PR is like Sales

So I know my friends and readers in PR will likely be offended by the title of the post and may not agree with what I’m about to write but please read it and then tell me if you think I’m off my rocker in the comments below. In this post, I want to explore whether PR and Sales have more in common than anyone cares to admit and if you think of PR as a sales process then it may help you better reach your goals.

One of the goals of PR is to generate coverage for your product or service whereas the goal for sales is to sell more of your product or service. These goals are similar in that you need to convince someone to do something - buy or write about - your product or service and the more sales or coverage you get, the better. But it's not the similarities of the goals that I want to focus on.

I want to look at the process you follow to get the sale or obtain coverage. Well, first off, you need to generate interest in your product or service and stand out from other companies trying to do the same thing. Your prospects and editors both receive hundreds of requests for briefings or pitches about new and exciting products or services. Why do they want to hear more about yours?

To get their attention, you need to be different and stand out from the crowd. You need to clearly explain how you solve the problems faced by other companies so that the editor will write about you or the prospect will consider buying you. Clearly communicating your value proposition may get you the meeting but it won’t get the close.

In that meeting, whether it’s a PR briefing or Sales meeting, you need to explain your product in more detail and answer questions about how you are better than your competitors. In both cases, you may also give a demo of your product to show it’s real as both editors and prospects have been burned by vaporware in the past. Do they sound similar yet?

If there’s interest in this meeting, then you need to convince the editor that your story is more important than others they are working on and in the case of sales you need to convince them that your product is more important to spend money on than other priorities. This process may involved sending more information, answering additional questions, providing references, etc.

Throughout this process you are trying to build a relationship with the editor or prospect by establishing credibility so they trust what you are saying about your product or service. These relationships are crucial to both PR and Sales. In the end, if you’re successful, then you will get the sale or secure the story and reach your goal.

I’ve been asked numerous times in my career, why we didn’t get coverage from a certain publication or why we didn’t get a briefing with a certain editors after the first attempt. I always ask if they expect the sales guy to come back with a deal each and every time. More often than not they understand this reference because these processes are similar and this analogy works.

We talk about a sales funnel when it comes to closing deals so if this parallel is true then is there a PR funnel too? Does this analogy hold true? Let me know if you agree or disagree.

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