If you’re a small business that’s weighing the benefits of advertising vs. public relations, here are some reasons why you should consider making public relations a cornerstone of your company’s growth strategy.

When a consumer sees third party coverage of a product or service, it is perceived much differently than a traditional advertisement. When we see an advertisement, we know the company is trying to sell us something. When a third party, such as the media, endorses a product or service, the company gains credibility. Consumers are much more likely to make a purchase based on third party endorsement than an advertisement.

A consistent public relations program will help build general awareness of your product, service or brand and will supplement any direct marketing and advertising efforts. This visibility also tends to make your business appear larger and more established than it may be, which may help you secure partnerships, customers and funding.

Chances are the last time you made a purchase you used a search engine to do some online research. Public relations can help you capitalize on this process. An article at on online news outlet, a broadcast clip posted online, or a news release distributed to web outlets – all of these provide valuable inbound links to your website that increase your rank in Google. A news release distributed by PR Newswire is delivered to more than 5,500 Web sites and online services such as Yahoo!, AOL and MSN.com, and the release can be further optimized for search engine visibility utilizing keywords..

PR is also good for your bottom line. PR is much less expensive than advertising and the benefits of PR can be much more substantial than the benefits of advertising. One good media placement can lead to a substantial increase in sales and tremendous growth, and because many small businesses have a unique story to tell, they are interesting to the media.

There are a multitude of challenges facing small businesses and entrepreneurs. To reduce the challenge of jumping into PR, PR Newswire has built the PR Toolkit, which is designed specifically for small businesses and entrepreneurs who have little or no PR experience. The PR Toolkit provides practical tips and actionable advice to help lay the groundwork for a solid public relations strategy. Some of the resources and tools you will find in The PR Toolkit include:

FAQs
Covering the most elementary questions such as “What is a news release?” and “When should I issue a news release?” while addressing more advanced questions like “How can I use social media to generate visibility for my business?”.

Writing Tips
Features writing style requirements, guidelines for headline formats and writing tips for feature news. Includes examples of news release makeovers.

Educational Articles
Topics include how to reach multicultural markets, steps for getting your experts quoted and ideas on how to use the calendar to generate media coverage.

Testimonials
Examples of how small businesses and entrepreneurs are using public relations to generate visibility and grow their businesses.

News Release Templates
News release and news advisory templates, and sample releases, for those small businesses and entrepreneurs that need step-by-step assistance with constructing their news release

Demos and Webinars
Pre-recorded product demonstrations and Webinars to help you better understand public relations on your own schedule.

For more information, visit prtoolkit.prnewswire.com.

“Good morning everyone. Leader Hoyer, Jennifer Collins. Jennifer is a small business owner who understands the challenges facing small businesses, but also the opportunities that small businesses have to strengthen the American economy. Molly Gimmel — another small business owner, who, like Jennifer, has worked with other small business women owners, and knows how deeply the recession has affected them. Helen Han, who is the president and CEO of the National Association of Women Business Owners. Welcome, Helen.

“I’m pleased to be here with them and with two members of the — I say the freshmen — two of our newest Members of Congress. But they have been here now a year and a half and have made a tremendous difference. Congressman Gary Peters and Congressman Kurt Schrader have offered key provisions in this legislation and their leadership will help ensure that this important legislation becomes law.

“I have often said, when I became House Democratic Leader, that we planted a flag for small businesses — we planted a flag for our veterans and we planted a flag for small businesses. And when we planted the flag for small businesses, working with Chairwoman Nydia Velazquez, the Chair of the committee, but then we did not have a majority yet, I said to them — I said, ’starting a small business must be the most optimistic action a person could take, apart from getting married.’ You really have to have a lot of confidence in your decision-making, as you go forward.

“And what an important and exciting decision it is for our small business owners. In doing so, they are reaching for their own self-fulfillment and providing for their families. They are also the engine of job creation and capital creation in our economy and in our country. They have — small businesses have created two-thirds of new jobs, over the last 15 years — two-thirds of all new jobs.

“We must help to ensure that small businesses are and can continue to be the engine of our recovery. That means we must help address the challenges they face, including a lack of credit and tight lending standards. Changing the tight lending standards have been one of the biggest appeals that we have had from the small business community. Access to capital, access to capital — 45 percent of small businesses seeking loans were unable to get their credit needs met last year.

“Today, Congress will pass the second of two bills that will unleash up to $300 billion in loans for small businesses and allow them to grow higher and fuel our economy. It’s pretty exciting. These bills also offer $3.5 billion in tax incentives and tax relief to small businesses. Access to capital, tax relief. The latest tax cuts are giving to small businesses will also help get our economy moving.

“These bills will create and save hundreds of thousands of jobs, and this legislation is fully paid for by closing tax loopholes. These bills build on our accomplishments for small businesses. Health insurance reform provides $40 billion in tax credits to help make coverage affordable for many small businesses and create millions of jobs. The Recovery Act, now a year-and-a-half old, has spurred tens of billions of dollars in small business lending, created or saved up to 2.8 million jobs, and that number is growing — many in small business — many of those jobs in small businesses, and provided billions in tax incentives to encourage small business investment so they can grow and hire. We have passed legislation to provide tax relief for struggling small businesses through net operating loss provisions in a previous piece of legislation, and tax cuts to spur small business to invest with accelerated write-offs. Health bill — $40 billion in tax credits, Recovery Act, and the legislation with the net operating loss, and also, the accelerated write-offs.

“Democrats will continue to work on behalf of America’s Main Street, our small businesses.

“But now, I want to introduce the distinguished Majority Leader, but as I do, I once again want to acknowledge how important our freshmen class has been in shaping this legislation. Many of them served on the small business committee, several of them have amendments to this legislation. They have been important in shaping the legislation, improving the legislation. Congressman Gary Peters, Congressman Kurt Schrader are champions for our small businesses in America and I’m honored to stand with them today.

“Now, it is my privilege to yield to the distinguished Majority Leader, Mr. Hoyer.”

Betterfly is the first website of its kind to exclude companies, focusing on people instead, and that gives it a strategic advantage, says founder Joshua Schwadron.

Since learning, looking and feeling better often involves finding the right people to help, Betterfly sets out to make that process easier and more efficient for its users. By catering to individuals instead of companies and by offering a broad but well-defined set of services – there are currently more than 1,000 – Betterfly enables users to compare apples to apples, people to people. Users can refine their search based on more than 20 factors such as availability, friends’ recommendations, verified reviews and value.

The current campaign is Betterfly’s way of recognizing that the site needs Betterists™ to sign up and offer services before potential clients can harness the full power of its search tools. A Betterist is a person on Betterfly who offers a service to help someone learn, look or feel better.
There is no approval process or cost to become a Betterist.

While conducting research for the site, Schwadron and his team found that two groups of Betterists each face a unique set of challenges that Betterfly can help solve. The first group, made up of people who work for companies, feels powerless to help themselves and their companies bring in business; they rely solely on their companies for new clients. The other group, people who are self-employed, continually tries to promote and re-promote their services across numerous websites, each supposed to serve a different purpose. Betterfly’s free platform is built to give all types of Betterists the tools they need to brand and promote themselves quickly and efficiently, all in one place.

Each Betterist can create a free, highly customizable page that Schwadron says is “like a mini-website that can be made in minutes.” Betterists can promote their qualifications, services, locations, special offers and payment policies, upload resources like instructional videos and lesson plans and even create their own blogs. Their pages display verified reviews from clients and have a real-time booking system to easily promote their availability and latest discounts. The availability calendar helps Betterists manage existing clients and attract new ones. Potential clients can even search by available time for a lesson or appointment in the same way that people can search Opentable.com for a dinner reservation at a particular time, without having a restaurant in mind.

For more information, visit betterfly.com.

Over the next 12 months, Project REV participants will be paired with marketing advisors from Deluxe and business counselors from SCORE. With their help, the participants will create and implement customized marketing plans. REV participants will each receive up to $5,000 in marketing products and services from Deluxe to help execute those plans.

Participants will collaborate and share their results with each other and with other small businesses to help demystify the challenges associated with small business marketing.

For more information, visit projectrev.com.

With three simple clicks, business users can now build a predictive model within a configurable web browser interface, and run simulations and “what-if” scenarios that compare and test the best business outcomes before the model is ever deployed into an operational system. Business users now have full control over the analytic process, enabling them to make accurate decisions in real-time, based on changes in strategy, customer buying patterns and behaviors, or fluctuating market conditions.

Starting today, IBM is delivering a new, configurable offering for the insurance industry, and another for marketing organizations within all business verticals. The first is designed to help identify fraudulent insurance claims, which account for approximately $30 billion in losses a year. The second manages every inbound customer and prospect interaction via call center, web, point-of-sale or email.

The new software, IBM SPSS Decision Management, combines predictive models, business rules and optimization to increase an organization’s confidence to automatically deliver accurate, high-value, high-volume decisions at the appropriate point of customer interaction.

For example, a retailer may need to decide which customers should receive information about a new line of products. The marketing manager can quickly build a model to identify the customers likely to respond – based on past purchasing patterns, demographics, responses to previous offers – and include those customers in the new product campaign. However, before deploying the results the business user can first “tweak the dials” using a simple web interface, and run what-if scenarios on the results. This ensures the campaign will yield optimal results by targeting only high-value customers.

For more information, visit ibm.com.

While each of the Stars have made a significant contribution, two stand out as the most tireless, committed individuals advocating for the small-business community: The Chair and Ranking Member of the U.S. Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, Sens. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) and Olympia Snowe (R-Maine).

Senator Mary Landrieu

Having only assumed the chair of the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee last year, Sen. Mary Landrieu quickly has established herself as a strong and vocal advocate for America’s small businesses. Whether fighting for the inclusion of small business in credit-card reform, eliminating the self-employment tax on health insurance, urging increased lending through SBA or standing firm against efforts to allow businesses majority owned by large venture capital (VC) firms unlimited access to the Small Business Innovation and Research (SBIR) program, Landrieu has shown us that perhaps bipartisanship for the good of the cause isn’t dead just yet.

Senator Olympia Snowe

In her continued leadership role with the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, Sen. Olympia Snowe’s collaborative efforts with Landrieu, and her predecessor, Sen. John Kerry have been instrumental in many key pieces of legislation. Her drive to keep health care reform affordable, provide an easier path for small-business retirement savings through SIMPLE cafeteria plans, and myriad other bills to strengthen the state of small businesses in the U.S. has earned her a reputation for getting the job done and being a tireless advocate for small business.

Since 1937, NSBA has advocated on behalf of America’s entrepreneurs. A staunchly nonpartisan organization, NSBA reaches more than 150,000 small businesses nationwide and is proud to be the nation’s first small-business advocacy organization.

For more information, visit nsba.biz.