Is now a bad time to tell you that your marketing decisions might be losing you money?
Research shows that PR generates an ROI that is x9 times greater than advertising. So, why do most businesses allocate most of their marketing budgets to advertising instead? The answer is simple: habit.
As we head towards the end of 2024, most if not all marketers will be reviewing the success of their promotional strategy over the last 12 months and planning for the year ahead. The question we’re asking them to consider is this: Will you be looking to rinse and repeat, or is it time to rethink how you budget is being spent in a way that will deliver a greater ROI?
A recent report found that marketers’ top priority is lead generation followed by client retention and brand awareness. Shockingly, most are investing heavily in advertising over PR – despite evidence that PR generates 9x higher ROI (source: Nielsen).
But here’s the mind-blowing part – while UK businesses are spending £36 billion a year on advertising, they’re only allocating £4-5 billion to PR.
So why do marketers cling to habits that are hurting marketing performance by defaulting to investing more of their precious budgets on advertising when the evidence clearly (no pun intended) shows that PR delivers a far superior ROI?
The answer may lie in human behaviour and the habits we’ve formed around measurement. Advertising is easy to track with clicks and conversions. PR has traditionally been tougher to quantify. That is a challenge the PR industry has long faced, but it is one that can very easily be overcome with metrics such as:
- Media mentions
- Audience reach
- Brand authority
- Traffic volumes
- Requests for information
- Incoming leads and enquiries, and
- Sales consolidation
The latter may not be a familiar term so its worth a quick mention on what it means. Simply put, this is what happens when a prospect becomes a client and says during the sales process “I saw you guys mentioned in…” PR is what tips the balance in your favour and influences your buyer’s decision making.
Unlike PR, advertising is easy to measure and control – the data is providing in real-time and the more you pay the bigger the audience you are able to get in front of. It is rather straightforward and very transactional.
Flip to PR, and things are a little different. PR garners earned attention through compelling stories. Attention is earned rather than paid for and the size of the audience reached is determined by the strength of that story not your budget. A single story can appear in a single publication, or it can picked up by many more as this incredible case study shows.
When growth is the priority, it’s time to rethink outdated marketing habits. PR delivers far greater bang for your buck – are you leaving money on the table?
If the top priority for marketers is lead generation, followed by client retention and brand awareness yet the methods they’re using may be holding them back from achieving those goals, it’s time to rethink outdated marketing habits.
