http://www.prstore.com/ en mfragen@prstore.com Copyright 2008 2008-01-12T15:22:00-05:00 http://www.prstore.com/site_v2/articles/usatodaycom/ http://www.prstore.com/site_v2/usatodaycom/#When:14:20:00Z USAToday.com, October 20, 2007 Ask an Expert: A one-stop shop for marketing help Q: Steve, while I appreciate your consistent advice to market and advertise my business a lot, my question has to do with the learning curve. Who has time to learn new tricks, and marketing mistakes are expensive! So what am I to do? — Akikio A: I have some good news to share today on the marketing front, my small business friend. Recently I was meeting my wife and daughters for a movie at one of those new upscale, outdoor … what’s the word? Mall isn’t quite right, but it was one of those cool, new, open-air centers with shops, movies, cobblestone streets, outdoor cafes — you get the idea. Plaza maybe. Anyway, I had a little time to kill before they got there, so I was waiting at Starbucks when I happened to glance a few doors down and saw something called The PR Store (prstore.com). I walked in and was fairly amazed at what I found. Brightly lit, beautiful, retail and professional, calling itself “your marketing superstore,” the PR store was a small business owner’s dream: A place to go for website help, logos, brochures, brands, trade show exhibits, postcards even. I chatted with the store’s manager, Maya Braddock, and she explained to me that the PR Store is a franchised chain of almost 40 stores across the country dedicated to being a one-stop-shop for all the marketing, advertising and branding any small business may need. What a great idea. As I have come to learn, like many people associated with the PR Store, Maya has a strong background in advertising, specifically with ad agencies. But if you know anything about agencies, you also know they are meant for big business with ad budgets of $50,000 and up. In fact, it is precisely because ad agencies are geared towards big businesses that the PR Store came into being. After speaking with Maya (and the dynamic owner of the store, Fee Stubblefield), I was fortunate enough to speak with the CEO of the PR Store, Dan Fragen. Dan explained that the originators of the business, Kathy and Mike Butler, also came from an agency background but wanted to create something that catered specifically to small business owners. To do so, they knew they needed a novel business model. Their new business had to be: •Retail: In fact, like the store I went to, most PR Stores are smartly and strategically located near a Starbucks. The one I went to gets about 25 new customers a month simply from drop-in traffic. •Affordable: The prices the PR Store charges are very competitive. •Drop In: Any small business owner can walk into a PR Store, get a free hour consultation, have their needs and budget analyzed, and get an idea about what their options are. It could be as little as a logo on a keychain or as much as a producing a television spot, buying the time, and tracking the results. •Objective: Whereas an ad rep for a TV or radio station, or newspaper or magazine for instance, has a vested interest in you advertising there, your PR Store rep has a vested interested in your small business getting the biggest bang for your buck. So the PR Store is unique in many ways, and here is one more: All of the creative work is centralized in the home office in Charlotte — all of the writing, artwork, graphics — everything. What that means is that even though each individual PR Store can be run like the small business it is, there is an economy of scale making the products affordable, as well as a skill set and level of expertise that might not otherwise be available in a small shop. All in all, what I found at the PR Store was a welcome addition to your small business tool chest — an affordable, professional, useful, tool that should make your life easier and more successful. And no expensive learning curve required. 2007-10-20T14:20:00-05:00 http://www.prstore.com/site_v2/articles/inc_magazine_05_05_01/ http://www.prstore.com/site_v2/inc_magazine_05_05_01/#When:20:59:01Z The Next Great Retail Idea: PR? PR Comes to the Mall A North Carolina entrepreneur sets his sights on creating the H&R Block of public relations. By Stephanie Clifford Public Relations can drive business owners nuts. If they decide to spend money on PR at all, they often feel (and get) sidelined in favor of bigger clients. That’s what Mike Butler noticed when he headed a traditional public relations agency. “We knew a small business owner didn’t get very much attention and his budget wasn’t very big, but his needs were just as real,” Butler says. He’s launched PRstore, a storefront marketing and PR firm for small businesses in hopes of solving the problem. With franchises in strip malls in Charlotte, NC, Detroit and Grand Rapids, Mich., and with plans to expand nationwide, PRstore targets walk-in clients, who describe their price range and goals to a marketing consultant. The consultant then recommends a long-term marketing strategy as well as immediate actions. Press releases and revamped logos are popular. While a Kinko’s, say, can create marketing paraphernalia, Butler says PRstore is also able to provide a detailed analysis of small business clients’ needs. More important to businesspeople on budgets, it will keep clients’ information on file for years, meaning clients can buy pens one year, an annual report the next, and a press kit the next, all with the same look. The store takes care of printing the materials, too. A back office of graphic designers, copywriters and PR specialists handles all the work, whether it’s writing articles for trade magazines ($350) or creating a crisis management plan (no one has requested that yet, but Butler used to handle PR for some southern nuclear power plants, so he has the chops). At prices ranging from $650 for a logo design to $5,500 for an annual report brochure (including printing) , the service is not cheap. But, says Pat Porter, a PRstore client who runs franchise operations for Just Fresh Franchise Systems, a salad and sandwich chain based in Huntersville, N.C., cost isn’t the draw. “The benefit is not so much in the cost,” he says. “It’s the fact that you make one phone call, and the project’s done. It’s a huge amount of time savings.” It’s an idea whose time has come, says Laura Ries, president of Ries & Ries marketing strategists in Atlanta. “A lot of small businesses can’t go to the big guys because their accounts just aren’t large enough, but there’s no doubt small businesses, in order to grow and become big businesses, need PR,” she says. “It’s like H&R Block with taxes. Most people don’t need a big firm or a fancy accountant – just a little bit of help.” 2005-05-01T20:59:01-05:00 http://www.prstore.com/site_v2/articles/advertising_age_02_08_05/ http://www.prstore.com/site_v2/advertising_age_02_08_05/#When:20:23:01Z STORE FRONT FRANCHISES TO OFFER MARKETING SERVICES Chain Concept Aimed at Small Business Customers By Cara B. DiPasquale CHICAGO (AdAge.com)—Franchising is coming to the marketing business. The PRstore, a retail outlet that sells promotional materials, consulting and creative services, is expanding from a single Charlotte, N.C., storefront through a new franchise organization that aims to comprise 150 locations across the country in the next five years. Former agency owners Mike and Kathy Butler started the PRstore last year to serve small businesses that find themselves in a marketing black hole — lacking the expertise to market on their own and the budgets to hire traditional agencies. Small businesses, small priority “[Small businesses] got pushed down in the priority of the agency. They weren’t big enough and didn’t have enough needs to really pay the bills of an agency that depends on larger budgets for its revenue,” said Mr. Butler, who owned public-relations agencies in Knoxville, Tenn., and Columbia, S.C. But smaller marketers can use small, local agencies, said Joan Gillman, executive director of the U.S. Association for Small Business & Entrepreneurship. “They have marketing needs that have been satisfied by local companies, and a lot of those local companies are small businesses,” she said, adding that the new franchise can be successful “if they’ve got a better idea or a better way of presenting it or are more cost-effective.” Menu options The PRstore’s offerings read like a fast-food menu. One example: an 11-by-17 inch folded, full-color brochure dubbed the “Power Talker” sells for $995 plus printing (price includes client consultation, writing, design, stock photography and revisions). Because traditional agencies were “cost-prohibitive,” James Blakey, a pilot for US Airways who recently started his own financial-planning company, turned to the PRstore for direct mail, print ads and brochures to boost his business. “I tried on my own to create all the marketing, but it wasn’t effective,” Mr. Blakey said. “All I had was an idea about the persona of my company, and [the PRstore] extrapolated that and made it something that I could promote my company with.” According to the PRstore’s franchise-offering circular, the initial franchise fee is $40,000 and the franchisee’s initial investment is estimated at $111,000 to $180,000. PRstore is registered to sell franchises in all but 15 states but is seeking to become registered in the remaining states. Three employees Each 1,000-square-feet PRstore will employ three people, the owner — ideally an experienced marketing professional — and two others who help customers choose the right marketing piece, from print ads to business cards to logo-imprinted specialty items, Mr. Butler said. The creation and execution of customized marketing programs are handled by a team of writers, designers and media specialists at a separate location in Charlotte — which may move to Chicago — called PRstore Design Central, which will function as the creative resource for future franchises. The central design team exists “so the franchisees don’t have to go out and hire their own writers or have the overhead to have someone on the payroll the whole time,” said Mary Kennedy, chief operating officer of franchise consultancy Francorp, which helped establish PRS Franchise Systems, the entity directing the franchising program. Ms. Kennedy believes the glut of recent agency layoffs makes the time right. “This is an opportune time for [PRS Franchise Systems] to be out in the marketplace and franchising their business,” she said, “because there are a lot of executives out there who no longer have jobs. 2002-08-05T20:23:01-05:00 http://www.prstore.com/site_v2/articles/home_town_news/ http://www.prstore.com/site_v2/home_town_news/#When:14:22:00Z Minority-owned businesses booming in Buckhead Al Jackson, owner of the PRstore greets Craig Williams of Peaceful Feet Shoeshine at the PRstore Grand opening. These days Buckhead is known for more than just its sprawling skyscrapers; it’s also home to many rising African-American entrepreneurs. As the number of luxury condominiums and construction projects are at an all time high in this part of Atlanta, once known only for its night clubs, so too are the number of minority-owned businesses. Craig Williams, owner of Peaceful Feet Shoeshine Inc. (3131 Piedmont Road NE) and former Apprentice finalist, says that while there are still some challenges in being an African-American business owner in Atlanta, the rewards are much greater. Peaceful Feet Shoeshine, a store offering “come to you” shoe butlery services, has continued to grow, despite facing some initial challenges. In the end, he says, it’s all about “offering a service that is unmatched, and continuing to be persistent.” From one of the nation’s newest Mercedes Benz dealerships to restaurants owned by some of the music industry’s leading Hip-Hop moguls, the growing number of black-owned businesses in Atlanta and across the nation shows that this type of persistence is paying off. Al Jackson, owner of the PRstore (3420 Piedmont Road NE) says he takes pride in bringing a black-owned business to Buckhead and offering affordable services to other small businesses, many of which are start-ups. The PRstore, part of a national franchise, is a perfect addition to the Buckhead business scene, offering all the services of a marketing, advertising, and public relations agency under one roof. As Buckhead continues to grow, so too will the number of black-owned businesses. From small start-ups to mega automobile dealerships, minority-owned businesses are bng innringiovation, diversity and distinction to the heart of Atlanta. 2008-01-12T14:22:00-05:00 http://www.prstore.com/site_v2/articles/the_honolulu_advertiser/ http://www.prstore.com/site_v2/the_honolulu_advertiser/#When:13:52:00Z New PRstore brings marketing to masses By Mark Doyle HONOLULU — Hawaii’s first PRstore, a marketing superstore concept that caters to small business, recently opened on South King Street in Puck’s Alley, joining dozens of PRstores across the country. “We are democratizing marketing the way Henry Ford democratized the automobile industry — we are making marketing affordable for everyone,” said David Patterson, who manages the PRstore in Honolulu. “We don’t consider ourselves as competitors among Hawaii’s big agencies. We are filling a void. We are here to serve those who cannot afford marketing support from the bigger agencies. “I really believe in this concept because, when working for big agencies in the past, I witnessed small customers being turned away.” The marketing ideas, concepts, services, products and tools offered by the PRstore are still of big business quality, but at small business price rates, making it perfect for nonprofits, start-ups, small businesses, individuals and big businesses trimming budgets, Patterson said. The PRstore promotes itself as specializing in affordable marketing products in a friendly, retail walk-in environment. A complete “one-stop shop,” the company offers an a la carte menu of marketing products that includes logo design, brochures, Web sites, rack cards, direct mail, LogoSTUFF (pens, coffee mugs, apparel, etc.), print ads, press releases, and radio and television ads. For more information, call 225-4283 or go online to www.prstore.com. 2008-01-02T13:52:00-05:00 http://www.prstore.com/site_v2/articles/growing_weatlh_magazine/ http://www.prstore.com/site_v2/growing_weatlh_magazine/#When:13:54:00Z Affordable PR There are undoubtedly a number of public relations firms that specialize in inexpensive marketing, but Charlotte, N.C.based PRstore is unique. It’s a public relations firm franchise, and its customers are small to medium-sized businesses. “We exist to fill a very large niche of businesses that fall way below the annual budget that’s required to work with the majority of agencies,” says Dan Fragen, CEO of PRstore, a chain with more than 30 locations in almost half of the nation’s states. In fact, PRstore has grown so quickly, the firm priced itself out of its own customer base and has recently hired a big-budget PR guru to handle its public relations needs. Unlike many PR firms, “we don’t put clients on a retainer,” says Fragen. “We don’t have a minimum budget they have to meet. “If you’re looking for something that’s more ongoing, like publishing newsletters or producing radio and TV advertising, we do that,” he says. “But we can also do things as simple as helping to create your logo for business cards and letterhead. ”In essence, PRstore aims to become what FedEx Kinko’s is for office copying, collating, and printing services. Clients will visit the franchise for advice and expertise on everything from crafting press releases to spearheading direct marketing campaigns. Potential cost: Anywhere from several dollars to several thousand dollars and slightly beyond but still well under what major advertising firms charge. 2008-01-01T13:54:00-05:00 http://www.prstore.com/site_v2/articles/ballantyne_magazine/ http://www.prstore.com/site_v2/ballantyne_magazine/#When:19:15:01Z PRstore Expands to New York City and Beyond Ballantyne-based PRstore announced that it will soon expand into the New York City market. “PRstore is experiencing phenomenal growth,” said Dan Fragen, CEO. “We have awarded franchise rights to the entire New York City metro area, and a our new owner – a veteran Long Island marketing executive – plans to open up to 20 stores in the next few years, including locations in Manhattan.” The first PRstore in the New York City area is expected to open in Long Island; the next one will be in Queens. The company offers full-service marketing and public relations primarily to small companies. Additionally, three PRstores have also opened this summer in the Chicago metro area. Small businesses, entrepreneurs and consumers are expected customers at the PRstore in the New York area. “Customers can choose from a wide range of marketing services including the writing and production of printed materials ranging from brochures to newsletters, press releases, web sites, mailers and rack cards,” said Fragen. “PRstore also offers customers a full range of specialty advertising items that can be imprinted with a company logo.” 2007-10-19T19:15:01-05:00 http://www.prstore.com/site_v2/articles/santa_barbara_daily_sound/ http://www.prstore.com/site_v2/santa_barbara_daily_sound/#When:14:17:00Z PRstore ramps up revenue BY HANNAH GUZIK When Ira and Linda Distenfield opened up PRstore on Upper State Street in December 2005 they hoped to have 20 clients by the marketing superstore’s two-year anniversary. As the husband and wife business duo counted their more than 600 clients Thursday, they spoke with the Daily Sound about how making other businesses profitable has turned out to be a profitable business in itself. “Our target client group is actually much greater than we thought,” Mr. Distenfield said. “Businesses in Santa Barbara, charities, churches and loads of non-profits are all coming to us and saying, ‘Can you help us ramp up our revenue?’” The 15-year business and 20-year marriage partners say they’ve developed a unique marketing company because they offer a wide variety of services at an affordable price at their 3609 State St. store. “This is one stop shopping designed to help small businesses,” Ms. Distenfield said, pointing to the array of coffee mugs, T-shirts, notepads and posters she’s helped to design for local companies. “I think in Santa Barbara, what motivated Linda and I, is that we’ve seen too many business open and close here, too many great ideas come and go. And they don’t fail just because they provide a product or service that isn’t of value. It’s because they don’t know how to let the world know about it,” Mr. Distenfield said. “I feel that the PRstore is somewhat similar to a Home Depot. It’s all under one roof,” he added. Santa Barbara City College marketing professor Julie Ann Brown, said the PRstore discovered a niche in the business world. “I think it’s a really wonderful concept for entrepreneurial companies that have a limited amount of marketing knowledge or a limited budget. It makes smaller, star-up companies feel they can compete visually in the marketplace,” said Ms. Brown, who asked Mrs. Distenfield to be on the SBCC marketing advisory board. “With the proliferation of technology, now everyone can become a business owner but not everyone has the marketing expertise to get the word out. It’s better to go to a one stop shop,” said Ms. Brown, who also owns a Web business call archivalart.com. “If I didn’t have my own knowledge of marketing I would have gone to a store like the PRstore.” But as business grow, so too should their advertising efforts, Ms. Brown added. “As companies become larger and as their needs grow, they need to go from a starter company, like the PRstore, to a more specialized marketing company.” The PRstore’s success is not unique to Santa Barbara. The franchise, which the Distenfield’s are partners in, has 20 new stores opening in New York and five in Los Angeles in the coming months. The Santa Barbara shop was the fifth to open in the nation, Mr. Distenfield said; there are now more than 30 PRstore’s across the U.S. The Distenfield’s drew on the success of the legal documentation preparation service company, We The People, which they started locally in 1993. By the time they sold the company a few years ago, more than 150 stores had popped up across the nation, Mr. Distenfield said. PRstore has done marketing for several local organizations and businesses, including the Santa Barbara Police Activities League, Star Power generators, Darin Jon hair studio and UCSB. First Presbyterian Church, at 21 E. Constance Ave., has also been helped by the PRstore, said Rev. Peter Buehler. “They were affordable for us,” he said, recalling the TV commercial that the Distenfield’s made for the church, where he invites locals to a “Sundaes on Saturday” open house event. “I had previously visited with a couple of advertising agencies, but when they heard what our budget was, they laughed, and that was that.” He said church attendance has increased due to the ads, and that – like the free ice cream sundaes has advertised – is “sweet.” 2007-10-06T14:17:00-05:00 http://www.prstore.com/site_v2/articles/charlotte_business_journal/ http://www.prstore.com/site_v2/charlotte_business_journal/#When:19:22:00Z PRstore Gets Assistance as it Eyes Big Expansion Charlotte firm enlists Concentric Marketing to lead its ad campaign By Rich Thomaselli Staff Writer At first glance, there’s a paradoxical element of dancing with the devil or sleeping with the enemy here that seems almost surreal. PRstore, LLC – a Charlotte-based national company that provides professional public relations, advertising and marketing services to small businesses – needs, well, professional public relations, advertising and marketing services for itself. Strange, right? Not really. What started as a small retail operation on South Tryon Street six years ago has grown into 34 nationwide franchises. Now, with plans to expand to 350 franchises in the next five years, PRstore has reached out to Concentric Marketing to develop a comprehensive national ad campaign to begin late this year or early 2008. Concentric was scheduled to pitch its final ideas for the campaign today to PRstore Chief Executive Dan Fragen and company founders Kathy and Michael Butler. The campaign will be across the board, including television, print and in-store promotions. Concentric President Bob Shaw has already conducted much of the research which included discussions with franchisees and customers. “First of all, even before we became involved with PRstore, I thought it was a brilliant concept,” Shaw says. “What it narrows down to is, small business is a big space. One of my charges was to understand who to go after.” “PRstore was built on the need for small business to have access to the same kind of marketing services that big business has,” Fragen says. “The Butlers started PRstore in August 2001, putting a storefront in Uptown Charlotte right between the headquarters of Bank of America and Wachovia Corp. If location, location, location is the first mantra for every small business, this was like putting the first jeans store in Communist Russia. PRstore began attracting people who were in town to do business with the banks and stopped in the store, intrigued by the concept of one-stop shopping for marketing services without having to pay big agency fees. Within two years, PRstore franchised into Grand Rapids, Mich. Since the start of 2006, PRstore has been opening franchises across the country at the rate of one a month. Sitting in a conference room at PRstore headquarters in Ballantyne, Fragen talks about providing agency-level services to small business and doing it in a retail environment – ironically, the same kind of services PRstore now needs from Concentric. “We wanted an outside opinion and someone who had more expertise doing national branding than we do,” Fragen says. “Our clients are not typically national companies looking for national branding.” But there was some confusion about what kind of client PRstore was attracting. PRstore doesn’t have the capacity to handle businesses with a $1 million or more annual ad budget, but its services aren’t for the entrepreneur looking to spend $500 over 12 months either. But Fragen says PRstore’s current advertising attracts the $500 client “and we need to figure out a way to filter that out.” Each PRstore franchise spends $3,000 to $5,000 per month on advertising and marketing, making this a potential $1.6 million account for Concentric. Fragen says PRstore’s ad spending will stay at that level, but the ads will be more consumer-focused. Says Shaw: “There’s going to be a level of fine-tuning the message and then going forward.” 2007-10-05T19:22:00-05:00 http://www.prstore.com/site_v2/articles/charlotte_business_journal1/ http://www.prstore.com/site_v2/charlotte_business_journal1/#When:00:44:00Z PRstore to Expand Product Offering PRstore will offer its customers Internet search-engine optimization and pay-per-click advertising services via a partnership with Service Network, a Charlotte online-marketing company that specializes in such services. Search-engine optimization makes Web sites more visible to search engines, increasing the likelihood that clients’ Web sites will appear near the top of search listings. Pay-per-click is a form of Internet advertising that allows clients to place an advertisement in a location most likely to be seen by potential customers. “This partnership represents a major benefit to America’s small-business owners,” says Daniel Fragen, chief executive of Charlotte-based PRstore. “Effective Internet marketing tools need to be as available to small businesses, just as they are for larger companies.” Financial terms of the companies’ agreement weren’t disclosed. PRstore provides small businesses with marketing services that include logo development, brochures, newsletters, Web sites, direct-mail campaigns and sales materials. 2007-08-25T00:44:00-05:00