The new reality in business is bold, stark and contrary to what we have experienced previously. It’s also exactly why your PR department (or the local PR agency) is about to get really busy.
Unless you have not been listening, large business is changing radically. Gone are the days when profit was king. Today, all that matters is growth and vision.
But don’t take it from me – read a recent insight from McKinsey & Company, Invest, Create, Perform: Mastering the three dimensions of growth in the digital age that starts off by pointing out that, “almost half of the 100 largest companies on the New York Stock Exchange 30 years ago that enjoyed strong shareholder returns but did not post top-line growth had been acquired or delisted 20 years later.”
For a more entertaining view of the same facts, you should watch Scott Galloway’s talk on How Amazon is Dismantling Retail.
The take away is that large business now – if it is to survive – needs to concentrate on growth (even at the cost of no profit / breakeven) and promote vision.
So, the question is, if you move away from advertising (that can be used, oh so successfully, to bring sales at a measurable ROI), what marketing tools are at your disposal for growth and vision?
The answer is, well many, but the most effective and efficient is media relations.
Without any doubt, if you want to promote the vision of a product, company or brand, you have to turn to media relations.
Media relations boosts an organization's vision and credibility, because it'll operate through numerous trusted intermediaries. Plus, these intermediaries communicate to a certain audience which looks to them to filter out all noise. If messages are chosen to be communicated, they'll gain credibility due to the intermediaries' credibility.
Potential consumers and investors are far more influenced by people they trust—and that includes not only their real-world friends but also journalists and bloggers whose voices and opinions they know and trust.
There simply is no other marketing dollar that is more effective for promoting vision.
And that’s the simple reason why public relations will be a growing industry in the years ahead as smart businesses begin to understand how to survive and prosper. I mean, who wants to be delisted?