Marketing budgets are under scrutiny. Every pound is expected to show clear return, and teams are under pressure to focus only on activity that drives measurable commercial outcomes. So when PR enters the conversation, it’s understandable that the first question is: “Will this actually increase sales, or is it just visibility?”
Most marketing and communications leads already know PR is “good for awareness.” But what they actually want, and what their stakeholders want, is clarity on the business impact.
Can PR influence sales? Can it support revenue growth? Can it make marketing budgets work harder?
The short answer is yes, but not in the simplistic “one press release = one purchase order” way that stakeholders sometimes imagine.
Instead, PR shapes the strategic conditions that make sales possible: trust, recognition, credibility, relevance, and reputation.
These are the levers team leads rely on to shorten sales cycles, strengthen brand perception, and build a commercial advantage that compounds over time.
This guide shows you how PR can drive sales outcomes.
PR builds the visibility and credibility that shape commercial decisions
Senior buyers, procurement teams, NHS Trusts, clinical leaders, retailers, and corporate partners all rely on reputation signals, often unconsciously, when evaluating suppliers. Especially in regulated industries like healthcare.
If your brand lacks visibility, or if your value isn’t clearly articulated in the market, your sales team starts every conversation from zero. PR changes that.
It ensures your brand enters commercial discussions with credibility already established, meaning your team spends less time explaining who you are and more time demonstrating what you can deliver.
Visibility creates familiarity. Credibility creates confidence. Both influence buying behaviour long before a prospect reaches your website.
In healthcare, you’re not selling impulse purchases. Credibility plays a crucial role.
The healthcare industry has an overall average conversion rate of 3.2%, and this can be attributed to the fact that your potential customers need to build trust before they buy.
They’re not just evaluating features and pricing – they’re evaluating credibility, reliability, and whether your solution will genuinely deliver for patients, staff, or their organisation.
This is exactly where strategic PR can shift sales outcomes. It builds the independent validation that underpins decision-making across all these dimensions.
How PR directly influences sales
When a potential customer recognises your brand from the media, thought leadership, commentary or sector reports, the groundwork is already done.
You’re no longer an unknown supplier, you’re a trusted voice in their industry. This improves:
- Initial responsiveness (prospects reply faster because they know the brand)
- Internal buy-in (stakeholders feel safer choosing a credible partner)
- Conversion rates (trust accelerates decision-making)
- Sales velocity (fewer objections, fewer clarification cycles)
A strong reputation smooths every stage of the funnel. PR ensures your brand doesn’t enter sales conversations with a credibility deficit. In addition, this is how PR drives potential customers through the entire stage of the funnel:
1. PR builds trust that drives conversion
When organisations evaluate new solutions, they don’t rely solely on a vendor’s own messaging. They look for independent voices – specialist media, respected clinicians, industry analysts, patient groups.
Positive coverage in credible healthcare publications gives prospects the reassurance they need. When your innovation is discussed in Medical Device Network, or Digital Health, cited by leading clinicians, or referenced by advocacy groups, it communicates: “Experts trust this solution so you can too.”
This trust is difficult to achieve through advertising alone and has a stronger impact on conversion intent.
2. PR educates the market and creates demand
In healthcare, lack of understanding is often a bigger barrier than lack of awareness.
Innovative products often require the market to understand why the underlying problem matters before they recognise the value of a solution. PR is uniquely effective at shaping this understanding and in turn, creating demand that drives sales.
For example, our medical manufacturer client, Vygon UK, is seeing traction supplying to NHS Trusts its innovative cardiac monitoring device – and winning award recognition with the respected Health Services Journal, as a result of investing in a dripfeed of earned media, expert commentary and research announcements.
PR positions your brand as a knowledgeable guide, not a vendor making claims.
3. PR reaches every stakeholder involved in buying decisions
Healthcare purchasing rarely involves a single decision-maker. As marketing leaders, you often need to influence:
- Clinical leaders
- Procurement teams
- Operations managers
- Executive sponsors
- Regulatory advisors
Each group consumes different information and reads different publications.
Execution of a comprehensive PR strategy allows you to communicate effectively to each audience through the outlets they trust – from clinical journals to healthcare management titles.
By the time internal teams meet to discuss options, each stakeholder has already encountered your credibility through a channel relevant to them.
How to measure the impact of PR on sales
To demonstrate commercial value, PR must be evaluated through metrics aligned to how it influences the buying journey – not through outdated measures like AVE.
The most effective categories include:
Trust and credibility indicators
- Share of voice in key healthcare publications
- Positive sentiment in earned media coverage
- Expert endorsements and third-party citations
- Invitations for speaking, commentary or panels
- Market education impact
- Search volume increases for problem-related keywords (not just solution keywords)
- Inbound inquiries mentioning recent coverage or commentary
- Sales cycle acceleration for prospects exposed to recent PR coverage
- Increase in qualified leads following major campaigns
Stakeholder alignment metrics
- Coverage across different stakeholder-relevant publications
- Engagement rates from varied audience groups
- Social sharing patterns among different professional communities
- Industry recognition and award nominations
Long-term relationship indicators
- Customer retention rates for clients acquired during high-PR periods
- Upsell success following thought leadership
- Partnerships or collaborations sparked by visibility
Tools that help demonstrate ROI
- CRM fields capturing “How did you hear about us?”
- Analytics tracking for coverage-driven traffic and conversions
- Sales feedback loops to track awareness and objectives
- Customer interviews to map decision-making journeys
PR as a support to your sales strategy
A common misconception faced by marketers is that PR efforts need to drive results immediately.
The real power in PR is consistency, which allows sales and marketing teams to drive further, faster.
PR builds the trust, credibility and visibility that your commercial teams rely on to convert. Without it, they’re starting from scratch each time they speak to a prospect. With it, they’re walking into conversations where the brand already has a reputation and a head start.
Whether you’re trying to grow pipeline, launch a new product, increase referrals, engage harder-to-reach decision-makers, or establish your authority in a crowded market, PR becomes the long-term strategic lever that makes every commercial activity work harder.
At The Tonic Communications, we help brands turn awareness into authority, and authority into sales.
We specialise in:
- PR strategy
- Media relations
- Thought leadership
- Crisis communications
- Story development
- Stakeholder engagement
All designed to strengthen reputation and support business outcomes. If you want PR that doesn’t just “look good” but actually moves the needle, get in touch.
Let’s talk about how we can help your brand get noticed, remembered and chosen.
