A recent enewsletter from Marcus Sheridan, author, blogger and founder of
The Sales Lion brand, urged readers to "take a stand." He meant find something you believe is really wrong with your industry and write about it as a way of showing a deep and unique concern for your clients.
From my perspective, one of the biggest problems
public relations faces is we often fall short in our efforts to make a strong case for the big risks inherent in our work. How can we better lobby for such risk-taking?
The inspiration for my incipient solution comes from the book, "
Adapt: Why Success Always Starts with Failure" a new recipe for business success in today's complex, globally connected economy by Tim Harford. He advocates for an approach based on principles first articulated by the
Russian engineer Peter Palchinsky: Constantly experiment, design your new initiatives so that if they fail you'll survive (don't bet the ranch, in other words) and unflinchingly analyze the results, good and bad.
Compared to other forms of marketing, PR is still reasonably priced. As well, really terrific, substantive PR campaigns can revolve around just one story, or theme, told at a time.
Perhaps more organizations will therefore see it as a practical way to increase the number of intelligent marketing risks they take, thereby improving their odds of survival over time, as well as fundamental to their dialogue with customers. Focus groups are great, but nothing beats the spontaneous feedback you get from "the real world."