The Power of Public Relations...
Danijela Jerkovi?
Ba.Sci., CA Certified Accountant, CIA Certified Internal Auditor | Managing Director at Danijela Jerkovic's Services
“Everything you do or say is public relations.”
~ Unknown
Public relations (PR) is managing and disseminating information from an individual or an organization (such as a business, government agency, or a nonprofit organization) to the public to affect their public perception.
Public relations (PR) and publicity differ because PR is controlled internally, whereas?publicity?is not controlled and contributed by external parties.?Public relations may include an organization or individual gaining?exposure?to their audiences using topics of public interest and news items that do not require direct payment.?The exposure mostly is?media-based. This differentiates it from?advertising?as a form of?marketing communications.
Public relations aims to create or obtain coverage for clients for free, also known as?earned media, rather than paying for?marketing?or advertising also known as paid media, although in the early 21st century, advertising is also a part of broader PR activities.
Public relations specialists establish and maintain relationships with an organization's target?audience, the media, relevant trade media, and other?opinion leaders.
Common responsibilities include:
Success in the field of public relations requires a deep understanding of the interests and concerns of each of the company's many stakeholders.
The public relations professional must know how to effectively address those concerns using the most powerful tool of the public relations trade, which is publicity.
Create attention. Create a story that captures the public’s interest and it could translate into millions of dollars of free press for your client or your own brand.
This simple formula helped put one client and agency on the map to fame and fortune.
?However, generally good PR is much, much more than just coming up with a one-shot story. Having a proper PR plan, doing targeted PR outreach, and having good press relations can make or break a company’s image in the long run.
The only bad PR ... ... is the PR you don’t control.
Believe it or not... Whoever you are, wherever you are, public relations makes a difference in your life.
With an effective public relations program, you can communicate with your target market more often, not less, without increasing ad spending.
... and if you’re a consumer, public relations play a role in your education and the formation of your opinions without your even being aware of it.
Did you know that half or more of everything you read, see, and hear in the media was put there through the actions of a public relations manager or a PR firm?
PR has an enormous effect on the information you get every day of your life.
The key to getting media coverage is to offer them a story that they can’t resist.
The two key elements are:
1: an understanding of the marketing message
and ...
2: the ability to think creatively in terms of PR campaigns.?
Three basic PR principles:
Some of the reasons a business or person may want to use PR are:
“Public relations is the business of creating public opinion for private advantage.”?
PR is “using the media to achieve a client’s marketing objective”
Use PR to communicate your message, build your image, motivate desired behavior, and generate greater revenues and profits.?
Public relations is more than just pitching stories to the media or mailing out press releases. The PR umbrella covers a number of related activities, all of which are concerned with communicating specific messages to specific target audiences.
The label public relations typically encompasses the following:
Public relations is a business tool that often gets confused with marketing and advertising, two related but very distinct activities.
The key to good public relations creative thought is understanding that it’s more than pulling good ideas out of the air. Quality creative public relations concepts come from a deliberate planning process.
Set a strong foundation for the planning process by doing some initial research and identifying your objectives.
Defining Your Goals and Objectives...
Putting together the PR plan...
Companies also hire outside PR counsel for a fresh point of view and original, creative thinking. In-house people may have been working on a product line for so long that they’re bored and can’t see any excitement in it. To the outside PR professional just brought on board to handle the account, promoting the product is a fun challenge that gets the creative juices flowing.
Advertising agencies provide advertisers with a wide range of communications services: copywriting, art, production, media planning, buying, market research, sales promotion, and public relations, both online and off.
Public relations agencies are the professionals to turn to when you want to get coverage in the media.?
Tips for selecting the PR firm that can best serve your company:
Many creative types of people — especially writers, artists, photographers, and publicists — are skilled in areas of promotion and work as freelancers, serving both advertisers and advertising agencies. Freelancers are capable of delivering the same high-quality work as advertising and PR agencies at a fraction of the cost. Using freelancers can be the least expensive way of getting professional help to create your promotions.
Most small businesses rely on print promotions — posters, signs, pamphlets, ads, point-of-purchase displays, coupons, media kits, and brochures — to reach their customers and prospects. Graphic design firms can often meet this need with great quality at a reasonable fee.
The Web is an important part of any PR campaign (read more about that in Chapter 16) so you need a professional Web designer to create a site that is both useful and usable for your press contacts.
Getting the Most out of Hired Help...
Brainstorming and Thinking Creatively...
Picking the PR Team...
One person in your organization should be responsible for PR, serving as a liaison between your company and your PR specialist or agency, as well as coordinating communication between your firm and the press.
Defining the Scope of Your Authority...
Because effective PR depends on being able to give the media a fast, accurate, honest response when reporters have questions, the PR manager cannot operate effectively if everything said in PR — in print, in person, and on the phone — has to go to a half-dozen people to get approval. By the time the response is approved, the story has grown cold and the media is alienated.
To make PR efforts effective, the PR manager needs to be able to make decisions quickly. That means a simplified chain of command. For approval on major PR documents, the PR manager should have to circulate a copy to no more than two or three people — the product manager, a technical expert for accuracy, and perhaps the CEO or marketing director. For media contact, the appropriate spokespeople within the company, such as the CEO or marketing manager, should be committed to giving priority to media response and to understanding that the press can’t wait.
PR is an essential element in an overall marketing scheme, but remember that it’s only one component of many. PR should be part of an integrated marketing communications strategy.
Half the job of a full-time PR professional is disseminating information to the media; the other half is understanding what the company is really doing.
To be an effective and efficient PR professional, you need to create a “PR Command and Control Center” — a place in your business where you can, from a single location, develop and implement all your PR campaigns.
Transform your own desk into a tiptop PR command and control center in short order:
Keep your lists updated.
As the years go by, your media contacts will change jobs.
As people make career moves, they often climb the corporate ladder.
You can target your market in any of several ways (or a combination of ways). The nine major ways are industry, company size, location, job function or title, product application, distribution channels, affinity groups, specific users, and buying habits. After you select your target market, you must then seek out, identify, and collect information on the publicity outlets reaching your various market segments.
Formulating Ideas...
?In fact, to succeed in PR here’s all you need:
Although some people are more naturally inclined toward promotion and creative marketing, anyone who tries can come up with good PR ideas for his business on his own.
The creative process works in two stages: The first is the idea-producing stage when ideas flow freely. The second is the critical or “editing” stage, where you hold each idea up to the cold light of day and see whether it’s practical.
When you do the same old thing, you are likely to get the same old results. The only way to get new results is with a new idea.
Creating Profitable PR Programs...
Step 1: Clearly establish the goals of a PR program
Step 2: Assemble pertinent facts
Step 3: Gather general knowledge
Step 4: Look for combinations
Step 5: Sleep on it
Step 6: Use a checklist
Step 7: Get feedback
Step 8: Team up
PR Tactics...
All PR practitioners have a bag of tricks — favorite PR tactics that they have used with success and often resort to when creating campaigns.
Look for creative ways to tie in your product with current news or trends. If you use a news tie-in, you don’t need to create a news story from scratch and then attempt to get the media to cover it. As the event is already happening, it won’t be on your dime to create it.
The idea: If you get involved in a story the press is already covering, you’ll find getting yourself covered is that much easier.
You can use many products as props or devices to add visual and tactile interest to PR and promotional campaigns. This is both a better way to?connect with your target audience and leave a lasting impression on viewers. In addition, you’ll increase the number of placements that you get.
Contests can generate an enormous amount of media coverage. Public relations history clearly shows that making your contest new and different from any others can yield great results. Of course, the contest should also relate to the product.
If you’re going to help others, do so creatively.
If you choose a worthy cause because you really do want to help, not because you want the publicity, you may wonder whether you should follow through with publicizing the donation.
The question to ask yourself is this: Will the media exposure help the charity? If so, then you should follow through. Often, a charity values the simple exposure it gets because it’s more exposure than it would receive otherwise.
Relating your campaign either to a holiday (Valentine’s Day, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas) or to an event (National Secretary’s Week, Elvis Presley’s birthday) works because it increases your odds of getting coverage. You must be talking to the press at a time when the press cares, is looking for material, and will listen.
Create news worth covering by staging an event.?
Don’t overlook humor as a source of PR inspiration and ideas. If you can play off something familiar in a fun and different way, you can get people smiling. Many editors and producers look for light material and filler to run between harder news stories, and you can gain a lot of media coverage by providing material for this feature.
Humor is often an effective way to make a serious point!
Creating characters has proven successful in advertising for decades. Now we’re finding that it can work in PR, too.
Viral marketing is a term used to describe techniques that harness the power of the Internet and existing social networks to produce exponential increases in brand awareness. It’s called “viral” marketing because it spreads like a virus, mostly through e-mail (sometimes called word-of-mouse), and can be used to reach a large number of people quickly — if you’ve targeted well and have creative ideas. Much of what gets spread is the printed word — jokes and letters — but video clips and games are being passed around the Internet more and more and have become hugely popular for corporate PR.
Creating a Company Newsletter...
There is one marketing communications tool that you can use to assure regular, repeat, consistent exposure for your company name, message, and information: the promotional newsletter.
These newsletters, magazines, tabloids, or other regular publications are published primarily as marketing tools.
They range from simple sheets published in-house to elaborate, four-color company magazines with photography and professional writing rivaling the quality of newsstand magazines. More and more newsletters are published electronically, due to the vast savings of printing.
People want to work for a company they believe in and feel a part of. They want to work in a positive environment. An employee newsletter can support and reinforce your positive message, communicating the same message in the same voice at the same time.
Include the following ideas when deciding what you want to communicate to your employees:
The main purpose of a promotional newsletter is to establish your image and build your credibility with a select audience (the people who receive the newsletter) over an extended period of time.
What your customers and prospects read in your promotional newsletter must, however, be fresh — a fresh take on an old idea, a different angle on a tried-and-true technique, or an update on a story you’re following. All these subjects are newsworthy in the context of a promotional newsletter.
Basically, your company newsletter should go to anyone with whom you want to establish a regular relationship...
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All your current customers should receive your newsletter. The newsletter is an important vehicle for keeping in touch on a regular and predictable basis. It confers automatic high visibility and does so in the best possible way: by reflecting you as a knowledgeable and competent professional. This not only builds your image but also helps to ensure that current customers will remain responsive to your recommendations.
Also, send the newsletter to customers who use your services or products in a very limited manner and to those with whom you haven’t visited recently. You may not think of them as current customers, but, of course, they are. What’s more, the newsletter offers the kind of visibility that prompts many marginal customers to expand their use of your products and services instead of drifting away from you.
Some ways to build your subscriber list:
After you have a newsletter design, putting together each issue is not terribly difficult.
You can do several things to promote your newsletter (and use the newsletter offer as a promotion).
Creating an e-mail newsletter...
Because an e-mail newsletter is so much less expensive to produce, there are a lot of them, so you must use this tool properly. Otherwise, your newsletter will be considered spam, which can annoy people and ruin your relationships with them before those relationships have even gotten off the ground.
Integrating print and e-mail newsletters...
Making your e-mail newsletter a must-read...
In thinking about what kind of content to include in your e-mail newsletter, think about what kind of information will help the recipients do their job better.
What will make them smarter in their environment, give them inside information they wouldn’t otherwise get, or get in advance. In essence, what adds value to their day? Provide it and they will read.
Develop your own viewpoint. Listen to your customers, listen to their common questions, listen for what they don’t seem to understand, and then address those issues in your newsletter. Employing that strategy will make your newsletter more relevant to their lives.
Putting Your Message in Writing: The Press Release...
What you say and how you say it can greatly influence the media and your audiences. Revolutions have been started with nothing more than a quill and parchment.
Even today, a few postings on the Internet can cause a stock’s price to plummet or even take a nosedive in the entire market. Similarly, you can sometimes do more to build awareness with a single sample press release than with a million-dollar ad campaign.
Writing and Placing Feature Articles...
Placing feature articles with appropriate trade, consumer, or business publications is one of the most powerful and effective of all marketing techniques.
Unlike a news article, which gives a straightforward report of recent events, a feature article is a longer piece that explores its subject in greater depth. Feature articles often present a detailed case study, explanation of the technology, or guidance on how to do something, whether it’s how to write a business plan or pick a telephone carrier.
A company seeking publicity and exposure submits an article in hopes that a publication will spotlight or feature the company, its ideas, or products or services.
A planted, or placed, feature story is an article written and submitted to a publication by a corporation, entrepreneur, or business professional — either directly by the business or on its behalf by its PR firm or consultant.
Promoting Yourself through Public Speaking...
Speaking in public is one of the most effective marketing tools for your business in terms of reaching qualified prospects because your audience is very likely to be people interested in what you have to say.
It’s a very unique opportunity and needs to be handled differently from other PR tools.?
As a promoter of your organization, you’re likely to speak to people other than those in the media. Public speaking — giving lectures, talks, papers, and presentations at public events, industry meetings, conventions, and conferences — is a PR technique that businesses use widely to promote their products or services.
Why is public speaking so effective as a promotional tool? When you speak, you’re perceived as the expert. If your talk is good, you immediately establish your credibility with the audience so that members want you and your company to work with them and solve their problems.
Speaking is an effective PR tactic when...
Unless you’re sponsoring your own seminar or another event, you need to find appropriate forums to which your company personnel can be invited to speak.
Choosing the Right Medium for Your Message...
Even the most brilliant campaigns and clever PR materials don’t get results if they never leave your in-basket or hard drive.
A vital step to generating PR is getting your PR documents into the hands of the right audience — the editors and producers who can make the decision to run them in their publications and on their programs.?
The two ingredients of PR success are creativity and hard work.
Handling the Media...
Writing is a big part of how you communicate your PR message, but don’t discount the spoken word. The more effectively you speak with the press, local government agencies, regulatory boards, and other audiences, the better your chances of getting the results you want. What you should say to the media — and where and when you should say it — is the topic of this chapter.
Tuning In to Radio...
Many people live with the radio — in their homes, in their cars, and on the go. Many consider it their primary method of gathering information because they can multitask while listening — they can get ready for work, make dinner, and commute.?
Getting on the Tube...
Television is a public relations medium that should be used to attract attention to itself. Public Relations is the creation and maintenance of good relationships with others be they individuals or organizations. It has been used to the advantage of several entities with positive results, even through television.
Going Public in Cyberspace: Your Web Site...
The Internet is changing the way business is done, and public relations is no exception.
Everybody knows it makes sense to be customer driven when designing a Web site, especially if you’re doing business online. But that’s no excuse to forget other major audiences, including the media. For a company doing PR, an important application of technology on the Web is the virtual pressroom — the section of a company’s Web site designed specifically for use by the media.
The Three Cs of E-Success...
Internet specialists talk about the three Cs of e-business: commerce, content, and community. It’s important to take this business model into account when creating your site. Understanding these concepts and then implementing them into your strategy will help to ensure your success.?
The first C, commerce, refers to the Web site’s ability to permit the consumer to buy online. Without e-commerce, an e-mail can only generate online leads or offline purchases; you cannot have true one-step mail orders on the Internet.
The second C, content, refers to the information and services available on the Web site. Web sites that display only product information are not as interesting to Internet users as Web sites that offer useful information and tools.
The better your content, the more users will favor your site.
The third C, community, refers to the relationship that users have with the Web site and each other. It’s the online equivalent of a neighborhood bookstore, café, or coffee shop. Web surfers begin to feel your site is a good place to go and spend time, especially with other visitors.
Chat rooms and forums can help build this sense of community. When you see people in postings talking not just to the person who originally posted the message, but also by name to each other — as they argue a point or share opinions — you know you’re on a site with a strong sense of community.
Remember to measure Web surfer activity. Those who visit and buy know you better than those who visit sporadically or never buy. Factors you can measure include hits (visits to the Web site), page views (the specific pages visitors click to), duration (amount of time spent on site), and conversions (number of click-through visitors who make a purchase).
A sticky Web site is one that people want to linger on, spend time with, and revisit frequently. The stickier the site, the more business it will generate (if it’s an e-commerce site and not just an advertising site consisting of product literature posted on Web pages).
Brainstorming More Ways to Make a Profit Online...
Driving Traffic to Your Web Site ...
Successful Web site owners report that they spend 70 percent of their marketing budget on media outside the Web to direct prospective customers to their sites.
A few techniques you can use to boost your site traffic:
Do not forget Blogs, Webcasting and Podcasting!
Blog: a regularly updated website or web page, typically one run by an individual or small group, that is written in an informal or conversational style.
Webcasting: the action or practice of broadcasting an event on the internet.
Podcast: a digital audio file made available on the internet for downloading to a computer or mobile device, typically available as a series, new installments of which can be received by subscribers automatically.
Creating Buzz...
Most marketing efforts are carefully calculated pitches choreographed by professionals to convey a specific message to a target audience, and it’s obvious.
Buzz marketing, on the other hand, is just as carefully calculated but it doesn’t appear to be so. It’s a combination of creative grassroots tactics and creative PR stunts that capture the attention of consumers and the media who then begin to talk or spread the word about your company in a way that is entertaining, fascinating, and newsworthy.
Buzz marketing is the overall volume of noise about a product or service and it includes all sorts of tools, such as viral marketing, word of mouth, press coverage, and more.
Viral marketing, an element of buzz, is restricted mainly to the online space because that’s where things are easily passed around, whether they be viral e-mail messages with jokes or links to Web sites, photos, or JPEG files of static images or video clips.
Humor is one of the staples of viral marketing, but if you decide to do it for your company, be aware that you’re asking someone to send something to someone he knows. Therefore, whatever that person sends is a reflection of himself. The question to ask is, “Would you pass this on to somebody?”
What makes buzz marketing so effective? It’s trust — or lack of trust, actually.
Buzz marketing is a new and different animal in the PR arena. It will evolve because PR practitioners are beginning to recognize the value of buzz.
In order for the media and other people to get a buzz going about your company, you must give them the information they need to spread the word, and you have to provide it in a format that is easy to digest and easy to understand.
Timing is everything, especially when it comes to buzz. It has to be spread at the right time in order for someone to act on it. So think about when the market or the specific hubs you want to approach are most likely to talk.
Are they most likely to talk:
Spotting and Seizing Opportunities...
The reason that so many companies get so little PR is that they don’t show up. Opportunities present themselves every day, yours for the taking. But most people never see them.
Staging Publicity Events...
Knowing What to Do in a PR Crisis...
The more prepared you are, the better the chances that you can survive a crisis — however long the odds of its occurrence are — if it comes. If you’re skeptical of the need for crisis planning, keep this fact in mind: Many companies never have more than one crisis, because the first crisis they have puts them out of business.
A crisis is an event, rumor, or story that has the potential to affect your reputation, image, or credibility in a negative way.
For your business, potential crisis situations may include the following:
If you think that your tiny business, out of the public eye, is invulnerable to a crisis, you’re wrong.
Developing a Crisis Management. Plan...
Having a crisis plan is like buying insurance.
Nobody wants to spend the money or invest the time until a crisis happens, and then everyone panics because they don’t know what to do. This can kill a company or destroy a brand.
Making sure a plan (that outlines exactly what you’re going to do) is in place before something happens is a very worthwhile use of your time and money. The moment the crisis happens is the wrong time to come up with a plan.
The critical rules for acting in a PR crisis:
PR is an art of demonstration — showing rather than stating your message.
Ten Reasons to Do PR...
Ten Things You Should Never Do in the Name of PR...
People do not buy goods and services. They buy relations, stories and magic.
~ Seth Godin
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