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Public Relations Strategies For Manufacturers and Industrial Suppliers

By Conrad Bailey

What you are about to read here is not what you would expect to learn about marketing industrial products via public relations, or what you would normally find from other PR sources. The reason is because the majority of public relations articles you’ll find online are nothing more than hidden sales pitches from PR firms that offer advice based on what’s best for their agency – and not the client. You know the ones – that always end their article with an offer to purchase or learn more about their promotional services. In this article you’ll get none of that.

Don’t Outsource Your Public Relations

Writing and submitting press releases and stories to the media is one of the most cost effective ways to promote your industrial products. However, unless your company has deep pockets and money to throw away, writing and distributing press releases is much more cost-effective when you do it yourself. Forget traditional PR firms – they charge ridiculous fees just to write and submit your press release. You’ll get much better results by using the services and tools of online companies like PR Web and PR Leap to distribute your press releases to your target media. In result you can generate some relevant and often permanent back links to your Web site. An additional benefit that can drive traffic to your site for months or even years.

Reaching A More Highly Targeted Audience

Services like PR Web are excellent for promoting your company and products to mass media. But remember, the biggest benefit comes not from the distribution of those press releases, but when editors or producers that see your press release contact you to follow-up on your story for their publication or station. That is where the most exposure will be generated.

In addition to using services like PR Web, you can and should submit your press release directly to the most relevant media sources you can find, such as trade publications that are read by your target audience. But do it yourself – don’t waste your money on PR firms that claim to specialize in the trade press. All they are actually doing is snail mailing your press release to trade magazines or journals that you can easily find yourself using media directories like Gebbie Press. Besides, there are probably no more than 5 to 10 trade publications that are ideal for your press release. So don’t pay some PR firm thousands of dollars to submit your press release to hundreds of magazines when only a handful may be interested in publishing it.

Writing A Good Press Release

Writing a good press release is not that difficult if you focus on what makes your story newsworthy. Just ignore the marketing hype and write about your product’s features, user benefits and what makes it different (superior) than similar products in the marketplace. That is what makes a press release newsworthy and more likely to be published by the media you are targeting.

Some public relations companies will charge up to $250 or more to write a press release. You can find freelancers online or at local colleges that will do it for much less. Still, you’ll always get better results by writing it yourself. After all, if you’re the person responsible for public relations at your company, then you know more about your products and the benefits they offer than anyone else. So doesn’t it make sense that you are the most qualified person to write a solid press release?
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Promoting Relationships With the Public

Public Relations or “PR” is one of the most important factors in how you are perceived by the public at large. It is the relationship between your business and your customers, past customers, community and potential customers.

There are two ways of obtaining PR. One way is through press releases, in which you share news about events or accomplishments within your company or organization. This form of PR gives you full control over how your company looks to the public. Your public, is anyone who has an interest of one type or another in your business such as your employees, customers, suppliers, competition and the press. How you are percieved by the public has a huge impact on the future of your business.

When issuing a press release make sure that the information provided is of interest to the readers or viewers of that particular publication. The heading of the press release should grab the readers attention and prompt them to continue reading. Make sure you are targeting publications which would be interested in your information. You wont have much success submitting a press release about christmas ornaments to a publication which targets outdoor life.
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PR’s Only True Measure

Sure, you could measure the rather narrow results achieved by tactical subsets of your public relations program like special events, brochures, broadcast plugs or press releases. On the other hand, you as a business, non-profit or association manager might better measure the results of your strategic efforts to alter individual perception among your key outside audiences leading to changed behaviors, which then help you achieve your managerial objectives.

I mean, can we agree that managers MUST plan to do something positive about the behaviors of those important external audiences of theirs that most affect their operation?

And especially so when they persuade those key outside folks to their way of thinking by helping to move them to take actions that allow their department, division or subsidiary to succeed?

But it takes more than good intentions for any manager to alter individual, key-audience perception leading to changed behaviors, something of profound importance to ALL business, non-profit and association managers.

He or she needs a plan dedicated to getting every member of the public relations team working towards the same external audience behaviors which insures that the organization’s public relations effort stays sharply focused.

The plan could be based on a foundation that looks like this: people act on their own perception of the facts before them, which leads to predictable behaviors about which something can be done. When we create, change or reinforce that opinion by reaching, persuading and moving-to-desired-action the very people whose behaviors affect the organization the most, the public relations mission is accomplished.

Results can materialize faster than you might suspect.For example, bounces in showroom visits; new proposals for strategic alliances and joint ventures; customers making repeat purchases; prospects starting to work with them;membership applications on the rise, and capital givers or specifying sources looking their way.

Watch the real performers at work. They find out whoamong their key external audiences is behaving in ways that help or hinder the achievement of their objectives. Then, they list them according to how severely their behaviors affect their organization.

Next they must determine how most members of that key outside audience perceive the organization. If the resources to pay for what could be costly professional survey counsel aren’t there, Ms. or Mr. manager and his or her PR colleagues will have to monitor those perceptions themselves. Actually, the PR folks should already be quite familiar with how to gather and assess perception and behavior data.
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One of America’s brightest leaders and thinkers

Marshawn Evans, J.D., has garnered a reputation as an inspiring, articulate and intelligent orator. In the same mode as multitalented trailblazing women such as Oprah Winfrey, Katie Couric, Tyra Banks and Kimora Lee Simmons, Marshawn is a: media personality, distinguished entrepreneur, passionate youth advocate, inspirational speaker and up-and-coming litigator.

Marshawn emerged into national consciousness as the 3rd runner-up for Miss America. Her fame continued to grow after her coveted stint as one of Donald Trump’s handpicked cast members on NBC’s popular show, “The Apprentice.” Marshawn has become a growing fixture in the media, having appeared across a wide-spectrum of leading TV, magazine, radio, newspaper and internet outlets, including ABC, VH1, MTV, Glamour and USA Today.

As Founder of Communication Counts, Marshawn travels around the country working with politicians, athletes, entertainers and media personalities to enhance their communicative skills. Recently, Marshawn launched an upscale clothing operation called JewelME Couture. In her entrepreneurial roles, Marshawn combines the elegant, ambassadorial style that won her the interview for the Miss America competition, with an assertive business brawn and savvy.

Marshawn’s passion advocating for young people spawns from her own youth in which she was labeled a problem child. Her avid work with youth has won her prestigious awards and recognition from the U.S. Department of Justice and from former Texas Governor George W. Bush. Marshawn’s influence on youth issues stretches beyond U.S. Borders as she served as an Ambassador to the International Summit of Achievement in Dublin, Ireland. At the summit, Marshawn presented on best practices for training future leaders, with the likes of former United States President Bill Clinton, former Russian President Mikhail Gorbachev, actor James Earl Jones and international human rights activist Steve Bono.
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