[Originated from China's public relations industry in the 1990s, IT ushered in a golden period with the rapid development of IT and home appliances industry after 1995. At present, almost all well-known public relations companies in China started their business from IT and home appliances customers. However, after 20 years of development, the public relations industry has become increasingly mature, just like a 20-year-old youth to choose a life path, the current development of the public relations industry, but also facing the problem of business model change.

Which do you choose between "guaranteed publication rate" and "No guaranteed publication rate"? Most customers choose the former; Which would you prefer, pay per article or pay per word? Most customers choose the former; Which do you choose, "journalism" or "puff"? Most customers choose the former. It is along this path of selection that Asomitong has created a unique operation model and accumulated 10,000 customers and a turnover of 100 million yuan just five years ago.

The market is changing. The business model is changing

Since the establishment of Asomotone in 2005, we have reached a consensus on the development of the company: the traditional public relations operation mode is too rigid, the market is changing, and the needs of customers are changing. Therefore, Asomotone must innovate in the operation mode to meet the needs of customers.

Charge per article to ensure the rate of publication

The traditional public relations operation mode of Asearth.com is "charging by the word". The so-called "charge by the word", is not according to the number of manuscript to charge, but to measure the area, and then the area is reduced to the number of words, the number of words is stipulated by the public relations company. For example, to send a 1000-word article, the print media distribution area is about 150 square centimeters, PR companies stipulate that 1 square centimeter is equal to 10 words, (or 12 words), about 4-10 yuan per word. Pr company's charge is 150cm2×10 words/cm2×4 yuan/word, the charge is 6000 yuan.

Charging per word area, perhaps the great invention of China's PR industry, has been going on for 20 years now. The reason for charging by area is that the area published by different media is not the same. For example, for the same article, China Youth Daily measured a larger area than the Beijing Evening News. In addition, the headline, the picture is valuable to the user, then how to calculate this value? I'm going to count it all over the area. Therefore, the "word area charge" provides both public relations companies and customers with a mutually acceptable charging standard, and provides a higher profit rate for public relations companies, thus promoting the enlightenment and development of China's public relations industry.

But pay-per-word is not without its pitfalls. Mr. Liu, a senior public relations person, told reporters that this kind of fee model is very expensive, good media to send an article to spend more than 10,000 yuan; In addition, since the profit point of public relations companies is mainly in the release of manuscripts, so they do not pay enough attention to the quality of manuscripts, but put more energy on attracting clients, making connections, sending rebates and doing fancy cases.

Pr Newswire was the first to challenge the pay-per-word model when it landed in China in 2003. Pr Newswire, positioned as an intermediary publishing agency, charges a fee of several thousand yuan and distributes manuscripts to media across the country. However, PR Newswire does not promise the rate of publication, and Chinese customers often find it difficult to accept this way of not promising the effect of publication, so the development of PR Newswire in China is not smooth.

Following PR Newswire's model of development, there have also emerged in China such as Wo Mei Business Telecom and China Business Telecom to compete with PR Newswire and PR companies. However, the scale and influence of these companies are far less than PR Newswire, and the model is completely copied, so scale has never been able to be achieved. Hemi soon disappeared from the market, while China Business Telecom is now limited to online distribution, not print media.

Thus, the news channel realized: according to the fee model is the customer like, at the same time, the rate of publication is also to promise. Thus, Aswen created a new fee model: charge by article, print media charge 3,000 yuan per article, network media charge 200 yuan per article, to ensure the rate of publication. This charging model has won great recognition from customers. Because of the low fees, many public relations firms have become clients of Asweitong.

Undertake copywriting business, improve the quality of content

The second major drawback of the traditional public relations operation model is that it does not pay attention to the content of the manuscript. Many of the manuscripts sent out by public relations companies are boastful and foaming. Mr. Liu told reporters that many PR company writers have little experience, do not understand the news, do not understand the education of customers, out of the manuscript is a word: "Kua". This kind of manuscript in the media will often be greatly cut, and may even be through the purchase of media advertising space to send.

A common nickname for boastful corporate press releases is "advertorial". Mr. Liu said that most enterprises in China have been "scanned" by public relations companies. Many enterprises know what advertorials are, and their understanding of public relations is also "advertorials". As everyone knows, this kind of soft article without news points, no readability, not only send up laborious, even if the media sent no one to read, what is the point?

Pr Newswire often faces similar problems. In order to solve this problem, PR Newswire often holds media communication meetings to bring companies and media together and ask "media people" to tell "enterprise people" how to do PR press releases. However, PR Newswire does not undertake the task of writing press releases of enterprises, and insists on the positioning of "intermediary news release and release agency".

After weighing, the news or decided to undertake copywriting business. "Companies really don't know how to write PR press releases, and that's what the market needs." "We would like to have professional copywriting companies cooperate with us so that we can concentrate on developing resources," said Jiang Chao, Marketing Department of Zhaomintong. "Publishing and online and newspaper advertising are our most important sources of profit. Now we have to start our own copywriting business."

In order to improve the quality of manuscripts, Zhaomuntong not only employs a group of professional copywriters with high salaries, but also explores the chief editors of many media and expert resources from all walks of life. For home appliance customers, for example, Zhaowen lets the chief editor of home appliance edition handle the work, so that he can write public relations articles that are easy to read and can meet the needs of customers.

'Those boastful advertorials are often of little value to companies when they are published,' said Jiang Chao. 'Readers don't believe them, they don't read them, and the media don't like to publish them.' Now some long-term vision of the media, in order to improve the quality of content, has publicly put forward the slogan of "boycott advertorials". The future development direction of the public relations industry must improve the quality of manuscripts, and Zhaowen has to make long-term efforts in this respect.

"In the next five years, the decline of print media and the rise of online media will be the general trend. For media, there is no future without content, and PR needs to adapt." "Said Jiang Chao.

The innovation of operation mode has opened up a brand new world in network public relations and traditional public relations market. Although it also suffers from low profit margins, a labor-intensive workforce and a lack of talent, it is clearly on the right track and showing great vitality.

"In 2011, the company plans to double the turnover of its four main businesses -- advertorial publishing, online marketing, advertising, crisis management and online word-of-mouth monitoring -- to 200 million yuan." "We feel we are driving change in the PR industry in China," says Jiang Chao.