Pearscroft Communications
At Pearscroft Communications, we believe the key to effective corporate communication lies in crafting the right message and getting it in front of key decision makers. Whether you need to communicate with the media, your customers, or internal stakeholders, we can help you craft the right message and deliver it in the most effective way possible.
Penned by Christopher Zahn for Pearscroft Communications
Christopher Zahn
Managing Director
christopher@pearscroftcommunications
- It’s often been lamented by senior executives that PR doesn’t translate into short term sales wins. PR is a long game, something that builds market awareness, credibility and trust in your brand. However, that doesn’t mean PR doesn’t have a seat at the table for lead generation. In this blog, we explore the role PR has in promoting the quantity of leads for your business.
- As we’ve explored previously, journalists not just in Australia but around the world, receive hundreds of media pitches per day, meaning that to catch their attention, anything you send needs to be concise and attention grabbing. But this isn’t the sole way to get your message out there. Owned content is having its time in the sun and companies are increasingly relying on their own content to create cut through. Whether it’s a whitepaper, a blog or an insights page, if the content is compelling enough and featured on company websites, social media and marketing copy, the SEO will do its magic and leads will start flowing.
- Attaining media coverage builds awareness amongst target audiences, in part because of the profound reach and frequency it brings, and this is a huge differentiator to your key competitors. Stories in the press that cite your company name may prove to be the defining factor between bringing a prospect over the line and losing the sale. And with social media again playing such a key role, media covered shared on your own channels will, in turn, lead to a higher quantity of sales leads.
- Leveraging the exposure opportunities available to you at industry events is another critical opportunity that shouldn’t be overlooked. Companies with a strong message and something to say can use events like roadshows and exhibitions to present to a wide audience with the end goal to educate and inform, rather than sell. The audience will be savvy enough to understand that your business has a product or service to sell so there’s no need to overtly pitch to the audience. This will drive more traffic to your website and position you as an industry thought leader.
- Client testimonials and reviews are a gold mine of potential sales leads. PR is all about building third party credibility around your product or service and a positive testimonial or review is the most direct way to achieve this, especially when done on a public platform. Part of the PR process is maintaining regular communication with external stakeholders, including current and former clients, so asking them for an endorsement can be a game changer in how many sales leads are incoming, and in a more impactful way.
- Another key component in the PR toolkit is competitor analysis and monitoring. A regular competitor news monitoring program will allow you to understand your competitor’s messaging and how active they are in their media outreach program. Keeping a consistent eye on your competitors will allow you to tweak your external messaging to stay both different and relevant, the perfect complement to your lead generation efforts.
- Historically, PR and sales were usually operated in silos, viewed as different business functions altogether. However, when businesses moved into the digital age, sales and PR have increasingly worked hand in hand and the flow on effect has translated to more leads and more opportunities in the sales pipeline.
- Contact [email protected] to learn more about generating leads through the use of PR.