At Articulate, we continue to see a mix of longtime clients like CDC Software
and InfoVista focused on using PR to their advantage, as well as an abundance
of exciting new opportunities in new markets like green/environmental and our
client RecycleBank, emerging technologies like Worklight and services like
Managed Systems.

In times of economic downturns, however, the first corporate initiatives to be cut are often marketing and public relations. We've seen this happen already with certain public relations agencies that represent Fortune 500 companies. With shareholders to appease, public relations and marketing budgets are slashed or cut completely because the programs are perceived as expendable.

Now, more than ever, businesses can use aggressive PR to create credibility for themselves and their products in the marketplace, maintain much-needed visibility and support sales growth in a cost-effective way.

How can you and your PR team do this? Create healthy, mutually beneficial relationships with industry influencers like journalists, analysts and bloggers.

More than anything else, ensure that your PR team is aligned with your company’s short- and long-term corporate goals.

If you’re focusing on driving sales in the telco space, make sure your PR is on board so it can re-focus media and analyst efforts to target those vertical industry influencers.

If your company wants to put more energy into EMEA sales, tell your PR firm so it can expand its outreach efforts and bring in overseas partners to get your message out to different countries and in different languages.

If you think the purchasing decision-makers in your industry are developers and IT managers, your PR partner can identify target publications, industry influencers and events and conduct aggressive, focused campaigns.

By ensuring that PR objectives are aligned with your ultimate business goals, you’ll be able to get the right message out to the right people and build critical competitive advantages during the downturn.

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