The Great Guns Marketing Blog

I’ve been thinking for some time now about penning a piece on the relationship between marketing and PR but various other topical issues have intervened. So now as the political furore around our change in government has just about subsided, I thought it would be a good time to get back on track with a blog about what I do best – telemarketing!

Now I know I have written, on a number of occasions, about how to make the most of a telemarketing campaign – what works well and what doesn’t – so I thought I would broaden this out further to talk about what I see to be the intrinsic relationship between telemarketing and PR.

At Great Guns Marketing, we don’t shy away from a challenge: we pride ourselves on being skilled communicators and that means through our knowledge and experience, we can secure opportunities for just about any company, regardless of their industry or sector. But one of the toughest sales jobs for us is trying to make appointments for companies that don’t have any brand awareness whatsoever.

You wouldn’t believe it (or maybe you would!) but it is truly amazing how much of a difference even the smallest amount of PR can make. It’s not rocket science, the same theory applies to almost everything. We are programmed, by nature, to go for the things we know and trust. So if we have a choice between a company that we know is out there spreading its message and a company we have never heard of and don’t really know what it does, nine times out of ten we will go with the one we recognise. Unless, of course, it is the wildcard option we are after, and then it becomes a very different ball game!

But it’s not just about awareness. PR is also essential in helping to create a brand for a company. Through positioning exercises it is possible to give an organisation a credibility that just isn’t achievable with any other medium. And inevitably that transfers down the communications channels. So as soon as one of our team picks up the phone on behalf of that better-known brand, it becomes that bit easier to start a conversation. The recognition is there from the outset and the door has been opened. Hence why we are delighted if one of our clients tells us that they do have a proactive PR agency.

But that doesn’t mean to say it’s not possible to have the same level of success for a company with no previous market presence; the conversation just starts off slightly differently and may take a little longer, but we get there in the end!