Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Where's Your Marketing?

I just read an article in Advertising Age, “How Social Media Is Helping Public-Relations Sector Not Just Survive, but Thrive”.

It is an interesting piece about how public relations firms are capitalizing on their inherent strategic thinking and social media expertise to develop innovative, result-oriented programs for clients and helping the industry rebound quickly from the recession.

I have only one issue with the story. Look who’s cited and quoted: Edelman, Omnicom (parent of Ketchum, Fleishman and Porter Novelli), Interpublic (which owns Weber Shandwick, Golin Harris and MWW), and Hill & Knowlton.

We all know that excellence in social media/marketing programs are not the province of the big global firms – so why are there no small or mid-size firms mentioned. The easy answer may be that none of you are advertisers in Advertising Age.

Yet, I wonder, how many of you out there have even thought about trying to interest Ad Age in even doing a story? If, like many firms, you want bigger clients, bigger brands and bigger budgets, what are you doing from a marketing standpoint to make those prospective clients aware that you exist?

Shouldn’t traditional public relations (read print publicity) still have a place in your marketing mix?

3 comments:

Delroy A. Whyte-Hall said...

PR Coach I too share the observation you have made. It is often said that "money talks," and that's exactly what had happened with the the companies that were quoted in the article (Edelman, Omnicom (parent of Ketchum, Fleishman and Porter Novelli), Interpublic (which owns Weber Shandwick, Golin Harris and MWW), and Hill & Knowlton).

You guess right, you'll never see small businesses being advertised in Advertising Age. They just don't have the money to do so.

Therefore, many of us have to resort to guerrilla tactics to get our word out there.

Great observation. Keep up the good work.

Cheers,
Delroy A. Whyte-Hall
http://whytehallsocialmedia.webs.com

Anonymous said...

Thanks Delroy for your comment. Smaller firms must be aggressive in their marketing tactics.

PR Coach said...

Thanks Delroy for your comment. Smaller firms must be aggressive in their marketing tactics.