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5 Ways to Save on Your Agency Budget

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When the economy is unpredictable, it’s challenging to plan. Yet, plan you must. Even when you love your PR and marketing agency, during these times, it’s tempting to cut marketing and PR budgets. I know both sides of this fence. I’ve been an entrepreneur for 75% of my career, including during 9/11, The Great Recession, and the Covid-19 pandemic. Having witnessed the fallout from slashed budgets, I’ve learned that taking your foot off the gas doesn’t slow the engine. It kills it. You can’t eliminate marketing and increase sales. What you DO need to do is shift marketing strategies. These 4 ways to save on your agency budget will ensure you gain or maintain valuable market share while reducing marketing and PR agency fees. 

If you like your marketing or PR agency, keep them. You can negotiate with your existing agency; hiring a new agency has hidden costs. Eliminating a well-oiled, top-rated agency will cost you productivity and results when you need it most. If things are going well, check out our advice from leading agency owners about reducing your agency budgets. If you’re hiring a new agency, these tips will help you get off to a great start and a budget that allows for growth while you work efficiently with your new agency.

 

1. Content: Make It Sticky

When times are good, brands with ambitious goals do whatever they can to get meaningful results faster. But if you’re reducing budgets, you should focus on the longer-lasting things. As a colleague of mine once said, “I don’t know why everyone wants to go viral. I want my content to be cancer. I want it to stick around and be hard to get rid of.” This is the mindset to be in when trying to reduce costs.

Two types of media stick around forever: owned media and earned media. Your owned media is any channel you control, where create 100% of the content, like your blog or your email marketing. Your earned media appears on channels you don’t control or create, think magazine articles, and (organic) reviews.

Blog posts and earned media are the superglue of sticky marketing and PR levers. Because they DO last so long, and they are customer-facing, these are excellent areas to focus your PR agency on. The ROI will pay dividends now and in the future. 

There’s a third blend of content emerging – and that’s contributed content. Sometimes there are fees associated with contributed content, and it always goes through editorial control, but it is a highly credible way for you to (mostly) control the messaging. This type of content has another advantage: thought leadership. Activating your thought leadership is key to its stickiness.

But longevity is only one benefit of this content; repurposing is another. For example, blog posts that are listicles are excellent SEO boosters, and you can use a listicle to generate many social media posts, same with an article that includes your product.

You want your stickiest content to be the best quality. If you’re reducing your budgets in other areas, now is not the time to hire an untested blogger referred to you by your nephew. Now is the time to focus your budget on doing what you do well. Very well.

Highly useful, sticky content is the most valuable and should be a budget priority.

2. Strategically Reduce the Scope

Chances are your agency is providing you with a suite of services. Instead of eliminating high-value output, focus your budget on those items to reduce your scope.

Take a deeper look at what your agency did this year that worked for you. How did they excel? While you’re asking yourself this question, think about it in the “Make it Sticky” content but also in the areas where narrowing in on the scope would provide outsized value.

One way to secure high-value PR is product-driven PR and bringing thought leadership and awards programs in-house, or vice-versa. 

Another idea, instead of working with 15 different micro-influencers, you work with one on a strategic year-long campaign. Maybe your branding company could produce long-form content only and you can craft social media posts in-house.

Instead of a campaign every quarter, work with your agency to develop one excellent, well-thought-out campaign throughout the year and focus your efforts on making that campaign exceptional. This brings me to my final recommendation. 

Another area that can save your money is fewer meetings with your agency. While meetings are essential, especially early in the relationship, this area could drive some savings if you’ve been with your agency for a while. 

3. Plan Ahead

Nothing is more expensive than last-minute. If you’re reducing your budget, planning can save you a lot of money. For example, if you’re planning on a video shoot, secure your videographers and editors well in advance with a solid deposit and you’ll find it easier to negotiate the rate.

The same goes for your agency contract. Sign early regardless of whether it’s a new-to-you agency or one you’ve had for a while. Signing early gives you an edge in negotiation. If you like your agency and you will commit to a longer term, you’ll be able to command better rates, and even lock in “economic downturn” rates for two years.

Press releases can be purchased in bulk as well. So if you’re planning on several announcements, if you buy in advance, you can save thousands of dollars. 

4. Strategy: When They Zig, You Should Zag

To save money and get more bang for your buck, redefine your calendar. Shy away from the dates and times of the year when your competitor is most likely to do something, and instead select a campaign period when you can own the conversation.

Alternatively, re-thing your share of voice KPI. When dominance is your key strategy, you want to track it against your biggest aspirational competitors. If simply staying present is your goal, track your share of voice against a competitor nipping at your heels, one who is your peer and one who is aspirational. For your aspirational competitors, your strategy should be to cede some of your share of voice so you can squeeze in on your competitor’s territory. For your peers, you want to maintain equal, if not better, footing, and for the one nipping at your heels, you want to own the conversation so they don’t squeeze in on yours.

5. Maximize Partnerships and Internal Initiatives

Now is a great time to double down on successful partnerships or find new ways to align for new partnerships. Be creative in the ways you align, and you may be able to create a news worthy story just by creating a collaboration. Another way to maximize your budget is to turn your storytelling focus on highly valued stories the media is already writing about, like purpose-driven initiatives. These types of stories are much easier to get a lift on than the traditional “thought leadership” strategy that most of your competitors will flock to.

Reducing your agency costs doesn’t have to be all or nothing. Working WITH your agency to find the sweet spot for your specific needs can be an excellent exercise in creativity. By shifting strategies, outcomes, and outputs, you can find the sweet spot that keeps your marketing and PR on track even during cost-cutting seasons.

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3 Tips for Hiring a Cannabis PR Firm

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The cannabis industry is growing at a rapid rate, and cannabis-related products are being introduced to the market daily. As a result, cannabis PR firms have become increasingly popular for cannabis businesses looking to establish themselves as thought leaders in the cannabis industry. The first step to getting cannabis PR is hiring a cannabis PR agency.  Three considerations when hiring a cannabis PR firm:

 1) Strategic Expertise

For cannabis-focused PR agencies, there’s been unprecedented growth in recent years and it has led to an increase in consolidation and new entrants who may not provide clients with the level of strategic expertise that typically takes much longer to develop. As millennials continue driving change within organizations across all industries, we will see more PR agency consolidation and increased hiring among independently owned cannabis-centric agencies as they need help to build their industry-specific practices.

This means, the team working on your PR may be new to PR even if the agency isn’t. Before you sign on up with any PR firm, get to know the team you will work with on the day-to-day.

 

2) Media Relations Expertise When Hiring a Cannabis PR Firm

The cannabis industry is entering an era of mainstream media coverage like never, meaning cannabis PR firms that don’t show cannabis media relations expertise risk becoming irrelevant. Traditional PR agencies will need to develop cannabis-specific expertise with niche media outlets in order to remain relevant. Cannabis news outlets are a unique subset of the traditional cannabis industry trade press and the next generation cannabis-focused PR agency needs to help clients get into these specific cannabis publications.

While cannabis industry media coverage is important, you’ll also want a firm who can demonstrate cannabis PR in lifestyle, business, or niche communities to ensure your reach gets to the audiences who are most likely to respond to your brand.

“In addition, cannabis-oriented public relations agencies have popped up everywhere from Colorado to Canada,” says Roger Stonehouse, CEO of Stonehouse Group, a global financial services firm specializing in capital formation for cannabis companies. “Some cannabis-oriented PR agencies have been effective, others less so.”

3) Identifying Target Audience

In order to deliver high enough ROI, cannabis business owners need the ability to identify the target audience and create a message that will resonate. To develop a cannabis PR campaign that is an investment, not an expense, businesses must be able to understand their target audience and deliver a targeted message. Cannabis-focused public relations professionals can help cannabis businesses do just that by developing a cannabis public relations plan that delivers results for your company and the investor community as you establish legitimacy through thought leadership.”

Media outreach efforts should begin with promoting articles promoting brand visibility, positive cannabis industry news, and cannabis company milestones.

“If you’re starting a cannabis-related business and want to reach the cannabis consumer, make sure your cannabis PR firm has established media relationships with leading cannabis publications,” says Stonehouse. “This will increase the likelihood of your press release or client announcement making it into one of these sites and give you access to cannabis consumers.”

Effective cannabis-centric PR firms understand how to develop client messaging that resonates with target audiences and cannabis media outlets. Cannabis-focused PR professionals can also help cannabis businesses secure valuable cannabis media placements that provide high visibility within the niche publication and then leverage this coverage through social content (influencer marketing) and public relations outreach efforts on behalf of the cannabis brand to mainstream media outlets like the Associated Press, Reuters and/or Bloomberg News.

“However, it’s critical cannabis businesses don’t neglect the potential impact of ancillary cannabis industry coverage in publications like Forbes, Fortune, or Inc.,” says Stonehouse. “By elevating cannabis category visibility in leading business publications cannabis businesses can begin to change negative perceptions well outside the cannabis space.”

“Cannabis public relations firms need to focus on building relationships directly with consumers,” says Stonehouse. “After all, without people buying your products or services it doesn’t matter how good your cannabis PR firm is. By focusing on the cannabis media, cannabis influencers, and cannabis consumers, cannabis-centric PR firms can help cannabis brands cut through the noise and provide an interesting story that resonates with their target audience.”

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3 Publicity Lessons Female Founders Can Learn from Sara Blakely

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Sara Blakely didn’t become one of the most admired female CEOs without taking her public image seriously. Blakely credits her publicity-savvy approach to her grass-roots success that launched a billion-dollar exit.

Sara Blakely became notable for being one of three female founders to exit in 2021. In 2012, she made headlines as one of the first female billionaires when Spanx was valued at over $1 billion, because she retained 100% ownership, had zero debt, and to that point had never spent a dollar on advertising. Blakely wasn’t lucky. She is smart and from the start, dialed into earning trust and word of mouth. Blakely was so PR savvy she patented Spanx early because she saw it as a marketing lever. She knew actions can translate to media coverage. Consistently, Blakely refined and perfected three key strategies she credits to her success.

Tell Your Story Relentlessly



One thing Sara Blakely did immediately is take control of her own narrative. Sara knew: if you don’t tell your story, someone else will.

CEOs who take a personal interest in their brand’s success always generate better coverage. Blakely never took the “fake it before you make it” stance in the press. She took her failures and turned them into stories about resilience. Her career-focused and ambitious customers could relate to her humble fax-machine sales beginnings. Blakely famously said she’s “game for anything,” and it’s the company who has to reign her in.

Blakely celebrates her female strengths, recently claiming she ran the business from “intuition, vulnerability, and empathy,” which recently led to an acquisition by private equity firm Blackstone in November 2021.

From the start, Blakely refined her story, kept it authentic, and told it over and repeatedly. She never deviated from her why, and she never glossed over speed bumps or failures. That’s why, despite her elite success, women the world over related to Blakely. Her approachability gives her another lever to pull, she can celebrate her wins and women celebrate with her.

 

The Not-So-Overnight Success of Product Placement

“We always had PR and grassroots marketing at the forefront of what we did. It was getting the word out any way we could: speaking engagements, sampling,” said Spanx CEO Laurie Ann Goldman.

In the halls of famous breakthroughs, The Oprah Effect is perhaps one of the most celebrated. With Spanx, when Oprah included them on her list of favorite things, for many women, it was the first time they’d heard of the product. But Sara Blakely had been sending celebrities, stylists, and female icons Spanx samples from the very beginning, and she wasn’t cheap about it. Blakely sent full gift baskets, with enough product to make sure every celebrity had enough to get through the week, no matter how intense their appearance calendar was. By the time Gwyneth Paltrow said on the red carpet that Spanx was her post-baby-body secret in 2003, Spanx was already a well-known insider secret. “Word of mouth and the media are so much more powerful and believable, so that’s the route I went,” said Blakely.

Blakely knew: place your product consistently, earn the trust of celebrity influencers, and it pays off. It looks like an overnight success, but in fact, Blakely had been doing product gifting for years, and she did it with class.

 

Absolute Customer Clarity

Blakely knew: if you’re for everyone, you’re for no one. When she first started sending celebrity gift baskets, she targeted Oprah because she was open about her weight challenges, and Kim Kardashian because of her famous booty. Despite her success in famous retailers, direct-to-consumer sales are at the heart of the Spanx expansion, making up 70% of its sales, which means Spanx has to develop deep relationships with their target customers.

If you look at Spanx coverage over the years, Blakely was disciplined about keeping to her “why.” Customer clarity allows Blakely to stay focused on her “why,” which is a much more appealing story than a product story.

Blakely’s approachable voice is another key to the brand’s relatable success – she talks to her consumer the way they talk with their friends, from packaging to interviews, she just gives us enough to relate to her. Even her extravagances seemed relatable to her target market. You never hear about Blakely’s car or vacation homes. Instead, you hear about relatable splurges like when she bought Olivia Newton John’s Grease outfit; clothing her target market clearly remembers, and one that showcases a spectacular derriere.

Employing these three CEO publicity strategies doesn’t guarantee a billion-dollar business, but it does guarantee that you will get noticed. Everyone from consumers to venture capitalists and private equity firms like to know there’s a story there, and potential for brand affinity. The Spanx brand couldn’t have become so iconic without these three remarkable publicity strategies.

This contribution originally appeared on Entreprenuer.com

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Can Growth Marketing and Public Relations Work Together?

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Can growth marketing and public relations work together. Growth marketing is about customer acquisition and retention, often through paid media, with relentless iterations and deeply engaged knowledge of the consumer. Public relations is reputation management of a company’s image, often through earned media and deep understanding of broader cultural and media trends. So what do they have in common? On the surface, not much, but when you dig deeper into the tactics and the metrics, we can see where together growth marketing and public relations can work together successfully.

Suppose the business objective for a consumer product launch is to increase sales through decreasing competitors’ market share. In that case, a digitally savvy PR agency knows how to do competitive research of the entire digital landscape and media landscape and use that data to determine the opportunities to overtake a competitor, while a growth marketer is reviewing how the company attracts customers and retains customers. But where do growth marketing and public relations work together?

Data Driven KPIs

Today’s modern PR firms and PR campaigns should be tied to business goals and identified public relations metrics that support and funnel up into that goal.  While growth marketers are developing ads, PR agencies are developing ways to capture the target audience’s imagination. PR agencies may present a word-of-mouth activation or a targeted quality over-quantity earned media campaign that overlaps targeted audiences. A PR agency might also recommend content which can boost SEO and support brand values that interest and retain customers.  Just like a growth marketer, a modern PR agency is tracking metrics. What metrics might a PR agency track in the above scenario?

  • Mention Quality
  • Article Reach
  • Brand Placement in Article
  • Share of Voice
  • Domain Authority

All of the above PR metrics are measures of awareness and credibility. These metrics support top-of-funnel AND bottom-of-funnel customer journeys and can support growth marketing efforts with a keen eye on target audiences and messaging which supports growth marketing.

The Digital PR Toolkit

For growth marketers, the digital tool kit is primarily paid (but not exclusively); for growth marketing PR, the digital tool kit is primarily owned (but not solely). But there are a few areas where growth marketing and growth PR connect. One of those is SEO. For the growth marketer, SEO provides opportunities for retargeting and organic acquisition, growth marketing PR adds value to both. With a savvy eye on keywords and quality inbound links, PR supports growth marketing objectives to funnel into business objectives.

That’s not all; PR agencies working with media outlets to build revenue opportunities can help growth marketing with a high domain authority on inbound links as well as excellent reviews from credible media outlets, which send potential new customers searching for the product. These reviews could be in gift guides or hero reviews where the consumer product receives an in-depth study that meets Google’s product review update recommendations. Meanwhile, growth marketers will typically focus on reviews from influencers or existing customers. And a brand with positive customer reviews gives a journalist further confidence in a brand and a product.

Today, PR and growth marketing can use some of the same tools, they use them slightly differently:

  • Inbound Links
  • Owned Media
  • Credible Review Acquisition

Credibility: Where PR Fills The Gap

I often tell our clients PR creates the awareness and solidifies reputation; ads are the conversion driver – that’s how they work together, and they both work better. Why? It’s simple: earned media from credible media outlets is more trusted than paid ads. But few journalists look at it as their job to write conversion-focused marketing copy. The journalist’s job is traditionally to create the content that keeps you on the pages. From a longer tail and more strategic point of view – PR also builds brand credibility on the corporate level, trusted brands have faster aquisition and they have longer customer retention, meaning growth marketing is even more influential.

So when someone sees a great review of a product, and THEN they see the ad, they get the trigger to purchase the product, or maybe they sign up for a newsletter, or maybe the look for more reviews and do a Google search that lands them on another referral site. The pathways are endless, but they all come back to one thing: supporting the brand’s business goal.

I’m a fan of understanding and maximizing the media environment for our clients. The Avaans Media client is ambitious and goal driven, so understanding how our jobs support overall marketing strategies and business goals is essential. When we evaluate the landscape for our clients, we find a distinct point of view, and because our tools are different than growth marketers, we can glean insights and data that drive new insights. To be honest, I’m not concerned with being a purist about owned, earned, and paid. It’s the job of a digitally savvy PR agency to know what levers to pull when and how to shape campaigns that create success. That’s our job – and that’s why growth marketers and public relations can be best buddies.

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3 Lessons Cannabis Tech Can Learn From Silicon Valley Failures

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[3 minutes]

Some have said that the fastest-growing sector in cannabis is cannabis technology. While cannabis technology companies often serve very specific regulatory needs and enter the marketplace in a tech-mature world (as opposed to those during the initial dot-com era), cannabis tech companies with hyper-growth ambitions can learn from the tech company failures of the past.

Think Ahead, But Not Too Far

Many emerging industry companies have gone bust because they were simply too progressive. From the dot-com era, WebVan and Kozmo were two delivery companies with considerable capital that both went bust, only to see companies like Amazon eventually optimize the services they both introduced. Not every first mover gets first-mover advantage. There’s a lot to be said for meeting the customer or client where they’re at.

But moving people ahead is completely possible. Cannabis tech companies can think through the future of their business by planning past a regulatory world and creating brand loyalty well before any necessary pivots.

Setting an agenda to change the narrative and create demand is a long-term play, but consumers DO change behaviors and in the wake of COVID, there is still an opportunity to maximize the massive mind-shift happening. Cannabis itself is an outstanding example of changing the narrative. In fact, changing the narrative is an excellent competitive strategy and a way to differentiate yourself.

How Cannabis Tech Can Prepare for Bigger and Better Funded

As cannabis becomes a bigger part of the economy in more states, there will be more entrances into the marketplace.

Cannabis tech only has to look at what happened to the CBD space after the Farm Act passed to see a more recent cannabis example of this. From a tech perspective, a good example of this is the Pebble Smart Watch, which raised $10.3 million on Kickstarter (the most successful Kickstarter ever at the time). But of course, they struggled to compete with competitors like Apple Watch.

B2B cannabis tech companies are vulnerable to this as Silicon Valley continues to double down on cannabis tech from companies and founders with no experience in cannabis, but more funding. Dutchie is an example of this. Dutchie’s model is less cannabis and more tech as they model their services to something more akin to GrubHub. Silicon Valley likes companies that reinvent proven scale models.

Cannabis tech companies, whether they serve B2B or B2C should leverage both advertising and PR, together to secure market share AND trust simultaneously. Align your cannabis advertising and PR campaigns and messaging. Don’t isolate your advertising data from PR. Together they can be stronger. Branding dominance and brand value is the way to secure marketplace valuation; had Pebble done that, they would have stood a better chance of survival or at the very least gotten closer to the original offer of $740 million (which they got in 2015), as opposed to the sell to Fitbit for less than $40 million in 2016.

Cannabis technology companies should also be prepared to tell stories that aren’t technology-oriented. Whether those be founder stories, or purpose, there is also more to talk about, so prepare yourself and get those corporate stories in place.

And when there are lulls in cannabis tech VC funding, that’s a great time to prepare for the future and focus your energies on the most important initiatives to help you stand out when the funding cycle returns.

Watch Consumer Tech Trends

Media consumption on the biggest social media platforms may well have peaked already. 2021 was the first year Facebook reported a decline in users. So what’s happening to those consumers? They certainly haven’t left the internet, they’ve simply shifted platforms.

Consumer communication with a cannabis niche or cannabis advertising platforms can learn so many lessons from the failures of social media platforms, in particular Facebook. These platforms need to evaluable the trust equation and invest in it immediately. Whether the customer is B2B or B2C, there is a broader techlash going on.

Leveraging the trust of third-party media outlets is imperative now. And unlike plant-touching brands, cannabis tech companies have a wide-open playing field about the media outlets who will write about them. We always say that “trust is an inside out job,” and that means PR can only clean up so much if you’re abusing trust; if you’re the Theanos of cannabis tech, PR won’t be your biggest spend.

 

Cannabis tech is sure to be a competitive and thriving sector with massive ups and downs, but those who reach hyper-growth will have taken a page out of the successes and failures of past Silicon Valley darlings.  Check out our PR Case Studies and Results for more ideas about how to stand out in cannabis tech.

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Consumer PR Trends for 2023

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Today’s digitally native consumer brand challengers need to know how consumers are changing in order for their  DTC brands to grow.  The media landscape is distributed and yet overwhelming. The average daily time spent with major media, including television, newspapers, magazines, radio, and digital formats, amounted to 12 hours and 30 minutes (Statistica). This means that consumer brands and their consumer pr agencies need to stay engaged with how consumers are discovering and purchasing products. When looking at consumer PR trends for 2023, several things stand out.

Consumers are More Socially Conscious Than Ever Before. 


Emerging consumer brands and emerging industries can not afford to ignore this trend, because it has been on overdrive since the pandemic. Whether the brand dives deep and engages in purpose-driven PR or takes a stand on social impact issues, consumers are voting with their wallets, and the up-and-coming generations have big expectations for businesses to contribute to improving society, not just the bottom line. 

  • 68% of consumers say brands celebrating what brings us together and emphasizing our common interest would strengthen the social fabric
  • 63% of consumers buy or advocate for brands based on beliefs and valued (Edelman)
  • 59% of consumers will pay more to purchase from a favored brand — a 4% increase since 2022 (Marigold)

Consumers Want To Find Products Through Trusted Sources

Let’s face it: everyone from your niece to your Mom is looking for credible information, and search is still one of the most critical places for consumers to find trusted information. Google knows this, and they’re doubling down on making sure their search results are from trusted sources. From consumer tech to CPG, consumer brands who want to grow must align with trusted sources.  It is no surprise that, over all, social media is not a trusted source for adults; however, they still use it as a discoverability tool. They then go search for more information.

  • 90% of searchers haven’t made their mind up about a brand before their search. (Zippia)
  • 68% of GenZ adults turn to social media for new at least once per week. (Morning Consult)
  • A considerable 82% of consumers trust print ads more when making a purchase decision. (Zippia)
  • Only 20% of GenZ named Instagram their favored platform. (The Atlantic) TikTok and SnapChat were #1 and #2, respectively.
  • 90% of U.S. consumers find targeted ads intrusive and annoying. (Zippia)
  • Online-only news sites are second only to social media as the most commonly used GenZ medium (Morning Consult)
  • The average person is now estimated to encounter between 6,000 to 10,000 ads every single day (lunio)

New Technologies Give Rise to Consumer PR Trends

The era of AI search is here – owned content needs to shift to long-tail search (Algolia) and there’s more. Voice search, most often done on mobile phones, is also on the rise. Consumer brands need to create content that reflects these new search methodologies and remember to take full control of their owned content in order to feed the algorithms.

  • 41% of US adults use voice search daily, higher in comparison to countries globally. (Google Mobile Voice Survey)
  • 25 to 49-year-olds use voice search more often than any other age group (PWC)

As you look at these trends, consider how you will use these ideas in your consumer PR strategies and with your consumer PR agency. You also might appreciate our report on how to make your earned product reviews more Google-friendly. As a consumer PR agency, we have a distinct approach that sets us apart. If you’d like to learn more, contact us today.

 

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