London Technology Public Relations agency | Social Media Strategy | B2B PR | Chameleon PR

 ”Explain how public relations will tangibly drive sales leads,” is a favourite of bottom-line minded CEOs when being pitched new PR ideas.

Now, of course, public relations is a fairly blunt sales tool. Its main role is that of building awareness, credibility and positioning. Direct sales lead generation is more the role of telemarketing, direct mail, email shots and the like. Advertising, too, can easily carry a call to action; it’s paid for space.

But, on occasion, sales generation is possible with tech public relations. A few months back, Siemens Enterprise Communications asked us to create a PR campaign for its security consulting service.

An often neglected aspect of technology-related security is social engineering or, for sake of quick understanding, confidence tricks to blag one’s way into an office and, once there, to get employees to divulge confidential information such as log-in details. No technology is involved in the blagging, but the aim is to get access to the IT network.

Given it’s a little understood phenomenon, it’s an ideal stomping ground for a white paper. And given it’s security, it’s a media friendly story. Combine the two, and you’ve got a slew of excellent coverage much of which carries a link to a white paper on the Siemens Enterprise Communications website for extra information.

A little data capture prior to download and that’s a semi qualified sales lead database. It’s certainly one example of how PR can tangibly drive sales leads.

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