What gives? Why is public relations for technology companies such a disappointment and cause of frustration for most client executives?

Quite frankly, it is because technology public relations is not clearly understood by most executives at technology companies. There is no 'mission statement' for what they want their public relations to do, and it is not tied closely enough to their sales and marketing, where the objectives are specified and benchmarked. Often, the public relations program has nebulous objectives of 'awareness' (which comes form the advertising community) or 'influence the influencers' - which is curious, since I haven't come across a high-tech company yet who met their revenue goals by selling to industry analysts. They are one of your significant audiences, to be sure, but the public relations effort initially should be targeted at more near-term customers and markets.

What steps can a technology executive take to get the most from their public relations effort and advisors, and make it part of their competitive advantage? Here are some pointers that will help to identify the program objectives and capabilities that you need to effectively employ high-tech public relations:

• Keep the public relations effort closely tied to the sales and marketing effort. Have 12-month goals and three month milestones of tangible industry visibility (editorial features) of your customer applications. Also, instead of the typical, boring product and strategic alliance announcements that quote your own executives and the 'usual suspects' of industry analysts - try showcasing the business value of your best customers' applications.

• When evaluating public relations advisors, make sure that they understand your technology and vision. Prior to the first meeting, send them your material or tell them to visit your web site, and then spend most of the first meeting having them sell your vision back to you - just as they would to an editor. Don't expect quite your own level of expertise, but suppress your natural desire to mentally 'fill in the blanks' and just listen. Do they grasp the major concepts and can they sell (not just 'pitch' - but proactively and more importantly, convincingly, sell) your vision and technology to someone else? If you're not sure, have your top sales person sit in on the meeting as a cross check. Your top sales person knows selling skills when they see them. If you are not convinced - neither will be an editor. Look for the advisors' industry awareness and positioning with respect to other technology and industry developments - the same acumen that your sales people (hopefully) have.

• Don't be seduced by the line that "we have contacts" or visions of  appearing 'above the fold' on page one of the Wall Street Journal (at least not initially.) Have the advisory candidates draw up a list of key trade publications (and their editorial schedules) in your major markets, and have them walk you through a media penetration strategy - how they would research and approach the publications, and why. This strategy is what gets you the interviews and editorial exposure - and it is the basic blocking an tackling of media representation, which is really selling.

• Customer applications are the most effective way to sell technology. (Customer applications differ from the more common 'happy talk' success stories in that they walk the reader through the business problem, the value-add of your technology or services, and the customer's buying-cycle issues. Their development requires a keen understanding of how your technology or services are bought - which is why you seldom see application profiles - but mostly 'success stories'.) To confirm the capability of a public relations advisor to develop and employ these applications, have them provide you with three representative customer application profiles that they developed for their clients, and the resultant editorial coverage. Read through the applications. Do you understand the technology and vision, or do they just use the right words, but have a shallow grasp of the technical and business value-add? What are the quality of the editorial placements? Significant or puff pieces? Again, what you see is what you get.

• Make sure that you understand the difference between 'capabilities' and 'overhead structure' (e.g., their business structure.) Many agencies sell their overhead structure as if it were some form of capability. It's like your lawn service person showing up in July with the snowplow attached to their truck. You don't need it then, and you might not use that service from them at all, but they want you to know they have that 'capability'. Capabilities in public relations advisors, like those in your executive team and staff, have more to do with solving problems and the ability to execute - look for that, not irrelevant resources that simply drive up costs.

• Be very careful not to confuse consumer marketing gimmicks with business-to-business selling. This occurs all the time, and is one of the major reasons a lot of technology advertising and marketing is so ineffective. The business marketing of technology products and services has more to do with solving business problems than simply perceptions, hype or sales laziness masked with false enthusiasm. Ask for the 'reason why' behind everything being proposed, and make sure it keys into the way your customers actually buy - not just the way someone thinks they buy.

• Lastly - ask a public relations advisor for their definition of  technology public relations and listen carefully. The more nebulous the answer - the more nebulous will be the services you get. Perhaps not surprisingly, a lot of public relations providers really don't have a clear understanding of  technology public relations, much less how it can support technology sales and marketing. They can get away with being retained by  technology companies, for among other reasons, because they are almost never questioned on their understanding of  technology public relations. This is because the technology client often has no clear goals or objectives for the public relations program - but allows that criteria to be given to them (directly or by default) by the advisor. If you hear the line 'you just don't understand public relations' - it's a smokescreen, chances are they don't either. This is one case where you get what you specify - not necessarily what you pay for.