If you’ve been working in marketing for more than about, say, six months, you are likely dreading this conversation.
You’re in a leadership meeting, and the CFO asks you to justify the line item for PR. How is this monthly, recurring investment actually driving business value?
Don’t fret, we can help.
At Ketner Group, we’ve spent more than 20 years helping B2B tech companies in the modern commerce ecosystem build communications programs that not only deliver business value, but have proven this fact with real metrics.
So let’s dive in. Here are a few questions your CFO, or other finance leader, is likely to ask you and how you can respond.
(Note: you’ll see that we include client anecdotes here. When we kick off new engagements, we develop KPIs early on so that our contacts have metrics in-hand for strategic conversations. You can learn more about how we build KPIs in this blog.)
Why are we spending money on PR instead of demand gen?
This is a common concern, and it’s easy to understand why. Demand gen proves results in a neat dashboard, but PR teams often get a spreadsheet of coverage.
Here’s what to tell your CFO: PR and demand gen work together, not in competition. Demand gen captures buyers who are already looking for you. PR helps move buyers through the pipeline — and, frankly, is often the reason they’re looking for you in the first place.
A prospect who saw your executive SME quoted in Reuters or publishing articles on Forbes arrives to demand gen channels already warm. Case in point: our client Birdzi shared that a single press release generated a half-dozen qualified, inbound leads.
Another client’s VP of Marketing shared that after ramping up PR, page views grew from less than 6,000 per month to nearly 18,000. Inbound leads reached 400 per month. In three years, more than a third of qualified leads tracked back to PR.
We invested in PR before and didn’t see a return. Why is this program different?
I’m sorry to hear that — it’s so disappointing to believe a strategic marketing investment is going to deliver results only to see nothing come through.
What I recommend here is two things. First, try to uncover why the previous program didn’t deliver your desired ROI. Is it because reporting structures weren’t aligned to business goals? Was it a case of the PR partner’s expertise? Was it based on the overall investment?
Second, we often hear this question after a tech company has worked with a generalist firm. These agencies need to learn your market, buyers, competitive landscape and target media, all while they’re working to execute PR campaigns. And that takes time!
At Ketner Group, since we focus exclusively on the modern commerce ecosystem, we know the reporters who cover your category, the analysts your buyers trust and the comms angles resonating with reporters right now.
When Inspectorio came to us after working with a previous agency, one of the first things its SVP said was that the company needed a team to react to breaking news and “interject Inspectorio into the conversation.” In the first six months, we generated 37 pieces of coverage and moved them to No. 2 or No. 3 in every share of voice category.
Can we just use AI instead of hiring an agency?
Honestly? Yes; if someone on your team has PR expertise, time to manage a program and already has existing media relationships. AI will help them move more quickly and could be a decent investment strategy.
If that’s not the case, consider it this way: one KG AS said, “AI works when you know what questions to ask and what prompts to write. AI is like a junior intern, and it’s got to have a great manager.”
If your team is stretched thin managing too many projects, or if you’re looking for expertise in a category you are less familiar with (such as earned media), then it makes sense to invest in help.
For NIQ, journalists at Bloomberg, AP, WWD and CNBC all come directly to our team with inbound requests. We receive as many as 20 per week because of the consistent, credible, human relationships we’ve developed.
AI is great for creating early drafts and doing research, but it can’t pick up the phone and call a journalist it has a close, personal relationship with. It can’t read the room during a high-stakes media interview. It doesn’t offer the kind of relationship in which, when something breaks in your industry at 6 a.m., a reporter texts your team first.
How is PR actually driving business outcomes?
This is the most important question — we love it!
PR builds awareness that feeds demand gen, creates third-party validation to shorten sales cycles and builds brand credibility that compounds over time.
For example, our client GK Software entered the U.S. market with no regional brand recognition and no U.S. marketing team. After about a decade of sustained work, GK has become the No. 1 new POS provider in the world and was acquired by Fujitsu, which chose to keep the GK brand name post acquisition.
For clients looking to track PR in real time, we build quarterly KPI reports that go beyond coverage counts. Take XCCommerce, each month we track share of voice against competitors and break down coverage by type, region and vertical, while calculating combined audience reach. After the first four months, their VP of Strategy and Business Development noted that our results had exceeded his expectations.
Don’t worry, you’re ready for that high-stakes finance meeting
These are just a few of the questions we work with our clients to answer on a day-to-day basis. To us, PR isn’t a campaign or a small part of the funnel. PR is like a lighthouse. Once the lantern is lit, it continually guides passing ships.
One VP at a previous client, Plumslice said, “When I met Ketner Group at my last company, I saw the significant impact they made on our bottom line, valuation and exit. When I joined my current company, it was a must to bring them along.”
That’s the kind of compliment we wake up for. Long relationships and big wins are what inspire us each day to do what we do here, and we’d love you to be a part of that too.
If you’d like to talk through your current business challenges and how we may be able to help, we’re always happy to chat. Let’s start a conversation.
Austin
