This series breaks down different marketing tactics to help you determine which ones will best support your marketing strategy. This post features public relations.

Businesses work very hard to get positive public relations. Some pay a lot of money to ensure success. But after you have the PR, what do you do with it? What’s the next step? How do you leverage it and get your money’s worth?

It doesn’t really matter what a company says about itself; it’s what the customers say about the company. And when customers have good things to say, that alone will sell to other customers.

Starting an aggressive marketing effort and not having enough money to finish is poor planning. It’s like flying across the Atlantic with a half tank of fuel. Sure, you’ll make progress, but your plane better have floats because you’ll be landing in the Atlantic, and not in Paris.

Fighting public opinion can be tough, as McDonalds found out a few years back. Environmentalist groups had been pressuring McDonalds to change from using Styrofoam packaging to paper.

In April 2009, two Domino Pizza employees videotaped themselves doing some stomach-churning things to food they were preparing, and then compounded their stupidity by posting it on YouTube. Despite Domino’s identified the store within 24 hours, sterilized everything, and fired the employees, that didn’t stop the video from getting immense…

Looks like the “Friendly Skies of United” are a little less friendly for musicians. Country singer Dave Carroll created this video regarding his less than “friendly” experience flying United Airlines

PR is great, because it gives the consumer a sense of third party endorsement. It’s almost like the media outlet is saying, “This company is good because we have analyzed it. This is a good company. Their core values are great. I like them.”

Let’s say you have a new company. It’s got all the elements of a good brand, but no one knows about it. What’s the best way to break into the market – advertising or PR?