Public Relations Marketing 101…Forgotten Art?

The previous blog posting I did prior to this one was about how to hire a marketing or sales consultant. I forgot to mention one thing.  It’s an insight into just how the ’shoemakers have no shoes’ (as the old saying goes). Here’s what I mean:

I write a business column on marketing for the Times Herald-Record (www.recordonline.com) here in New York State. With a business partner of mine, we’ve been writing this weekly column since February of this year. The column, like this blog, focuses on sales, marketing, and organizational issues that confront businesses today and our suggestions for dealing with them. I focus on the sales and marketing columns and my partner focuses on the organizational development issues.

Now here’s the deal. In this part of the Hudson Valley, I could probably throw a random stone and hit a ‘marketing’ or ’sales’ consultant. There’s plenty of them around. How many of them have contacted me since February about a column idea? Or an interview opportunity? Guess? Zero. Instead, I’ve had to chase them down. I wouldn’t hire any of them because they have missed what seems to be to be a simple and basic premise regarding public relations marketing. There so good that they failed to see the marketing opportunity in pitching a story idea in their own market!

If you’re a local marketing or sales consultant or business consultant…why not pitch a potential story idea to the folks who write the weekly marketing and sales column? Huh?

You might say, “maybe they don’t read paper”. They don’t read the local paper that serves a huge portion of the area they live and work in? They really stink then.

Columnists and business editors are always on the lookout for good story ideas. If you have to write nearly 52 columns a year, you need ideas.

So, here’s another question to ask a prospective marketing or sales consultant when you’re shopping for one:

When was the last time you pitched a story about a idea you had for your local paper on the subject of marketing or sales? What was the story idea? Did you get some publicity?

If the answer is no, run. You don’t need a shoemaker who doesn’t own a pair of shoes and goes barefoot.