Nearly 100 technology industry insiders attended MonsterBuzz 2001 on March 20 at the historic Memorial Marines' Club & Hotel at Union Square. Freelance writer Colin
Berry reports the conference buzz from tech journalists and industry leaders .
SAN FRANCISCO -- Start-ups and mid-sized companies that want to maximize their PR budgets should firm up their strategic goals and stick to previously-set milestones, advise
two Silicon Valley executives with long resumes of marcom expertise. Addressing 85 PR specialists and company executives who attended MonsterBuzz 2001, the pair offered solid
advice to an industry that, given current market conditions, feels more than a little shaky.
Jeff Ubois, co-founder of Disappearing Inc., provided a checklist that dot-coms (and not-coms) should consider before hiring outside PR counsel: Before you start writing
checks, have you determined your PR requirements? What's your budget? What size agency do you need? How much do you want to do in-house?
A good firm is one with an established account team and a solid client list, Ubois explained. "Conversely, a lot of churn is a bad sign, because it's expensive to educate new
team members."
Shelley Harrison, CEO of Launch Pad, a Silicon Valley company that has helped high-tech start-ups develop marketing strategies and execute successful launches since 1995,
advocates a pro-active approach on the client's part, paired with a relationship in which specific deliverables by both agency and client/company are outlined beforehand.
"Don't stand between your management team and your agency," Harrison cautioned, "and don't expect them to work for next to nothing, despite the economic downturn. And don't
expect them to get your CEO on the cover of Fortune."
Citing LaunchPad's recent survey of 31 companies, "Marketing Budgets: What Technology Startups are Spending," Harrison noted that new tech companies rate public relations
campaigns second to Web sites as cost-effective marketing tools. PR is allocated, on average, 15.9% of a tech start-up's budget, trailing second to offline advertising at
25.8%.
Harrison also cautioned new companies that while internal expertise might provide better mind share and access to spokespeople, the broad range of skills and "over-the-transom"
promotional opportunities found at big PR firms tip the scales in their favor. "Minds are on survival at the moment, and we've seen that internal PR is less effective," Harrison
said.
Both Harrison and Ubois noted that the sputtering economy marks a good opportunity to prioritize PR goals. They suggest a roster of deliverables, agreed upon by both client and
company as a reasonable expectation. "A metric forces a client to really think through their objectives," said Harrison, "and protects the agency as well. It's a two-way
street."
"The value of PR is hard to quantify," added Ubois. "PR isn't one thing; it's a set of activities, and you know it's good when you see it."