A recent MuckRack feature (penned by one of our co-directors, Bill Byrne) explains why you shouldn't get too enamored with flashy case studies.

We all want that 'wow' factor, but realistically you should be looking at examples of success in line with your brand's stature, assets and budgets.

If your brand doesn't have the budget of Red Bull or the cache of Apple, you may be disappointed if you hire a firm based on their work with those two brands.

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The Best PR Firm In San Diego Is Remedy Communications.

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San Diego's Leading PR Firm

You'd be surprised (or maybe not) about how many calls we get from potential clients that think they need PR (media relations) or social media help. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't.

Since the term term 'PR' gets thrown around quite a bit, we figured it'd just be easier if we uploaded this 101 sheet on Remedy to our blog for easy reference.

Read, enjoy, share and if you need us, you know where to find us!

Please click this button to share on LinkedIn!

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Not too long ago we executed a NASCAR®-related product PR campaign for a client. This was a first for us.

While successful, it solidified a few things we already preach regarding public relations, with one overarching theme…

Executing a PR / media relations campaign in one industry is the same as executing a public relations campaign in any other.

The publications and channels may change, but their basic needs and rules remain the same. Here’s what they are:

1. The More Time You Give, The Better
Believe it or not, journalists are not waiting around for PR people to contact them with story ideas. They have their own deadlines and content obligations in terms of the number of stories they need to publish or want to publish.

As great as your story may be for your brand, that doesn’t mean you can simply expect an outlet to make room for it or that a journalist will want to make time for it.

2. There Has To Be A Fit And If There Isn’t, You Bend
It’s a widely held belief that NASCAR fans fully support the brands their favorite drivers endorse.

While that may be true, the NASCAR related media outlets themselves don’t cover new product launches or brand news in the same way we think of general consumer and business publications as doing. Their focus tends to be on track drama, fines, equipment changes and paint scheme changes.

Some early, and later, extensive research into their media channels brought this to light. Along with extreme disappointment because we thought this would be a layup of a pitch.

So did we abandon the campaign? No. As the entrepreneurs and ‘influencers’ of today are fond of saying, we decided to pivot.

In addition to traditional media, we targeted people with large and engaged social media followings (we’re hesitant to every say someone with a lot of followers is an actual 'influencer') to secure coverage. While most of the popular accounts were owned by drivers and their pit crews who had  competing endorsement deals, there were many other people we could target, ranging from on-air broadcast talent to super fans.

3. The Easier You Make Their Job, The Better
Journalists, like the rest of us, are busy. Having all the details and assets ready and at your fingertips can go a long way in helping secure interest for a story.

Speed is a big component of grabbing the checkered flag on race day and in PR.

4. All Media Want The Same Thing
They want a compelling story for their audience that at the end of the day, will drive page views, clicks, increase ratings, increase their street cred, etc.

It’s that simple.

When that isn’t available, sometimes cash works. Advertising, sponsorships, etc. Old school PR professionals shudder at this notion, but it’s the reality of our industry today. Thankfully, we didn’t need to go this route.

When planning any PR campaign, keep these four tips in mind. They won’t guarantee success – as nothing can in PR – but they’re good steps to take to help prevent failure.

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There’s a major misconception in terms of how PR placements actually come about.

We had one agency partner – who we thought was pretty savvy – ask us why we “couldn’t just blast email some mommy bloggers” and get quick results. He wasn't as savvy as we thought...

What most PR agencies won’t readily admit is that the media landscape is changing and there’s more competition than ever for placements.

Even so, the good stories can rise to the top, but often it will take some solid effort unless you're the iPhone of your industry and simply bleed PR.

We’ve outlined below some select examples of great PR placements we’ve had happen for a few clients during the last two years and how long it took to see them happen. If you're not regularly dealing with the media making pitch calls, may find some surprises!

Example 1: New Product Launch - National Men’s Magazine Website

Freelance journalist was a trusted friend of someone at the agency who we spend time with during non-work activities frequently. Literally put the product in his hand and a month later, he filed his story. It didn’t appear online for FIVE more months.

Example 2: Financial Client’s New Office - Major Market Regional Newspaper

New office openings are rarely news in bigger markets, but this client offered something in this market that few firms do. After researching who at this paper would be interested, in an email, we highlighted what we had to offer and sent it off at the appropriate time. The result was an email interview which took months to complete (due to slow responses by reporter), which was incorporated into a feature story. There was more to it than that, including the client being misquoted multiple times in an early draft. (again, this was an email interview). Thankfully we were able review ahead of time (which rarely happens – you should never ask a reporter for this) and we corrected it. Four months after our initial email went out, the piece appeared online and in print, and the local office's phone rang with some impressive people on the other end.

Example 3: Client's Industry Announcement - Trade Publication

While we have a great relationship with the people managing this industry trade publication, an indutry where our client is a force, we should add, that doesn't mean that the editors of this site will drop everything just for us or our client. Even though the announcement wasn’t fluff, their staff was quite busy at the time and it took a few days for them to get back to us and later, run a feature. While the announcement was important, it wasn't "drop everything" important.

Example 4 - Consumer Technology Launch / Major National Magazine

Again, the journalists at this outlet we've known for years and have a great relationship with. They almost always return our calls and emails with some sort of response... a rarity these days for most PR people. At the end of Q3 2015, we gave the team at this very respected magazine an early look and one of a limited number review units that we had available (one of 15 at the time) to try out. In all honestly, this is the next generation of a class-leading product in its category, a PR person's dream and one that is a brand that is frequently covered. At the beginning of Q2 2016, they’ve finally decided they will cover it and we’re working with them now to triple-ensure they have what they need.

Example 5 - Financial Client / Leading National Newspaper

The client at the time was a 20+ year old, independent financial firm. Mid-sized... not the biggest, but not the smallest. In our first month of media outreach (which was our second month of working together), we cold called and emailed roughly 20 financial reporters at the major newspapers around the country. One reporter, who had never heard of our client and never worked with us before, requested an interview with their CEO, who was quoted in a story that appeared roughly a week later. Want to know which paper? Hint: It’s a journal named after a street with walls… in Manhattan.

So from the above, which were we the most surprised about? Truth be told, all of them, but Example 1 the most. It took months for a story to appear online… even after the journalist - a dear friend of someone at the agency - filed it.

Which placement do we brag about the most? Example 5... Wall Street Journal in less than two months? That's PR gold!

And it was Example 3, a regional publication, where the client saw the most traction.

The reality of the current PR world is, unfortunately, that there are multiple variables affecting when and if your brand will receive coverage, and they’re often out of the PR team’s control. As we’ve said before, reporters are not parrots and on a micro-level, they all have their own needs, so research into what each one wants from you before moving forward.

Like this tip? Please share via the LinkedIn button below. Wondering if your PR program is healthy? Reach out for our complimentary PR Checkup at PRCheckup@Remedypr.com.

How do PR hits happen? What's the anatomy of a PR hit?

San Diego Public Relations (PR) And Social Media "San Diego PR"

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A leading public relations (PR) agency in San Diego, specializing in social media marketing, event marketing, action sports and finance, San Diego Public Relations Agency, Action Sports PR, San Diego Social Media Agency, San Diego Event Marketing Agency, Social Media Marketing Agency, Craft Beer PR, PR, Public Relations, Social Media San Diego, Social Media Marketing Agency San Diego,

Name five Super Bowl ads from last year and describe what they were about. If you can’t, do it from any year… and the Apple ‘1984’ spot doesn’t count. Or anything with Clydesdales 😉

Of those five (or less) how many of them led you to buy those products or use that brand’s services?

If the ad didn’t cause you to go out and act, does that mean the ad is worthless?

Definitely not. Here is the reality of advertising (or PR/media relations and marketing in general).

It often takes time and repetition for the message to sink in. I didn’t see the Apple ‘1984’ add live, but I know about it because it’s so regularly highlighted over the years. And its content was very different.

Think about GoDaddy’s ads. The ones with the women having wardrobe malfunctions. Regardless of your personal taste, they also are (were?) different enough to get attention and have people talking about them.

Creatively, both of these ads were different than the norm at the time. That’s an important thing to keep in mind.

Creativity is incredibly important in marketing. It helps cut through the clutter.

Because of advertising, and our love of 'The Walking Dead' a lot of us here have a pretty strong awareness of Mazda as an automotive brand. They seem to consistently have spots airing during ‘The Walking Dead’ that look pretty good and catch our attention when we forget to reach for the DVR's remote. That said, no one in our office has a Mazda. Does that mean the ads weren’t effective?

No. As an example, the last person to buy the car in our office wanted an all-wheel drive sedan. Mazda didn’t make one at the time, so their ads, while they were memorable, were for products that we just didn’t need.

However, Mazda consistently runs ads during a show we watch and because of that, we were am pretty aware of of some of the cars they’re selling. Budweiser usually does something with Clydesdales.

Consistency, or repetition of message, are almost as important as creativity, if you want to boost awareness, and later sales.

‘Consistency’ and ‘creatively’ should be the words you dwell on here.

We hear all the time from friends and colleagues – at both big brands and small – that advertising didn’t work for them. Or PR didn’t work for them. Why? Because they didn’t see sales. When I ask how they measured awareness, I tend to get blank stares. When I ask if they directed their agency partners or let them lead, I get uncomfortable silence.

What is almost always missing when a marketing program falls short is some sort of creativity or consistency in activity. Vanilla tastes good, but it doesn’t stand out. One and done is rarely enough.

Sales come from awareness, as well as availability. Marketers can’t control availability, but they can help build awareness, which will lead to sales if done right.

Despite what case study you read, marketing success comes from creativity and consistency/repetition of message. There are exceptions to the rule, but if you're going to play the odds, are you going to put your money on the 99 percent favored to win or the long shot?

BTW - If you're interested in the creative background of that Apple '1984' ad, check out this piece from Bloomberg.

Questions about the health of your PR or marketing campaign? Drop us a line at PRCheckup@remedypr.com. A consultation is always free!

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Do Super Bowl Ads Work? A Lesson in Public Relations, Advertising, Creativity And Consistency

Numbers don’t lie, but they often don’t tell the whole story.

We live in (and have been for a while) a metric driven world when it comes to marketing. Often the metric involves measuring quantity over quality (yes, you can measure quality). We've seen more tangible results from PR placements in regional newspapers than we have in national ones, but that’s a topic for another time.

Yahoo! once claimed that a streamed Bills versus Jaguars game resulted in more than 33 million streams.

Impressive!!! Right? Maybe?!?

In reality, those 33 million streams were 15.2 million unique viewers and 460 million minutes of football. The live stream actually averaged less than 2.4 million viewers per minute, compared to an average of 10 to 20 million viewers through traditional broadcast and cable for most NFL games.

Should we mention that the stream was set on auto-play for Yahoo!, Tumblr and their other properties… and that views were counted as long as the window was open for three seconds.

That means that if you went to Yahoo! to look up the number for your local dog groomer or search news on mortgage rates, you may have been counted as ‘watching’ the game.

Who cares about why they watched it, as long as we have the impression numbers to show for it 😉

This is one of the chief reasons we don’t compare PR/editorial value to ad value and I’d be hard pressed to tell you at home broadcast/cable views are the same as streaming views on a phone, tablet, etc., whether in the home or not. They're all different. They all have value, but those values are different as well.

Yes, impression numbers are incredibly important in our world, but impression numbers alone shouldn’t be how you measure the success of your campaign.

 For those that feel we're calling out digital ad agencies unfairly here, I’ll put the focus on the PR/media relations industry. A tried and true (and lazy) method of measuring a PR program’s success is impression numbers. How many people saw X on TV last night, or subscribe to that magazine, etc. If a client asks, for impression numbers, we happily pass them over, but with the caveat that we don’t believe for one second that X number of people actually saw the article with the client in it.

While we won’t be so bold as to call this a fact, it’s the truth. Impression numbers don’t equate to recognition, brand message retention or in the case of Yahoo!’s auto-play of the football game, intention.

In reality, impression numbers are estimates of how many may have been in the vicinity of your message. And nothing more.

Numbers alone don’t tell the story of a campaign’s success and unfortunately, as the media landscape continues to fragment and more brands leverage the tools at their disposal, almost all marketers are having to do more to achieve the same or even less results as they saw the year before.

Any marketing / PR / advertising person that doesn’t tell you this upfront isn’t necessarily lying, but they’re not telling you everything they know either.

San Diego’s Top PR firm for national results, http://www.prweb.com/releases/2015/12/prweb13112332.htm, San Diego Public Relations, San Diego Social Media, 4629 Cass St, Suite 120, San Diego, CA 92109 “San Diego PR” “San Diego Public Relations” https://plus.google.com/+RemedyprSandiego A leading public relations (PR) agency in San Diego,, event marketing, action sports and finance, San Diego Public Relations Agency, Action Sports PR, San Diego Social Media Agency, San Diego Event Marketing Agency, Social Media Marketing Agency, Craft Beer PR, PR, Public Relations, Social Media San Diego, Social Media Marketing Agency San Diego, Public Relations San Diego, PR Firm San Diego, a leading public relations agency in San Diego, specializing in social media marketing, event marketing, and digital publicity.  PR for Tech, experts, craft beer, action sports, finance, consumer tech, bluetooth, beer, consumer goods, b2b, green, eco-friendly, craft beer PR, action sports PR, finance PR, consumer tech PR, bluetooth PR, beer PR , consumer PR, b2b PR, green PR, eco-friendly PR, real estate PR, Experts, craft beer marketing, action sports marketing, finance marketing, consumer tech marketing, bluetooth marketing, beer marketing , consumer marketing, b2b marketing, green marketing, eco-friendly marketing, real estate marketing, action sports PR, action sports marketing, best PR san diego, https://www.malakye.com/Features/IndustryNews/8919/BZ-Remedy-Communications-Offers-Free-PR-Checkup-For-Acti.aspx, san diego best PR, san diego social media, san diego lifestyle PR, san diego bar PR, san diego restaurant PR, san diego restaurant social media, restaurant social media. https://instagram.com/remedy_pr/ San Diego Public Relations. San Diego’s Best Public Relations Consultants – Honesty results in public relations.  bestprsandiego.com jpublicrelations, besocialpr, leaders in PR for action sports beer social media san diego, healthcare marketing, crossfit marketing, sports marketing, crossfit PR, crossfit social media, PR experts, social media experts san diego, san diego PR experts. San Diego Public relations and social media. Experts in public relations based in San Diego. Bar public relations. Beer public relations.

Marketing Makes Beer Taste Better

We're going to see a bubble burst in the craft beer world. When? We're not sure. But we're sure it's going to happen.

Much like dot-coms, yoga studios, snowboard and surfboard shapers, too many are springing up and there's not enough demand or differentiation for the long term.

What's going to help them succeed? Better branding, public relations and an overall excellent marketing strategy that lives outside the brewery.

In modern brewing, Saint Archer has led the charge with their marketing. Don't believe us? What do you think the apparel sales is at your local brewery? Now look at this article from Shop-Eat-Surf highlighting the sales of Saint Archer's logo sold on t-shirts and hats (btw - it helps that their apparel is quality, not the discount t-shirts many breweries sell). If you're not a subscriber of that newsletter, here's a snippet.

Some people love Saint Archer. Some don't. What they've done right, among other things, is develop a brand identity that lives beyond beer. Ask your favorite small to mid-sized brewery what their apparel sales are, in the brewery, each month.

We've worked with some of the biggest and smallest brands in the industry, including Saint Archer, June Lake Brewing, Pabst, Primo and Guinness. The one thing they all did well when we worked with them was to develop an identity that lived outside the brewery.

As of December 2015, there were nearly 600 craft breweries in California alone and 240 in the planning phases! Some will content to be small batch brew pubs, nano breweries, etc., and there's nothing wrong with that. For those looking to grow and thrive through distribution, it's going to take more than great taste to separate them from the pack.

Our most recent newsletter in The Craft Beer Attorney's B5 Newsletter hits on that. If you don't subscribe, here's a PDF of it. Double click the image if it opens too small on your screen.

Want More tips? Give us a call or drop us a line at PRCheckup@Remedypr.com.

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Social media (and public relations) are part of the marketing umbrella... in some ways they're advertising (dark posts anyone?), but if that's solely how you're treating them, you're making a huge mistake.

So we ask you, are you taking the me out of social media?

For example, do you like and share photos of others, or just your own brand? What about fans of your brand? Do you actively leave comments? Do you actively try to win over people who aren't fans of your brand? Are you being social or are you simply pushing your own agenda?

No one likes that person that only talks about themselves and this pertains to brands too. Trust us on this one!

When it comes to PR, remember, Press Releases Kill Puppy Dogs! Well, no, they don't... and while the releases are focused on your brand, think about what a journalist wants to know. After all, when it comes to public relations, what we really mean is media relations... dealing with journalists, bloggers, etc. These information gatekeepers are looking to find out if the story you want them to tell is worth telling to their audience.

Sound simple? It is. See this post for more on that topic. And the image? Wish we could take credit for it. It's from an article Bill was interviewed for by our friends at 2one5 Creative.

QR Codes, kittens, QR Codes Kill Kittens, San Diego Public Relations (PR) And Social Media”San Diego PR” https://plus.google.com/+RemedyprSandiego A leading public relations (PR) agency in San Diego, specializing in social media marketing, event marketing, action sports and finance, San Diego Public Relations Agency, Action Sports PR, San Diego Social Media Agency, San Diego Event Marketing Agency, Social Media Marketing Agency, Craft Beer PR, PR, Public Relations, Social Media San Diego, Social Media Marketing Agency San Diego, Public Relations San Diego, PR Firm San Diego, a leading public relations agency in San Diego, specializing in social media marketing, event marketing, and digital publicity. PR for Tech, experts, craft beer, action sports, finance, consumer tech, bluetooth, beer, consumer goods, b2b, green, eco-friendly, craft beer PR, action sports PR, finance PR, consumer tech PR, bluetooth PR, beer PR , consumer PR, b2b PR, green PR, eco-friendly PR, real estate PR, Experts, craft beer marketing, action sports marketing, finance marketing, consumer tech marketing, bluetooth marketing, beer marketing , consumer marketing, b2b marketing, green marketing, eco-friendly marketing, real estate marketing, action sports PR, action sports marketing, best PR san diego, san diego best PR, san diego social media, san diego lifestyle PR, san diego bar PR, san diego restaurant PR, san diego restaurant social media, restaurant social media. https://instagram.com/remedy_pr/ San Diego Public Relations. San Diego’s Best Public Relations Consultants – Honesty results in public relations. bestprsandiego.com jpublicrelations, besocialpr, leaders in PR for action sports beer social media san diego, healthcare marketing, crossfit marketing, sports marketing, crossfit PR, crossfit social media, PR experts, social media experts san diego, san diego PR experts. San Diego Public relations and social media. Experts in public relations based in San Diego. Bar public relations. Beer public relations.

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Should You Buy Followers On Instagram?

The answer really goes back to your views on advertising and how you measure success. Does being the biggest make you the best? Or is there more to it?

Long before social media and the World Wide Web were so dominant, print media was a major component in many brands’ marketing budgets. And much like Super Bowl ads, an ad in a national publication, such as USA Today, would guarantee you a lot of eyeballs.

Or would it?

We hear from colleagues all the time that “advertising does nothing” for their brand. While we thoroughly disagree with that (usually it’s bad advertising that’s to blame, or the lack of time/energy/ability it takes to measure awareness and results), we understand where they’re coming from. They bought an ad, people supposedly saw it and nothing happened.

USA Today's circulation is roughly 3 million (http://www.usatoday.com/about/). That’s a lot of eyeballs.

Or is it?

From Forbes a few years ago:

How many times have you left your hotel room and even looked at the free paper left there?

We are not criticizing USA Today, but we’re bringing this up to set the stage for our point that metrics such as circulation maybe aren’t always as valuable as things such as engagement or particular demographic information.

Here’s an example we can call upon from our own experience with PR and editorial.

In April we a financial client in the New York Times on some changes that were going to happen that would affect home buyers. Big news and a great piece. Did that correlate to more phone calls for the client? Hard to say, there wasn’t a real call to action there since the changes are months away. But people saw it, we’re sure of that. How many? No idea.

Back in January, the same client was also featured in a regional newspaper for another, a more consumer oriented story, in a newspaper about five times smaller than the New York Times. About two months later, a regional associate in that market received a phone call from a customer regarding a very large deal.

By no means are we saying we should never call the Times again to pitch a story, but it’s interesting to see what measurably moved the needle for the client. Keep“measurably” in mind.

Ok, back to Instagram. Should you buy followers? It really depends on your goals.

On social media, there’s followers and then there’s engaged followers.

Eyeballs are nice, but eyeballs that care about your brand and are incentivized to act nicer.

Many marketing departments judge success based on impressions. Buying an ad in USA Today, while more expensive than a regional newspaper, will probably get you more impressions to show to the higher ups. That doesn’t necessarily correlate to actions, awareness and what most brands really want… sales.

Buying followers on Instagram can make your brand look more popular than it is and as a result cause others to consider it to be somewhat important, which may cause others to follow and hopefully, engage with you.

However, we have to strongly recommend judging the success of a social media campaign strictly on the growth of followers alone. If that’s your criteria for judging success, then you’re driving down the wrong street.

What’s the best way to grow your presence on social media? Advertising can help you get fans (again, advertising works, if it’s the right kind), but above all, you need to have great content that people actually want to engage with and share with their network.

All it takes is strategic thinking and typically, a great deal of effort. This is why companies have social media managers with decades+ years of experience in strategic marketing and, unfortunately, why sometimes our proposals for social media programs are as much or more than in fee than our traditional PR proposals.

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Public Relations (aka PR or really, media relations if you want to be truthful in what most PR people people do) is continually ranked as one of the most stressful career choices in the U.S. Why is that?

We can think of a few reasons, the majority of which stem from a lack of understanding by many in terms of what we as PR people do. Here's the main one:

Your PR team cannot guarantee you editorial coverage.

The modern media relations pro is competing against more and more people for the attention of fewer journalists. Relationships and so-called "lists" help, but only somewhat. And unfortunately, those "lists" can be purchased, which leads more PR "pros" spamming journalists with off-base pitches that clog their inboxes and flood their voicemail systems. For example Susan Adams at Forbes has gone on record as saying:

The media landscape is constantly changing. What worked last year may not work next week. Even the online media world is changing. Some digital outlets will turn stories around in hours, some in months. We're also seeing that trade media, which typically did have the time and space for industry related announcements, are becoming overwhelmed.

Unfortunately, when it comes to brands spending on PR, it's hard to gauge the value of something that isn't guaranteed to work versus advertising, which at the least, you are guaranteed to see and/or feel (Note: We LOVE advertising, but the purchase of an ad doesn't guarantee anything other than the visibility of the ad itself."

On top of that, many of the brands we approach to partner with tell us they've had PR teams in the past, but they failed to deliver. Did they? Possibly. What we usually hear and see is that these PR teams showcase some really great case studies, but neglect to tell their clients that these results just don't happen overnight or for every client they work with.

So what's the solution?

We need to be honest with our clients and with ourselves.

We, as PR people, need to educate clients on not just the value of PR, but also how the PR world works. We can no more guarantee editorial coverage than you can guarantee a print ad will move the needle on your objective. As a whole, the PR industry has to do a better job explaining to clients the nature of what we do and how the media operates.

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