About eight months ago I started doing some research on companies in the Boston area that specialized in traditional PR services. We broke off Pearse Street’s marketing department into Social Focus Marketing, Inc. in March, but in addition to having our hands full with existing clients and projects, we simply never really delved much into print, tv or traditional networking. I was looking for a company that could work in conjunction with our company to provide a broader range of services to our clients as well as our own internal marketing initiatives.

When we decided to create the marketing department, we did a lot of initial research in various aspects of PR in relationship to search engine marketing and online marketing in general. While these books and articles lacked much substance in terms of how-to (even just starting out we knew more than these books offered), there was a common conclusion that traditional PR was essentially dead and PR companies were either still trying to stay afloat on those services or were quickly updating their business models to incorporate online marketing into their strategies and marketing plans. (more…)