Importance of Maintaining PR through a Recession
Don’t Cut your PR Budgets in a Recession: “If I were down to my last $1, I would spend it on PR. Bill Gates, Microsoft founder.
It’s common knowledge that during a recession, businesses that succeed are the ones who don’t cut their PR, advertising & marketing budgets. Therefore this is the perfect time to rise above your competitors.
The danger, in a PR context, for businesses in a recession is that most tend to withdraw, and stop communicating with the outside world. All that happens then is that the outside world stops talking about you.
All dialogue can be then lost with the specific markets and communities in which the business operates and the company’s brand and status is therefore weakened. Unfortunately cutting PR budgets, is a natural response. And unfortunately most of our clients seem to be doing just this.
In better times businesses know that PR is no longer a luxury item but it’s a necessity. This doesn’t change when times are bad. In actual fact PR becomes much more important than ever before. If you start reducing your PR spend, you begin to create a problem that will come back to haunt you for months and years ahead. This problem can usually be very hard & expensive to rectify.
On a positive note during this current economical climate, most PR / Communications Companies and also PR photography companies like ourselves are more than willing to negotiate discounted rates with our clients. It’s also worth bearing in mind that you will also find Web Site Design & SEO companies willing to reduce their prices, giving you the opportunity to promote your web presence more cost effectively. I recently paid a company around £250 for some work on my web site recently is already reaping rewards. It’s also the best time to negotiate Advertising fees with Newspapers, Magazines & Television companies.
Just remember that when we do start turning the corner and heading out of these bad economical times, which we will, it’s the businesses that have spent more on PR that people will be going to first because of their ongoing PR & communications strategies.
Another point worth thinking about is that most of the news we see & read is so depressing. Contrary to what most people believe people are always interested in more positive stories. Every Company has plenty of these so use this to your advantage. Most companies don’t realise they could be getting press coverage almost once a week if they have a good relationship with a good PR company.
Never underestimate the power of PR.
