PR and ROI–Two Old Acronyms with Two New Meanings

By Carl Woolston • April 16th, 2009 • Email This Post • Print This Post

This is a tale of two acronyms and how they’ve changed. In a time where costs could be measured to the penny and big advertising budgets ruled the day, companies measured their effectiveness and success in many ways. Two of the most popular acronyms were PR and ROI. PR stood for Public Relations and ROI meant Return on Investment.

These two old acronyms have two new meanings, largely because the way we communicate has radically changed. The way that we all get information has drastically shifted. The downward spiral in newspaper subscriptions makes a great case in point. Far fewer consumers get their information from the newspaper (delivered to your home) than in past years.

How do you get your news today compared to your parents? In almost every case, it’s dramatically different. Today we go to e-mails, websites, RSS readers, and blogs for the news we want, customized when and how we want it.

Marketing tries to catch the eye of the consumer and because they are not looking for their information in the old channels and are increasingly leveraging the web, advertisers and business are desperately trying to get their attention in any way possible. One example of this is click through advertising on the web. Have you seen those annoying ads in hotmail or the pop ups at certain sites? The problem is that all of these advertising methods are simply not enough!

What does this have to do with our two words, PR and ROI. Let’s talk about ROI first. ROI used to be a calculation based on dollars invested into marketing, and what kind of return that would have in terms of sales. You could compare marketing campaign to marketing campaign and figure out your best strategies for profit. While this has not gone away completely, the internet has changed the game. You can no longer just put dollars into ads and expect to measure your return on investment.

It takes much more than ads to get customers in today’s marketplace. Because of this shift in business, a new way of interacting with customers is needed (we call it Hub Mentality). Instead of just transacting a sale your business needs to interact with and establish relationships with your database. ROI has shifted from Return on Investment to Return on Influence.

The PR (Public Relations) world has radically shifted as well from formal press releases and media coverage to public opinion found on the web. No longer can you hide manipulating business practices and bad products from your customers. They can simply Google your brand and products and see what the entire web world has to say about you. And the scary thing is, they often will trust the third party opinions of strangers on the web, rather than you, your website, and sales people.

How to you do your public relations then? It is by starting to see your customer as a real person. PR now stands for Personal Relationship instead of Public Relations. If you develop and interact with your customers and see them as real people, that will be your brand on the web. They will see and hear your authentic reputation on the web and want to do business with you.

What a change the internet and communication has made. The world is shifting from Return on Investment to Return on Influence and from Public Relations to Personal Relationships.

Will you make the change and survive?

Photo Credit by cambodia4kidsorg

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Carl Woolston is a business and marketing consultant with KGaps Consulting, a co-creator of the proprietary marketing methodology “Hub Mentality,”, and a co-founder of The Center for Social Leadership.