Public Relations

Using the power of the media to
grow your business

A traditional definition of Public Relations (PR) is that it is the “practice of communicating to an organisation’s ‘publics’ with the aim of building reputation and fostering goodwill.”

These publics include customers and anyone else the organisation wants to influence such as shareholders, employees and the government.

In its fullest form, public relations can include all types of relationship building activity such as entertaining, hospitality and public speaking.

It also includes any type of coverage in the media and it is this element that we will focus on here, including press releases, by-lined articles, and feature contributions. We’ll look at these in more detail shortly.

In common with most other marketing activities, the aim of PR is to increase the sales, profitability and worth of a company by improving the image of the firm and its products.

How can PR help your business?

It’s free and profitable!

Think of PR as FREE advertising!!! It doesn’t need to cost a penny and it is of more value than paid for advertising because people see it as more objective.

This makes PR one of the most powerful components in the marketing toolbox, and one which any savvy business owner should master and exploit.

It’s also...

Easy!

There is a lot of mystery surrounding media activity. A common misconception is that it is very hard to get coverage in the media, and that you need to employ or appoint experts in order to be able to “do” PR. This is simply not true and anyone with this view is missing out on some seriously valuable benefits. So ban those thoughts – start to see PR as an accessible and profitable element of your business.

Don’t get me wrong – there is a time and a place for PR experts. Indeed they can be worth their weight in gold. However, the small business with little or no resource can still benefit significantly from PR just by following a few simple rules.

• First rule of public relations - Know your target
  
  
• Second rule of public relations - Meet their needs
  
  

• A press release – to announce some news relating to your company.
  
  
• An article – to promote your knowledge on a certain subject.
  
  
• An opinion or contribution – relating to a feature being written by someone else.
  
  
• Response to a press enquiry – from a journalist about a specific topic.