Company executives often expect PR professionals to create internal product and service campaigns to highlight new features and benefits. Most media no longer have the interest or ability to write what I call ” standalone stories.”  These are stories that profile a product or service from a single company.  Obvious exceptions are industry leaders such as Apple, Microsoft and Google.  For the rest, we need to focus on what’s happening in our industry focused on best practices to solve a common business challenge or opportunity.  That story includes clients, partners and vendors.

There is often synergy between our media campaign and those of our clients, partners and vendors.  Most of the time these campaigns are created and executed independent of each other.  In some cases, you can pursue joint PR/marketing campaigns to maximize budgets and visibility.  A common example is sharing trade show booth space at a high-profile industry convention.   Booths are often out of reach for most of us due to budget and resources.  As a result, we might miss a top-tier opportunity to position our products/services as an integral part of the solution and thus worthy of media coverage.

Other joint PR/marketing opportunities include product/service launch announcements, major company events, community service projects and even joint press meetings.  It’s been my experience that clients, partners and vendors are often amenable to these campaigns.  I suggest the next time an opportunity arises you run the idea up the flagpole.  You might be surprised at the end results.