HOW PR SUPPORTS SALES

By Jessica Annaloro

Your public relations campaign should be built around supporting and increasing your sales. A good PR person will tell you, "consistent messaging in the media is key," but that "consistent messaging" needs to be concurrent with your company's overall marketing objectives. As the client, you should be asking how PR will support your company's sales and marketing goals.

Your public relations team, whether it is a PR firm or an internal communications person, should be working directly with your sales and marketing team. Both teams should be aware of each other's efforts and achievements in order to be the most effective in increasing awareness and sales. It is imperative that all teams tell the same message and story to your customers throughout all activities and materials.

PR is a very effective tool, when used correctly. There are many activities that can be implemented in order to increase your company's visibility and product that also works directly for your sales and marketing. Media placements, case studies and bylined articles can be reprinted and used in sales kits and circulated to your customers and potential customers from your sales team. This shows the credibility of your company and product from a journalistic standpoint.

Trade shows are an effective way for your public relations efforts and sales techniques to converge. Major company announcements and mailings should be timed around your trade show appearances. Speaking opportunities can be setup for your key management at trade shows and journalists attending the shows should be informed of these speaking opportunities and offered a meeting time at the show to talk with key management. This not only allows you to penetrate key markets but also gets your company in front of key decision-makers and potential customers.

Your public relations efforts should always work in conjunction with your sales strategy. Briefing industry analysts and gaining inclusion in analyst reports is a way to gain recognition and credibility with customers. Providing media placements, sending company news in the form of press releases and case studies to analysts are ways to get noticed by these key analysts.

An example of how PR supported sales occurred with Eiler client CFI Group. CFI Group's worldwide consulting practice leverages the company’s Customer Asset Management (CAM) measurement system to identify product and service quality improvements that provide the greatest return on investment for its clients. CFI surveyed InterFirst Wholesale Mortgage brokers to gauge satisfaction with the company and its products. Eiler announced the finding of the survey and got placements in all major mortgage finance publications including Mortgage Banking Magazine, National Mortgage News, American Banker and Origination News.

"CFI was moving into the vertical market of financial services and needed a way to get in front of key decision makers in this industry," said David Ham, director of marketing for CFI Group. "By aligning ourselves with an industry leader like InterFirst and showing our capabilities through media placements, CFI was able to demonstrate its expertise to target customers in its sales efforts."

To align your marketing and sales efforts with your PR efforts, regular meetings should take place between the two teams to make sure the same strategy is being followed and the overall goal is being achieved. Combined efforts that work in conjunction with each other as well as key messaging will ensure successful sales and company growth.

THE VALUE OF INTERNSHIPS

By Nichole Aro and Kajsa Wieslander

New ideas from fresh faces, fresh eyes, open minds and contagious enthusiasm.

How do internships add value?

Internships can create value in several ways:

• For the education of the intern
• For the shared benefit of instructors and classmates upon return
• For the firm, the project team and the firm's clients.

Today, most workplaces require more than just a degree. They require a package of skills. Most of these skills can be attained or improved by participating in an internship. An internship is a way to learn more about a major that one is uncertain of, to explore and gain experience in a particular career field, to gain real-life experience and as a way to decide on or opt out for a certain job.

Today's market is very competitive and an internship can provide many opportunities. Students that have an internship experience on their resume will stand out from their non-interning peers. They have been exposed to professional judgments, debates over best solutions for client's needs, time-management skills and professional relations. As a result they have knowledge of employer expectations and are more likely to fit into a "real workplace."

Internships can be an effective way to recruit new college graduates. An internship can give employers the opportunity to test the waters and to see how well the intern fits with the culture of the company.

The internship experience with Eiler Communications helped us develop real life business skills that we could not have learned in a classroom. Work experience combined with a degree helped us gain confidence to succeed in other endeavors. Given these opportunities, we were able to get our "feet wet" in all aspects of public relations and make important career choices.

As interns, we were able to meet new challenges, acquire new skills and knowledge, and network with various professionals. We came to understand workplace issues such as teamwork, individual responsibility, time management and professionalism.

Interns are in a constant learning mode and like to absorb new information and knowledge. At Eiler, we were encouraged to approach any of our peers if we had an idea or wanted to explore a new aspect of PR.

We were given lots of hands-on experience, not the typical making copies and fetching coffee. We assisted with research for clients, writing press releases, researching editorial opportunities, developing media lists, making clips and learned how to pitch stories to the media. As a result, we were able to greatly improve our professional skills. We learned more about ourselves and what is required of us in the "real world." We can now take it to the next level to more challenging experiences.

Many people have no clue about PR or its value.

It is very simple: "We Help You Sell."

Nothing ever starts in any business without a sale. If you have no sales, you have no business.

PR is the discipline that helps you position your business by targeting the right audiences (companies and people), creating the right messages and then telling the right people what you offer.

It does not involve the high cost of advertising or other print promotions. It has the third-party (media) credibility that enhances a company's or product’s reputation and awareness.

It is a function not top of mind for many corporate executives, especially in early stage companies.

But the fact of the matter is this:

You will never get that software or product to market if you ignore some basic questions such as:

• Who will buy what you have to offer?
• Why will they buy it?
• How is it different from other solutions to the same problem a prospective customer has?
• Why is your solution better than competitive ones?

To do this, you need to create a positioning statement and this can be done through a specific formula we developed that identifies target markets, companies and people; that differentiates your offering; that creates a buzz about what you do.

Here is how our work has helped some clients.

PR Bolsters Sales

"We used PR and placed stories in various national and regional trade, business and technology media to build the Clarity Technologies, Inc. name and tell prospective customers and partners about the business and products,” explains Ray Gunn, managing partner of Wingspan Consulting and former chief executive of Clarity.

"We found over five years that this was the best way to build awareness and interest in our company and our solutions to help eliminate noise and feedback in audio systems. Stories in a variety of media created a strong impression of our business and capabilities and helped us to get meetings with people and prospects that would not have occurred otherwise.

"Eiler was instrumental in this effort and its deep contacts with editors and writers in target media outlets helped immensely as we grew our business to the point where interest came from outside parties, and one of them ended up acquiring the business."

Driving Sales in a New Market

Knight's is a premier steak house in Ann Arbor that nightly attracts several hundred patrons. It opened a new restaurant in Jackson, some 40 miles to the west, four years ago, but business was not as brisk as the Ann Arbor site, and "we were not serving anywhere near the capacity of dinners or lunches we could serve in a day." says Don Knight, co-general manager with his sister Sherry Bedola. "Sales were not increasing in our Jackson restaurant as we planned."

"We engaged Eiler to help build greater awareness, overcome the fact that our site was south of the city of Jackson and help to build clientele. They organized some interviews on radio and with newspapers and came up with innovative ideas for other marketing activities to attract patrons.

"In several months, we did a number of marketing activities to become more engaged in the community. This included hosting special events, holding specific ethnic dinners, featuring new menu items, participating with area civic and fraternal organizations and just spreading the word about our great steak house among the community."

"It worked. Sales moved up 17 percent, we now have a steady flow of more regular customers as well as many more special events," explained Knight.

Contact us (734) 761-3399 to see how we might help build your sales. E-mail sandy@eilerpr.com

"We Help You Sell"

We specialize in building awareness for names of companies, products, markets.

The most common question we get is:

"How can what you do help us get more customers?"

We have helped a number of clients do just that: find new markets, introduce new products, find new customers.

We do it by pinpointing audiences through database marketing, crafting innovative, focused messages and using communications in media that reach the proper people over the Internet or in relevant vertical markets.

We call it sales relations.

There is an identifiable infrastructure of people for every company, every product, every market.

We are expert at discovering who these people are and building compelling messages that will generate their interest.

"We Help You Sell"

Press experts. Training for speakers. Analyst relations. Survey expertise.

NEW FRIEND JOINS THE EILER TEAM

Eiler Communications welcomes Murphy, a five month old golden retriever, to the team. Murphy replaces Riley's late brother, Chandler. Murphy specializes in fetching tennis balls, chewing on shoelaces and other assorted items, as well as digging up outdoor light fixtures. "Murphy has an enthusiasm, energy and overall gusto that is highly contagious," said Sandy Eiler, founder, president and COO of Eiler Communications. "He is truly a valued addition to the team." For his part, Murphy looks forward to meeting clients and visitors, even our neighborhood letter carrier, in the future.