Regardless of how effective you run an organization, it doesn’t have the desired outcome if your target audience is not aware of your brand, successes, and contributions your business has made in society. A public relations campaign that educates and informs the customers about the contributions of your organization enhances brand recognition, making it more visible in the public eye.
Using PR activities, the company can monitor the interests of its consumers, partners, investors, and employees, identify threats, and help management to resolve various conflicts. In case of any dispute, they can take action to establish a dialogue quickly. The main focus of public relations is public opinion. In the current fast-growing market, PR has become an essential part of marketing communications. It influences the performance of your company’s marketing strategies as a whole. Hence, for better opportunities and outcomes, collaborating with a well-established PR agency is more than just essential to stand out from the competition.
Everyone seems to be familiar with the term public relations (PR), but not everyone understands it. Though many businesses recognize public relations as a great way to build their marketing approach and boost their online reputation, only a few know much about what PR involves, or the importance of investing their time and efforts to stay on the top row.
Public relations is all about sharing the right information to the right people, to build the brand reputation. Public relations agencies work with businesses to help them develop their image in their niche through effective marketing strategies. Public relations can change the future of your business. When used correctly, PR can build a company as a thought leader, giving it the power to overcome almost any obstacle. This clearly states why PR is vital for any brand and numerous reasons.
WHY PR?
PROMOTES BUSINESS VALUES
In any industry, trust plays a pivotal role in deciding whether a business will be successful or fall apart. Lack of trust among your target group can lead to loss of sales. However, when you hire a public relations agency, those experts can work to increase credibility in your audience by improving your organization’s reputation through various PR strategies – thought leadership pieces, networking strategies, and influencer connections. With the assistance of PR, you can send positive messages to your customers who are in line with your brand image by using the ideas that resonate with them.
PUBLIC RELATIONS IS OPPORTUNISTIC
Your public relations communications with influencers do not necessarily have to be about your business. You can provide the influencers with the accessibility to your consumers to help them see how they are solving their issues using your company’s services and products. The influencers will understand that you are not going to give them an unsatisfied consumer, yet without your support, they are not likely to gain access. Also, they will have the chance to talk to your customers about your competitors and understand what they are doing more broadly than your business. These details you gather through the interaction of the influencer with your customers help you know where your business should focus on to serve your target group better.
ENHANCES YOUR ONLINE PRESENCE
In today’s world, where everyone is digitally connected, PR helps your business to make the most of your online presence. Not only PR agencies provide today’s organizations with the support and assistance needed to market themselves online/social media, but also these agencies are all set to step in when disaster strikes or something goes wrong with the image you have been trying to build the whole time. With the use of social media, press releases, and relationships with promotional sites that publish positive content, PR agencies help their clients to achieve the desired impact and overcome the roadblocks that might stop them from getting the needed results.
Social Media plays a significant role in building your company’s image. Managing a Facebook page, Instagram page, Twitter page, LinkedIn page, YouTube channel, etc. based on your business needs are important ways to attract possible stakeholders or potential customers to your business. Also, early warning of any emerging threats or trends on the internet about your company helps PR agency monitor and respond to public comments effectively.
HELPS TO MANAGE REPUTATION
PR helps to manage the reputation of your organization. Trusted media connections are prerequisite reputation management. For example, you might confront difficult times in your business like advertising went wrong or customers who are unsatisfied hitting out on social media about how bad your product or service is. In situations like these, media connections can help you to repair the damage incurred through a simple press release. PR agencies make use of their media connections to help overcome your business challenges, safeguarding your brand from gaining a bad reputation.
STRENGTHENS COMMUNITY RELATIONSHIPS
Public relation aids in strengthening community relationships by helping you gain new connections. When you make new connections, it means you are building ties with the local market by joining community groups, donating your time and money to a charity, or any causes related to your business area. Being an active member of a community establishes your reliability. Excellent public relations lets you build ongoing relationships with well-known influencers on knowing how your business can make use of their influence in building your brand image.
Your PR agency relationship with the media can help you in several ways. A PR agency can hold interviews with important individuals in your organization, answer field questions from reporters, and publish press releases to make the media aware of the relevant announcements and achievements of your company.
GIVES A PUBLIC FACE TO YOUR PRODUCTS AND SERVICES
An excellent public relations campaign highlights the products and services of your company through creative strategies. For instance, a publicity campaign set up to highlight the launch of a new product or service can also promote your business as a whole. A press conference held to inform about expansion activities undertaken has the added advantage of taking critical decision-makers to the eyes of the general public and giving a public face to your organization. These outreach efforts can help improve the overall impression among your target group about your organization.
MANAGES INTERNAL PERCEPTIONS
Public relations campaigns conducted inside an organization have the potential to boost staff morale, improve communications, and motivate employees to give their best in the work they do. Public relations efforts help to keep all employees in the loop about your company activities and strategic plans and invite feedback from employees. This can make them feel like they are part of the organization and makes them more supportive of the company’s efforts and more effective in performing their works.
PROMOTES YOUR INNOVATIONS
Public relations outreach efforts that boost your business’s innovations attract the attention of your target audience, investors, and potential business partners. PR agencies make use of regular forms of communication in the form of feature news articles, public appearances and presentations, and participation in expert industry panels to establish your organization’s place in the industry’s spotlight. This positive perception helps in improving overall effectiveness by demonstrating the ongoing success of your business.
BUILDS PARTNERSHIP AND ATTRACTS INVESTORS
To grow your company, establishing partnerships is important as having strong connections directly affects your company’s authority. This is where your PR agency steps in. Creating and maintaining relationships within the organization stays as a number one priority for a PR agency, as connections have the potential to convert into opportunities.
Also, PR agencies establish your business as a thought leader in your niche, attracting the attention of potential investors if your business is looking for funding.
ESTABLISHES AS A VALUABLE PART OF THE ECONOMY
Regularly talking about your company’s earnings, job creation, and overall economic impact it creates can help develop it as a vital part of a country’s economy. This can be achieved by releasing quarterly employment figures or contributing to economic development reports. This serves as a platform to showcase the benefit that the company brings to the community it operates in. This raises awareness of the importance of your business and positions it better for expansion funding and business-to-business opportunities and even makes it be seen as a thought leader in your industry.
SHOWCASES YOUR CSR ACTIVITIES
When the general public is aware of your company’s charitable contributions and community support, they become more interested in buying your products or services, symbolizing that they patronize your business. For example, a public relations outreach effort that tells the community about your company’s cash donation to a local school embodies your business as a good corporate citizen. This helps to elevate your brand image, building trust and respect among your target group. This translates to a better overall perception of the organization, showing a steady increase in your sales chart.
INCREASES SALES, LEADS, AND PROFITS
A company is not complete without an effective PR marketing campaign. An organization that enhances its reputation through a range of significant PR practices makes it likely that new potential customers will find their way right to your company’s door. Customers will have a platform to connect with the company through your business stories and press releases. Your PR agency makes it possible by helping your company to craft the right messages to resonate with your target customers in a way that impacts them. This will generate more leads for your business, increasing sales, and resulting in bigger profits.
WHAT DOES A PUBLIC RELATIONS MANAGER DO?
PR managers are responsible for planning, executing, and monitoring the PR strategies and tactics engaged in promoting your brand and its products or services. These include handling crisis communications, writing press releases, and leading a team of other PR professionals who work towards managing your brand’s online presence.
Let’s take a look at the skills and tasks your PR manager masters to boost your business’s public presence.
SKILLS SPECIALIZED BY A PR MANAGER
Successful PR managers have a particular set of skills, of which a few important ones are covered below.
EXCELLENCE IN COMMUNICATION
One major focus of public relations strategies is building your company’s reputation. To do so, PR managers have to spend a lot of their time communicating the objectives of your company at public functions, press conferences, and other events when they get a chance. For this same reason, excelling in communication is a must-to-have skill for PR managers.
GREAT WRITING SKILLS
Along with local communication, PR managers should be able to communicate in written form as well. As PR managers are responsible for writing press releases, white papers, and other company-related news, strong writing skills help to convey the appropriate message that you want to communicate to your target audience, promoting your company. This is especially significant for online PR, where PR managers need to create blog posts, website content, and press releases to gain coverage for your brand.
CREATIVITY
Similar to devising marketing strategies, creativity goes a long way in forming public relations strategies as well. Great PR managers are creative, and they know how to create a PR strategy that stands out from the competitors. This becomes important as a unique story or perspective will drive massive PR coverage for your brand.
STRONG RESEARCH SKILLS
Public relation is a niche where people might be talking about your company without mentioning it directly. Strong research skills possessed by PR managers help to find and leverage these opportunities in boosting your brand. Also, they should do lots of research when planning your Pubic Relations strategy. The additional information, statistics, and data they collect from conducting thorough research helps to boost the power of their owned media. This pretty much summarizes why strong research skills are essential for PR managers.
THEIR DAILY TASKS
The everyday tasks of a PR manager can vary depending on the industry you’re operating, active PR campaigns, size of the PR team, and other possible factors. However, here’s what their daily schedule lists include:
- Giving training to both in-house and external PR teams.
- Attending and speaking at events conducted in your industry and representing your brand at trade shows, other significant events, etc.
- Writing press releases to let your target audience know company-related news and other important announcements.
- Creating fact sheets and media kits about your organization for sending to media teams as a part of brand building strategy.
- Finding and analyzing media coverage and boosting that content through owned and paid media channels available.
- Researching the market to find potential threats to your business.
Public relations managers are also held responsible for tracking and measuring the PR efforts of your organization.
STATISTICS THAT PROVE WHY BUSINESSES NEED PR
#1. 80% of business decision-makers prefer company information in a series of articles to know about a company rather than an advertisement. They find ads to be too pushy, and trust articles published in renowned third-party publications.
#2. 93% of B2B buying processes start with a search online. These searches tend to first look up at a customer pain point and then click on articles that address it. If your PR article comes up in one of those top spots, they will read the article and likely click on your business to get to know you better. This will get you an opportunity to gain a qualified lead.
#3. B2B researchers do an average of 12 searches before clicking on a specific company’s site. Since they do a lot of searches to find a good article, you need to make sure that your company’s content ranks high on search engines. An article about your company shared by a reputable publication will get on top of a search engine, which will create a good impression of your company in the buyer’s mind.
#4. 68% of journalists say the facts that they want are just the necessary details that answer the questions – who, where, why, and when. Many businesses get too close to their idea and then focus on other parts of the startup story as important. Journalists look forward to understanding the meat of the story, and a PR team can help in giving the needed information by knowing what’s exciting and what’s not.
#5. Journalists receive 50-100 press releases every week. To make them choose the article shared about your company, a press release needs to stand out, and PR pros know how to nail it to attract attention.
If your business ignored PR in the past, it is time to start now.
Bottom line
Every company needs a public relations department, or they must at least hire a PR consultant or agency. To devise effective PR campaigns and better results, it’s advisable to go for PR agencies that have many years of experience in the field. It is an essential part of maintaining and enhancing your organization and brand’s image in the eyes of your target group and sending a message to the general public, business partners, and investors that you care. This positive approach will help improve trust, reflecting on your company’s sales and funding.
