out a PR plan that met their objec- tives while slashing their monthly spend by up to 50%. Someone once said, "it's never wrong to do the right thing" SAVINGS: $60,000 PER YEAR 6. OUTSOURCE INSTEAD OF HIRING INTERNALLY The recent recession has also forced companies to have to make hard decisions regarding headcount. While there is a definite human element involved, companies have to make these decisions based on the bottom line..especially when top-line growth is sStag- nant. Just as there was an outsourcing boom begin- ning in the 90's for customer support and technical personnel, there is a trend towards finding ways to outsource other internal functions. There is a definite economic benefit to outsourcing public relations and marketing to an agency. Besides the salary of an employee, other costs such as health benefits, administrative costs, taxes, training and management add up to about 25% gross on top of the actual salary. Hiring an agency rids yourself of both the added costs and the time associated with administration and management. Going with an agency also provwides greater flexibility to sever ties versus firing or laying off an employee. Savings: $27,000 per year SAVINGS: $60,000 PER YEAR GET RID OF MEDIA MONITORING SERVICES SUCH AS LUCE In the past, the only way to monitor media coverage was through clipping services such as Luce. This was mainly due to the fact that most media coverage that mattered was through traditional outlets such as television, radio or newspaper. Today, the media landscape is much more fragmented with a heavy emphasis on the Internet. TV and radio still do matter, but it is no longer a necessity. Many newspapers and magazines now heavily rely on their online pres- ence for advertising revenue. Other online venues such blogs, social media sites and online review sites also matter more. This means that unless you are going for a large scale media blitz on national television, most of your coverage will eventually end up online somewhere. A great free tool to monitor your company name online is Google Alerts. Simply set up a Google account, go to Alerts and put your company name in quotation marks. Now any time your company name shows up online, you will receive an email with the website. This may be a sufficient substitute over more expensive media lipping services. You can't beat free. SAVINGS: $5,000 PER YEAR POTENTIAL ANNUAL SAVINGS: -$161,620– SEVEN WAYS TO REDUCE YOUR PR BUDGET BY $161,620 THIS YEAR Go WITH A VIRTUAL AGENCY Much of the hourly rate or retainer A The Internet, collaboration tools, screen sharing, instant messaging and web conferencing tools have now made it more possible than ever to conduct business from anywhere around the world. Such adoption of technology has given rise to a new crop of businesses which run virtually, of which virtual public relations firms are a part of as well. Employees work remotely from the client site or from home rather than a fixed office goes to paying for high fixed costs such as expensive office lease, furniture, equipment and utilities, By bypassing these high fixed costs, virtual PR firms are able to reduce their rate and save customers money. On average, a virtual PR firm may be able to shave off as much as 50% from the average retaimer lor a сопрапу, уоur monthly retainer is about $10,000, that's a savings of $5,000 per location. In many regards, this makesa lot of sense for the customer month. SAVINGS: $60,000 PER YEAR ($5,000/MONTH) USE A DIFFERENT WIRE SERVICE FOR DIFFERENT NEEDS In the past, there weren't many choices for wire service distribution. Again, technology has spurred a new crop of news wire services which can distribute your press release. Gener- ally speaking, the cheaper the wire service fee, the worse the distribution. But in some instances, a low end wire For important releases such as prod- uct launches, new corporate initia- tives and earnings releases, you may continue to use top wire services. But using a low end wire service for other releases can end up saving you a lot of money over the course of time. Using 12 press releases per year as a guideline (one per month), six might service may do just fine. For instance, more generic press releases such as a new hiring or promotion, new office expansions or other low impact releases may not require a full distri- bution on PR Newswire. If you just want to get it live, a low end service use PR Newswire while the other 6 use PR Web. $600 X 12 = $7,200 if you used a high end service for every release. Using a hybrid mixed model would be (S600 X6 = $3,600) + (S80 X 6 = $480) = $4,080. That's a savings of $3,120 per year. such as PR Web can do the trick for S80 per release. Compare that to national distribution on PR Newswire or Marketwire which could cost upwards of $600 per release. SAVINGS: $3,120 PER YEAR RETHINK TRADESHOWS The recent recession has spurred new ways of looking at trade- shows. Besides some vendors who completely pulled out of major When times are tough, one of the most attractive areas to cut are tradeshows. Truth be told, most executives have a love-hate relationship with tradeshows (more hate than love). And don't even ask the poor employees who have to set up, stand around for 12 hours and tear down. Trade- shows seem a necessary evil more than anything; your competitors and the press will be there, so you feel forced to have a booth pres- EXPO shows such as the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, some major companies signifi- cantly scaled back their floor presence and opted for smaller suites. While some may argue suites don't generate the floor traffic that booths do, ask your- self how many quality leads are actually generated by that expen- sive booth? ence as well. The savings of forgoing a traditional booth are significant: the actual booth and graphics, shipment, insurance, electricity, wiring, accessories, hiring union personnel to set it up or modify, the cost of the space itself, as well as travel and accommodations for personnel. Going with a private suite and a targeted pre-show outreach program can put less stress on your marketing budget and your employees/co- workers. Tradeshows generally fall under marketing events, so we've not included it in the final tally of savings. But it still can be a significant amount. 4 QUALITY, NOT QUANTITY FOR PRESS RELEASES Speaking of press releases, maybe it is time to review the quality of the press releases sent out. Is it really necessary to announce each promotion? Are product launches newsworthy enough to put an individual release out on? Is that customer win truly important enough for a news release? Editors and reporters get bombarded with hundreds of press releases a day, most of them either completely unrelated to their COverage area or simply not newsworthy. If you spam press releases to the media and they deem them to be not newsworthy, you will quickly find yourself in their blacklist where you may never emerge. Instead of spamming press releases, why not look at other opportu- nity for news coverage? These can include writing opinion articles and getting placed in prominent magazines or websites. Or how about setting up a question and answer with the editor of a maga- zine in your indlustry? How about conducting a survey and releas- ing the results to the target media of your choice? Simply by cutting the number of press releases in half every year, you can save on the time to write them as well as the wire service distribution fees for a total of roughly $6,500 a year. SAVINGS: $6,500 PER YEAR SCRUTINIZE OVERBILLING BY PR AGENCIES One of our customers had a typical horror story about PR agencies that I hear all too often. This agency had them on a retainer for $10,000 a month, which is pretty standard for more mid-sized com- panies. What wasn't standard was the work they were receiving, For ten grand a month, they were only getting albout one press release a month and some light industry pitching. Fortunately for this PR agency, the president who hired them pretty much forgot about them and let them do their own thing, Thus this agency flew under the radar for quite some time, pocketing the $10,000 a month for relatively little work. INVOICE When the previous president was let go and a new president brought in, he was aghast at the waste of the previous agency. More than the waste of money was the dishonestly in overbilling and hoping no one would notice. Thankfully they contacted Firecracker PR, and we were able to work out a PR plan that met their objec- tives while slashing their monthly spend by up to 50%. Someone once said, "it's never wrong to do the right thing" SAVINGS: $60,000 PER YEAR 6. OUTSOURCE INSTEAD OF HIRING INTERNALLY The recent recession has also forced companies to have to make hard decisions regarding headcount. While there is a definite human element involved, companies have to make these decisions based on the bottom line..especially when top-line growth is sStag- nant. Just as there was an outsourcing boom begin- ning in the 90's for customer support and technical personnel, there is a trend towards finding ways to outsource other internal functions. There is a definite economic benefit to outsourcing public relations and marketing to an agency. Besides the salary of an employee, other costs such as health benefits, administrative costs, taxes, training and management add up to about 25% gross on top of the actual salary. Hiring an agency rids yourself of both the added costs and the time associated with administration and management. Going with an agency also provwides greater flexibility to sever ties versus firing or laying off an employee. Savings: $27,000 per year SAVINGS: $60,000 PER YEAR GET RID OF MEDIA MONITORING SERVICES SUCH AS LUCE In the past, the only way to monitor media coverage was through clipping services such as Luce. This was mainly due to the fact that most media coverage that mattered was through traditional outlets such as television, radio or newspaper. Today, the media landscape is much more fragmented with a heavy emphasis on the Internet. TV and radio still do matter, but it is no longer a necessity. Many newspapers and magazines now heavily rely on their online pres- ence for advertising revenue. Other online venues such blogs, social media sites and online review sites also matter more. This means that unless you are going for a large scale media blitz on national television, most of your coverage will eventually end up online somewhere. A great free tool to monitor your company name online is Google Alerts. Simply set up a Google account, go to Alerts and put your company name in quotation marks. Now any time your company name shows up online, you will receive an email with the website. This may be a sufficient substitute over more expensive media lipping services. You can't beat free. SAVINGS: $5,000 PER YEAR POTENTIAL ANNUAL SAVINGS: -$161,620–