Effective PR on a Limited Budget

When word of mouth has run its course, consider a do-it-yourself campaign. Keep in mind you don't have to get on Oprah right away

By Karen E. Klein

For small businesses with limited marketing budgets, conducting public-relations campaigns is a cost-efficient and often effective way to find new customers and boost a quality reputation. But few entrepreneurs know how to approach the press, what kinds of things to highlight about their businesses when they do, and whether they need to hire a PR firm. Georgette Pascale, president of Pascale Communications in Pittsburgh, went over some tricks of the trade recently with Smart Answers columnist Karen E. Klein. Edited excerpts of their conversation follow.

What are some of the PR misconceptions of small-business owners who hire your firm?

The main problem with small businesses who are trying to do PR is that they want to do too much. They want their business to be in The New York Times or featured on Oprah. I teach them to manage their expectations and know their audience. I have a small business with 12 employees, and I know that small companies don't have the marketing budgets to do 8 billion things.

What's the difference between PR and advertising?

In advertising, you're paying to control the message that you want delivered. Public relations means getting stories written about your company in the local press, business media, trade publications, and other media outlets. PR is an informative message about your company, but you don't ultimately control the content.

Why should small companies think about adding PR to their marketing plans?

The public can be cynical. They have a lot of advertising messages thrown at them on a daily basis. I've seen new companies throw $10,000 into scattershot advertising and get almost no return for it.

But when people read media articles, they're going to take them more seriously than they do ads, especially if you can get a third party—maybe a former client or an expert of some kind—to comment positively in the article about your company. That lends you enormous credibility, it's good content that's not coming from you, and you don't have to pay for it. Well, maybe you're paying $5,000 a month for a PR firm, but that's a lot different from $150,000 for an ad in The New York Times.

When should small companies get started with a PR campaign, and can they take a do-it-yourself approach?

I tell small-business owners to start thinking about PR when their word of mouth has run its course. You can usually get some publicity in the local press when you start your company, but your first customers are going to come from the contacts in your Rolodex and word of mouth from your friends, family, and acquaintances. But eventually that exhausts itself, and you need to start getting new leads.

Entrepreneurs can target some public-relations messages to the press about their companies themselves, if they have time. Or there are lots of experienced, knowledgeable people who do freelance PR out of their homes. You can probably hire one of them to do it for you in the range of $60 to $150 an hour, depending on what part of the country you're in.

Usually you'll get good results because they will be more savvy about approaching the media and send out more targeted messages. What I'm saying is that you don't need to go to a big public-relations firm that's going to razzle and dazzle you with a lot of jargon and charge you a lot of money.

How would a guerrilla PR campaign get started?

Start with your small, local press and pitch an article on you, what makes you unique and interesting, why you started the company, and what it is that you do. As you approach reporters and editors, emphasize the things that differentiate you from other local business owners.

Once you've gotten some publicity locally, move on to regional media outlets in the geographic areas where your customers are located. Building up your credibility with clippings from smaller papers can help get you on the radio, into Internet columns and newsletters, and even on local television shows. Eventually you may hope for larger exposure.