Billions and Billions of Buzz Served Here

To translate all of this into buzz for your company, start off thinking big: What would it take to get your logo on the space shuttle? From there, pare your actions down to what’s manageable. Maybe it’s sidewalk art all over town, or midgets on roller blades handing out menus. Or a tie-in to your website: Get people on the street to tap into your site because you’re offering them a huge discount to do it. Whatever.

Remember to spread the buzz to people that other people listen to, and make sure that it shakes things up and that it’s completely—versus slightly—beyond what’s expected. That’s why, contrary to popular belief, you should not do limited offers. They’re crass and conventional, and the best you can hope for is a great big yawn from the consumers of America. That’s not the kind of mouth action you’re looking for. Always search for new ways to rise above the fray, and stick with it; otherwise the next rumor or interesting thought will take away the spotlight, break up the chatter, and leave your huge idea smelling like yesterday’s fad.

Yet in the end, no matter which techniques you use, and no matter what else you learn in this book, the real key to building exposure is this simple truth: Darn it, be the best at what you do. There is no substitute for quality, even with all the exposure in the world. By far, the best way to generate more attention and word of mouth is to do what you do better than anyone else and to let your customers or fans spread the word.

Today more than ever, word of mouth remains the best advertising. For instance, RLM is a relatively small company by the standards of large, worldwide, public relations corporations. However, we get dozens of calls seeking our services every month by companies that could easily afford to go to the big guys. Sure, we promote ourselves all we can, but most of our clients come to us via other clients and sometimes even through journalists. It’s an honor to have the respect of our peers and colleagues, and no amount of self-promotion would be as valuable for us as the promotion others do for us, absolutely free, based on the known quality of our work.

Quality is something people recognize, consistently, as a serious, no-BS tangible. A recent article on the differences between large and small public relations agencies bears out our point. In a recent issue of the online newsletter ExpertPR from MediaMap (see Chapter 9 for more on this valuable resource), Terry Frechette, a scrappy PR pro and Boston writer, mused about the issue of spending money on PR. She derived a very “’00’s” theory on seeking and finding quality agencies:

Clients know that no matter how excited a large agency seems about landing the small $5,000 a month client today, … as soon as the economy turns around again, these smaller clients will be either dropped from the roster, or managed by the agency’s interns while the executives focus on the larger, ‘more important’ clients. Boutique agencies always offer lower rates … every client is important … no matter what the economy.

In sum, she was saying: Remember that all business is about quality. That is especially true for PR, which is without a doubt the most undervalued component of marketing in any organization.

People think that PR professionals do nothing but send out releases to reporters and that editors and writers make all the news happen. Some folks feel that PR doesn’t count for much, as if there were no talent or creativity involved. Hmm. Well, PR is more than just that—it encompasses dozens of avenues. Media relations, press alerts, trade shows, brand creation, marketing communications, by-line pieces, internal messaging—a PR agency must do all of these jobs superbly. Our job in the field is to fight these misconceptions of our worth and prove our value, day after day, year after year—by being pros!

And don’t let people con you into believing that big always means great. Italians have an expression—“pocchi ma buoni”—which loosely translates to “little but good.” We like that.

So whether you’re trying to do PR yourself with a small, in-house team or you’re looking to outsource, go with hungry, nimble, aggressive, and ultimately independent thinkers. That’s the way to ensure your PR will be out there creating buzz for your company—ahead of your competitors and constantly in reporters’ faces. Because, as anyone who’s ever dabbled in PR knows, it’s not that single attempt at publicity that makes your company famous. It’s keeping yourself in front of the media—in their sights, on their radar screen, whatever you want to call it—all the time, every time.