Public relations is not advertising.
Public relations is not advertising.
We don't chain smoke in our office and carry on affairs with our secretaries while trying to come up with the next great product jingle to stick in America's collective consciousness.
We didn't come up with that idea to insert a Saturday Night Live skit into a Pepsi commercial so that you, the viewer, would be tricked into thinking you were watching the show.
And we certainly don't pay newspapers to run our content, although, I suppose that would greatly increase our success rate.
PR is none of the above.
Yet, as I meet people with whom I have worked for in the past, I'm amazed how many of them don't understand what I do. And these people devote part of their budget to public relations!
Case in point: I met a guy at an event late last year who was part of a group that had been somewhat disappointed with the results of our efforts around one of their initiatives a few years back.
When I introduced myself and mentioned who I worked for, he replied, "Oh, yeah. The advertising guys."
(If that was a scene from a movie, the screenwriter would've undoubtedly called for the insertion of a screeching record at that precise moment. But since it happened in real life, the sound played only in my head. The event attendees went about their normal business, unbeknownst to the travesty occurring at that very moment.)
Advertising?!
I stood there, neutral facial expression, dumbfounded that he had so flippantly lumped me in with that group.
But after doing my best statue imitation for two minutes, I realized that this was precisely why they were less-than impressed.
Their expectations were off.
While it's important to uncover new business opportunities and sign new clients, it's even more important to properly educate them. If they have unrealistic expectations going in, there's no chance in hell you're going to satisfy them, short of a front page feature in the Wall Street Journal.
But if you take the time to properly set expectations to a level that is both attainable and fruitful, not only will your client be thrilled when you surpass their metrics, but they won't mistake what you do with the careers of a group of fictional characters on a television show.
