Public relations is about reputation management - getting a good reputation and keeping it so customers will find you and use your services or products. PR really does mean relationships with your publics.
Who are "your publics" anyway? Well, it's not just the public. A business benefits from good relationships with board and staff members, distributors, service providers, potential customers, present and past customers, businesses in close proximity to your office, businesses in an allied field, other business folks who can steer customers to you, sources of capital perhaps, and the media.
Strategies and Tactics
Public relations strategies and tactics - like commemorating your company's 25th anniversary or donating your staff members' time to clean up and plant shrubs in a pocket park in a blighted urban neighborhood - should be an integral part of your overall, ongoing marketing strategy.
Garnering good coverage by the media conveys credibility or endorsement. Therefore, an article about your business is remembered by readers more than an ad.
With today's diverse and fragmented media venues, it's difficult to know where to send your news - or, frankly, what about you may be newsworthy. More often than not, it's hard to convince busy media of the news worthiness of your story.
Don't have any real news right now? Consider informing reporters and editors about your expertise in your field - position yourself as a resource to be quoted - best timed in connection with hot national news or a new trend. For example, my wedding planner client did not have any particular news, but upon learning from her that many folks get engaged at Valentine's Day, I called area newspapers using that nugget and offering her up as a local expert. The effort resulted in an interview of her by her area newspaper!
Writing articles for publication is a strategy that elevates your reputation and may bring you business. For my clients who have written articles, I have placed these in national and regional magazines. Being published, furthermore, gave the author additional online presence as the articles are "picked up" by Web search engines.
Face-to-face networking is an important public relations strategy widely employed but not necessarily effectively by a lot of business people. In fact, many folks are uncomfortable meeting new people. One way to overcome the anxiety and maximize the business networking opportunity is to plan to employ listening skills and consider how to be of value to each person with whom you shake hands and exchange business cards. Giving gets!
You cannot physically appear everywhere. But you can virtually "be" everywhere. The advent of Web 2.0 has presented marketing and PR folks with new challenges as well as opportunities to reach a wider audience and receive comments and opinions. PR and marketing professionals alike get their company's or client's messages across via online resources such as ezines, presentations on YouTube or the firm's intranet, social and business networking sites, podcasts, webinars, RSS feeds, and other tactics.
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