By Dick Grove
One of the smarter things I’ve learned in my years in the PR business is that it’s vital to seize opportunities when they arise. It’s even more important to create opportunities where others are not seeing them. I recognized years ago when I created INK PR, that an underserved niche in the PR world were the smaller, emerging enterprises who needed PR, earned media as it were, in order to grow and establish their brand, but couldn’t afford the traditional global agencies. I also recognized these emerging enterprises weren’t just in Silicon Valley, Austin, or New York, but in smaller emerging nations, some hotbeds of technology, innovation, and everyday products in demand in the US.
One such opportunity is Vietnam. A country not that long ago thought of as foreign, backward, and yes, as even an enemy to those of a certain age. No longer. Vietnam has emerged with a thriving market-based economy. Today Vietnam is the seventh largest source of imports to the US with an import value of nearly $15 billion annually. And equally important, it has a rapidly growing base of entrepreneurs anxious to get their enterprises in front of the US market. Herein lies the opportunity.
Thus, I am pleased to announce today that I am traveling to Vietnam at the invitation of the Vietnamese Embassy and local Chamber of Commerce to give a media workshop to 80 Vietnamese entrepreneurs wishing to market their products in the US. How better than gaining an understanding of how the US media works and how to establish a relationship with it: something INK PR has been doing for over thirty years. It’s an exciting opportunity and a result of years of international outreach and meetings to both embassy trade officials and local business people. I’m excited over the possibilities and anxious to report back when I return.
