One of the first questions a financial advisor will ask you is: “what is your attitude to investment risk?”.
Whatever response you give – cautious, moderate, high – should determine the financial products the IFA recommends to you. Broadly speaking, the higher the potential return, the higher the risk (profit is the reward for risk).
What if we used a similar analogy with marketing investment?
Are clients and prospects seeking well above average marketing returns? In which case, they may need to spend money on original and creative programmes that have never been tried before – and thus have no track record or guarantee of success (much social media activity could be placed here). Then again, more cautious clients may seek safe returns on tried and trusted approaches (traditional media relations).
Or perhaps they need a balanced portfolio of safer and riskier marketing investments?
Of course, many clients want greater than average returns with money back guarantees. If it were a financial product, they’d be highly suspicious. So beware those who claim to be able to deliver huge ROI with little or no risk.
Filed under: General PR , financial investment, marketing, PR
Neat analogy. When are you going to give up this PR nonsense and write a book. You should. Here’s the issue: almost all marketing and PR professionals have a low attitude to marketing investment risk, but seek the excitement in their career, results, and awards associated with high investment risk. I’m going to stop reading your blog as my comments and cross posting are being to get sycophantic. Traditional levels of abuse need to resume
A book? Now there’s a thought. As for abuse, bring it on.