A few years ago, the founder of a fledgling investment advisory firm offered a suite of products that he felt would “revolutionize” the way Wall Street does business. He could get no one to listen to his pitch.

This was a basic issue of credibility, in an industry where you’re invisible unless you have a few marquee-name clients to your credit. The target market didn’t quite understand the nature of the firm’s services (environmental investment research) or how those services might benefit their own businesses. And then the firm made the cardinal sin that companies typically commit when launching their business: they claimed that their product (or service) was the “greatest thing since sliced bread,” but they didn’t know how to effectively market it, so they weren’t able to build credibility.

Too often, companies like this one make the mistake of assuming that everyone will instantly perceive the value of their product and service to the marketplace. Or their marketing efforts are limited to mailing a glossy brochure or two, which often ends up in the circular file.

What this firm needed was a program that would educate its target market not only about the company, but also stress the importance of their product and why it could and would make a difference for a prospect’s bottom-line. The company provided Spring, O’Brien with a budget of $5,000 per month (this is a typical fee for a basic public relations program) to launch a media relations program designed to raise awareness of the company and its product with its target audience, namely Wall Street executives. We did so by issuing press releases about the company’s activities, distributing timely media alerts on topical financial issues related to its products, and writing a series of bylined articles about salient issues that pertained to the firm’s business and, more importantly, to their prospective clients’ needs. As a result, the firm received coverage in prestigious media outlets like The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times, CNN and a number of key industry trade publications.

People now were paying attention to what the firm had to say. Our targeted public relations campaign resulted in sales for its products among financial services companies in the US and abroad, including some top-tier firms, funding from investment banks, and enhanced the firm’s recruitment efforts of employees and board members. However, this was not an overnight success. It took two and a half years for the company to receive the kind of attention and sales figures that it so desperately sought. While some may argue that this would seem to be an inordinate amount of time for the firm to get a return on its investment, the company didn’t think so.