The Legend of Bill Gates the MS billionaire includes his advice to aspiring entrepreneurs about the power of PR. Bill said that if he only had one dollar to spend on promoting his business he’d “spend it on PR”. We’re not too sure what PR he’d buy for a dollar – or a pound even – but we know Mr Gates is right. Good PR achieves increased sales, greater brand awareness and many ongoing benefits. What is more, the pro rata costs of PR are less than other marketing spends.

In the current economic climate, where it is imperative to maximise return on investment (ROI) companies can ill afford to stop marketing, to stop reaching prospective new clients or competing with other companies ready to take their market share. One way of achieving this in a stroke is by switching a company’s magazine advertising budget into PR. This is twice as effective for companies who already have good online presence.

Consider this:

The cost of a prominent double page spread advertisement in a quality national magazine is at least £20 per 1,000 distribution. Typically distributions are circa 100,000, so a series of 4 adverts in the same quarterly publication will cost (give or take) £8,000 per year + creative costs. What could a good PR Agency do with that?

Although it is very difficult to quantify the additional coverage achieved by switching magazine advertising spend to PR spend – any PR Agency that can’t achieve a wider coverage than the example above is not worth considering. The best can treble that and more. In addition good PR has greater impact than passive magazine advertising. Good PR grabs magazine editorial, product placement, newspaper items, radio and television appearance and, because it’s not limited to one medium and can be extremely web friendly, it transcends all borders.

Consider this:

In 2004 Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery commissioned a talented writer with excellent PR skills to write, produce and promote an educational comedy for a family audience. The writer/producer was paid approximately £3000 and of that paid for the services of a very talented actor working for mates rates – £1000.

The show took place in a small adjacent gallery and was judged to be a great success. 9 performances over 3 days increased gallery attendance by an estimated 319%. All but a few stayed until the end and longer. Of these (exactly as the remit aimed for) at least 90% of visitors were first time Art Gallery visitors.

The PR for this show hinged on an excellent press release. Although it just missed getting on Richard and Judy (just!) it led to quality articles in local papers, estimated at 95,000 distribution, half a page with photos in The Birmingham Post (the city’s wide sheet), an appearance on BBC Radio WM (15 minutes drive time) interviewed by Sally (Tiswas!”) James and 30 minutes on Radio Saga. This is an example of good PR.

The press release which achieved the above was entitled “Smelly Archaeological Find Discovered in Art Gallery”. It built on an educational theme of the show – which was performed around an exhibition of Art which included a Henry Moore sculpture and a Grayson Perry pot in The Waterhall Gallery of Modern Art – the history of Birmingham’s water supply. The photo opportunities used the “smelly find” as a prop. The find was a glass of water purporting to be from 1817. Made from Symmington’s Pea Soup with a sprinkling of Twiglet croutons – this cheap device enticed more children than the gallery expected as, when it was announced that the actor was going to have to taste it.

Find out what your company could achieve by switching its magazine advertising spend to PR spend. If you want more information go to http://individualopportunity.co.uk and request it there. Give them some details about the budget available and tell them the pertinent facts about your company’s products and/or services or your organisation’s mission. Ask what could be done with X amount of money for product X

…If Bill Gates is reading this or you know him, tell him his budget for effective PR will be far in excess of a dollar (or even a pound) but any spend is better made on PR than magazine advertising!