This is what happens when you hire a PR firm with a bad reputation
Everyone’s heard the old adage “slow and steady wins the race” but who’s got time for that? When you launch a new product, there’s a lot of pressure to come out of the gate strong. You’ve got bills and investors and staffers who have been working day and night for this moment. So when a PR company promises you millions of views, influential reviews and a swarm of new social media followers for one low price – you sign on the dotted line. Then you close your eyes to everything but the mentions and the page views.
It’s exciting to go from zero to hero over night, so you aren’t going to notice that 90% of the social media mentions are coming from the same 10, suspicious-looking accounts. Or that 75% of your web traffic is coming from a country you’ve never heard of.
A fast ramp up looks great on paper but if nobody is buying, it’s money down the drain or worse.
Josh Sutphin of Kickbomb Entertainment says that the PR company he hired to drive traffic, actually drove customers away with their overly aggressive marketing tactics.
In a post on Gamasutra, Sutphin says;
Your PR company’s reputation is officially A Thing. When you’re vetting a potential partner, you need to find out if your audience is aware of that partner, and if they are, how they feel about them.
Once you know how your potential partner is perceived by your audience, ask yourself if that partner’s reputation is compatible with the image you want to establish for yourself, your team, and your game.
That last paragraph is particularly important because we all have a different idea of how far is too far. Would it be a big problem if you were banned from the biggest forum in your niche? How would you feel about having your Twitter or Facebook account shut down?
If those thoughts make you nervous, then you’ve got work to do. The first step is vetting a company’s rep before you sign. Monitoring activity is step number two. It’s tough, I know. One of the reasons you outsource marketing is because you don’t have the time or brainspace to do it yourself. But you can take five minutes every day to scan social media and Google.
And, before you hand over the keys, make sure you have a second set. Someone in your company should have access to the social media accounts and the notification email account. That’s where you’ll see the warning messages before Twitter cuts you off.
Remember, there are no marketing short-cuts – just marketers who think they can game the system at your expense. You worked hard to create a great product, don’t let impatience ruin the launch.
