|

Author:
Joey Amato

Four Reasons Why Every Speaker Should Hire a PR Firm

How many speakers do you know who have engaged the services of a public relations firm? Chances are you may not know many. What professional speakers don’t realize is that hiring a public relations company can become extremely beneficial and can produce a surprisingly high return on investment. The amount of revenue which can be generated as a result of the activities of a public relations firm can easily outweigh that of advertising. Why? Because public relations is more reputable than traditional advertising. A consumer is more likely to purchase a product or service because they read a third party revue, not because they saw an advertisement. When a consumer reads a review, it is normally unbiased and comes from a trustworthy source.

Furthermore, public relations is less expensive than advertising. The cost of sending a press release to a magazine editor is a lot less than creating a direct mail campaign or purchasing a display advertisement in a trade publication. Some people are notorious for developing elaborate direct mail campaigns, only to experience minimal results. Public relations is a far better way to spend your hard earned money, especially when some of your competitors could afford to spend a lot more than you can, but the difference is, you will see results!

Create Your Brand
There are many benefits of public relations campaigns, the first being branding. Speakers need to think of themselves as brands. Donald Trump is a brand. George Foreman is a brand. Paris Hilton is a brand. They became brands because they were in the public eye for an extended period of time and they became household names. Sure, it helps to have a successful boxing career or be the heir to a multi-million dollar fortune, but younger speakers can use public relations to begin branding themselves. Think of yourself as a corporation. Your corporation would hire a public relations firm to inform the public of their existence. This process is the same for speakers, authors, and celebrities. Branding is one of the most important aspects of marketing and proper public relations can be the first step to creating a successful brand.

Increase Your Fee
Once you begin developing your brand as a speaker, you will become more known in your industry and will soon be referred to as an expert. At this point, it is now appropriate to raise your speaking fee. Many speakers decide to raise their fee because they feel like they deserve more, but if you brand yourself successfully, you can raise your fee because you are worth more. Donald Trump was recently paid a hefty fee for a two-hour lecture in New York City. He was able to command such a high fee because he is a brand and an expert in his field. There are many real estate and entrepreneurial experts who can probably give the same caliber speech as “The Donald”, but they can’t command a high fee because they are not as well-known.

Sell More Product
Another advantage of public relations is to help sell products. Many speakers are also authors who have published one or more books. Getting your name into the media will generate sales of your products. If a consumer reads an article about a certain topic and then learns that the expert has also written a book about the topic, chances are, the consumer will rush to the nearest book store to purchase the book. Don’t think that this only applies to books. George Foreman wasn’t selling books, he was selling grills, and although he was known for selling through his infomercials, one of the reasons he was able to sell so many is because the product was reviewed in the press and was given a very high rating and was considered an upscale product.

Have People Call You
When you are new to the business of professional speaking, it is very difficult to acquire speaking engagements. After about a year of public relations, you will be surprised to see that people will be calling you and asking you to speak at an event, rather than the other way around. I know people who cold call 25-30 corporations per day asking them to be booked at their next conference and I explain to them how great it would feel if they can stop initiating the call. Instead of spending numerous hours trying to convince event planners that you are the right person for their engagement, why not have event planners call you.

So now hopefully you are convinced that is necessary to develop a strategic public relations campaign if your goal is to become a top-rated speaker. There are thousands of people vying for the same positions, so it is essential that you set yourself apart from the crowd. Before contacting an agency, develop a clear set of goals and objectives and make sure the firm has a comprehensive understanding of them. Create the Buzz!

Joey Amato is a public relations expert with over 8 years of experience. He has held positions at Fortune 500 companies including Sony and Clear Channel and is currently the President of ViPR Media, a company which he founded in 2005. He has experience in many international markets including England, Canada and Germany. ViPR Media specializes in obtaining public relations for corporations as well as speakers and authors. For more information, please visit http://www.viprmedia or contact Joey at 407-496-8751.

| Article Keywords: Professional Speaker

A Quick Note From The Publisher... If you like the article above, you may be interested in the following article which is also related to Professional Speaker... Speakers: Are You Struggling to Find a Good Speaker for Your School/Conference? Staff training that is really meaningful and has high impact can be difficult to achieve The sorts of issues that keep coming up in schools such as behaviour management, inclusion, differentiation and so on are issues that have been around forever ... but often under different labels. Nevertheless, it remains as important as ever to get fresh ideas and new ways of tackling old problems. The big education shows There are many different ways in which schools can manage their staff training days. Some take advantage of the large exhibition/conference type events like the Education Show or Special Needs London where they can attend the exhibition for free and then pay for the seminars they wish to attend. This is very cost-effective, but there is the difficulty (and added expense) of taking staff out of school and paying for cover. Small, one-day, topic-focused events Organisations such as Afasic, the National Autistic Society, NASEN, NDNA put on half and one-day events dealing with specific topics such as speech and language difficulties, Asperger's syndrome, inclusion, making 'Birth to three matters' work for you, education in the early years and so on. These are usually held in hotels or teachers' centres, are quite intensive and can be good value for money. Some also have follow-up sessions (often twilight) that teachers find very useful. Cluster groups Not so long ago, training in cluster groups became popular in some areas. This involves a cluster of schools in an area getting together and organising a training event for all staff in three or four schools. Costs and organisation are shared and where they do follow this practice, it seems to work very well. Which makes it very surprising that it's not followed more widely. In a slightly different...