The Rise of Placement PR

Have you been receiving the same emails we have? Almost weekly someone sends us an offer to place a story in a specific media outlet for a flat fee. Two stories? The fee doubles. Three, it triples, etc. etc.

It’s tempting. Especially for companies that have been burned by bad PR firms in the past. But beware the quick fix. Remember the old adage, you get what you pay for? If you pay for a placement, that’s what you get: a placement. And ask yourself, what does that do for you? It might give your website a temporary traffic boost. It might give you an important and credibility-building backlink. It might be just what you need that day to say, “Hey, look at me! I was featured on (fill in the website).” And those are all good and worthy outcomes. But then what?

PR is a process; it’s not an event. Building a reputation, earning trust, developing relationships all require time, consistency and yes, a strategy. That’s the difference between placement agencies and communications firms. A communications partner is going to help you develop a story that sells, integrate your PR efforts with your overall marketing program, coach you through the good news periods and the crisis moments too (and in the age of social media, there will be a crisis), and help you leverage the heck out of your best placements. Because whether you spend $2,000 or $20,000 you want every dollar you spend on PR to double down for you. It’s not just about the story in the prestigious media outlet. It’s about what you do with that story. To learn more about how to leverage great content, read this and listen to this.

And the next time you get one of those pay-for-play emails, call us. We can talk through exactly what you are trying to achieve and how best to meet those goals.