Doing PR? Always ask for the numbers, Its Important!
Happy Fathers Day! I hope all you Dad’s out there are enjoying you day. Today’s tip is for all of you who are out there doing PR! When we first start with a client we go through a process that involves going through everything that our new client has going on. From how many books they have written, how many speaking engagements they are doing, to how many interviews and articles they are doing.
We do this to establish how many people are being touched by their brand, their message and their efforts, their reach. It is the way that we begin to establish an idea of what we can value the client at to sell sponsorship opportunities to a corporate partner for. Basically it’s a matter of collecting the number of impressions and putting a price on it, it’s a lot more complicated than that, but I think you get the drift.
One of the biggest pieces of this puzzle and one of the best ways to beef up your numbers if you are just starting out is always through the amount of PR you are involved in. Whether it is TV, Radio, Print, blogging and so on, these numbers can add up quickly and present a great case for a corporate partner to become involved with you.
Amazingly though, what we run into nine times out of ten, is that while all of you can provide a list of WHAT you have done or are currently doing in your PR efforts, you can’t provide HOW MANY people are being reached with these efforts. Which brings me to a simple exercise for you to practice that will help you greatly.
When you are doing an article, an interview, a blog, whatever it is, ALWAYS ask for the number of people that your PR effort is going to touch, the reach. If you are doing a radio show, ask the station for the listenership of the show, if you are doing a column, ask the paper what the readership is, if you are doing a TV interview, ask for the viewership of the show it is going to be on and then write down where it appeared and the number of people who potentially saw it or heard it.
With these numbers you are building your own reach profile. You can then present it when a corporate partner asks you, how many people to do you reach? You can show them on paper that you reach 1.2 million readers annually through your column in the XYZ newspaper, you reach 500,000 listeners through various radio interviews and you can show them a list the stations.
All of it becomes substantiated numbers. But the most important thing is to enable you to present these numbers you need to first Always ask for the numbers, Its important!