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What could you learn from Bill Gates about PR?

PR equals sales and companies must use their resources to gain profits. Tracking PR for accounting purposes is a science. Tracking and analyzing your marketing efforts will allow you to see the impact to profit. Be smart with your marketing and PR to document the strategies and profitable impact to the company.

The usual result of a cut in PR is a drop in sales and sales leads which can make a company practically invisible to consumers and business-to-business customers. These PR efforts give your company a bigger name and the opportunity for everyone to know your name. Search engines reach potential new clients worldwide. When you cut the PR budget along with the advertising budget, it's like tossing the baby, the bathwater and the bathtub.

PR also means networking and reaching out to everyone who is reading, listening and on the internet to let them know who you are and what you do. To increase that value, there are a number of 'performance-based' PR agencies that mitigate the risk of their clients and only get paid when they deliver solid placements. You never have a guarantee with a retainer-based PR firm. With retainer-based firms, you're paying more for their time than for the press you were looking for. You pay for the print, radio and local and national TV exposure. They are unlike retainer-based firms who track and bill for every hour of their time.

The soul of advertising is repetition - which generally cost into the tens of thousands to run an effective campaign. The heart of PR is that clients will likely pay one-tenth or less of the cost of an advertising campaign.

Your name can be printed free in national magazines, you can be interviewed on radio or appear on national TV. Are you a financial guru? Appear on a national TV interview. This means that readers and viewers respect the placements more than advertising because they carry the tacit credibility of the outlets that carry them. If the editors of these outlets deem the company or client worthy of news coverage, then there must be something special about them.

Gates was one of the few software geniuses of his era who also understood the differences between advertising and public relations, and was able to maximize both to his company's favor. But with performance-based PR agencies, companies don't need a Gates-sized bankroll to capitalize on the power of PR. You can start with a performance-based firm for about $3,500 for a standard national radio campaign.

At the end of the day, companies can't survive the lean times without a steady stream of customers coming to their doorsteps, and PR can deliver them without busting the bank.