Mention the term public relations (PR) and most people connect the term purely to generating publicity for a company or a client. But that’s not the whole story.
In order to maximise a PR campaign it is essential to understand exactly what is meant by PR and why it is important to recognise the difference between publicity and PR.
‘Managing communication between an organisation and its publics’ – this is an official description of PR. It is an effective explanation of what PR is and you will note, there is no mention of publicity.
PR is fundamentally concerned with reputation management. Understanding what’s being said about your company, tracking the communications and making sure they are in line with your strategy.
“I suspect in most companies, the PR person is down at No. 20 in the pecking order. But here, he is fighting incredibly important battles. If a negative story starts running away with itself in the press and is not dealt with fast, it can badly damage the brand, and so we put enormous weight on our PR people.”
Richard Branson
Never underestimate the power of a good reputation which can be hard earned and lost in an instant. It was thirty years ago, but Gerald Ratner’s brief comment during a speech at the Institute of Directors destroyed his multimillion-pound empire in ten seconds.
The dictionary definition of publicity is: ‘notice or attention given to someone or something by the media.’ In other words, it is information or news of one form or another. Liaising with the media remains an important element of the PR process. The fundamental task is to communicate key messages about your brand and/or products to the outside world by sending out the right story at the right time to the right audience.
Your latest news can be disseminated in various ways – whether it’s a LinkedIn post, a short video or perhaps a blog, a case study or more traditionally, a press release.
As the daily channels of communication have now expanded to include a variety of digital formats this has created a lot of discussion around traditional press releases and whether they still have a place within a PR campaign.
Here at Leapfrog Marketing, a B2B PR and marketing company based in Leicester, we have a variety of clients within the materials handling, logistics and engineering sectors. Our experience in these industries shows us that, yes, well written releases sent out with appropriate images to carefully targeted media are still an important and effective method of building awareness. This is particularly true in the B2B PR sector and there are a number of reasons why.
Press releases that contain keywords will support your SEO campaign. Adding releases to your website in a newsroom format allows search engines to register those important keywords and boost your SEO rankings.
Constantly updating a newsroom means that journalists can easily access information when they need it. The newsroom also generates frequent new content for your website to further improve its rank in search engines.
The core of a PR communications strategy is providing customers and the media with the latest information about your company and its services. Press releases allow you to distribute credible messages – giving you control over how the message is portrayed to your target audience.
Blending traditional and digital PR creates a powerful strategy. Many of the publications we work with use our press releases to form stories on their websites which are then filtered through to social media. In this way press releases reach a much wider audience than you may initially think.
So publicity is one important tool in the PR armoury – there are, however, other equally important tactics…
An effective PR campaign always begins with a strategic approach: conducting research and evaluation to really understand your brand identity and values, getting to grips with your competitors’ strengths and weaknesses, and most importantly, being crystal clear regarding your target audience’s needs and wants.
Once a thorough assessment has been carried out, your chosen PR company can construct the key messages which will be used throughout to create a focused and co-ordinated campaign.
Essential for all aspects of PR communication, the ability to write compelling copy is vital. Whether it be content on the company website, in a blog post or for an article to be published online or in print.
A company is only as good as the staff it employs and keeping them informed, motivated and onside is a crucial PR tactic.
It could simply be a case of regularly circulating an e-newsletter or arranging a yearly company conference. There are many different methods to ensure that employees are kept inspired and informed on the latest events and future projects.
Sometimes, however hard you tried to prevent it, the inevitable happens and the brown stuff hits the fan. Any effective PR company worth its salt will recommend that a crisis plan be put in place at the start of a campaign. They can then be there to implement it quickly for you should the worst happen.
Instant action is required not only to guide you through the media minefield, but also to shape your internal corporate communications. This will help limit potential damage across all sectors during what can be an extremely challenging period.
To conclude, PR is so much more than just publicity. It’s a well thought out strategy based on extensive research which is put together through a variety of carefully chosen tactics to achieve the client’s goals.
Perhaps S. H. Simmons defined PR best when he said:
“If a young man tells his date how handsome, smart and successful he is – that’s advertising. If the young man tells his date she’s intelligent, looks lovely, and is a great conversationalist, he’s saying the right things to the right person and that’s marketing. If someone else tells the young woman how handsome, smart and successful her date is – that’s PR.”
And, as Warren Buffet said:
“It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.”
So, remember, if you don’t tell your story, someone else will. Employing a good PR agency will help you consistently tell your story to the right people, at the right time.