Public Relations
A Powerful Asset

Public Relations (PR) includes activities intended to promote understanding of your company or product and to promote goodwill toward you, your company and its products.

Through PR activities you may assess and influence public opinion by delivering messages without incurring direct media costs.

There are two elements to a PR plan:

1. What you want to communicate
2. A hook to make it newsworthy and interesting

Here are some strategy ideas for types of information to communicate to the press:

• Prior to your product release, submit sneak previews to the press.
• Find a good spokesperson to help promote your product or service.
• Find the right angle for your press release.
• Include both trade press and consumer press.
• Build the excitement (hype-up) in your story by finding a new twist on the information.
• Offer co-sponsorships for media to events you are planning.

A good public relations campaign will help develop the image and reputation of your business.

• A campaign is a program of promotional activities intended to accomplish a specific objective.
• A PR campaign may be short and tightly focused or long with a broader focus, or help condition your market to being more responsive to your advertising and encourage them to patronize your business.
• Costs for PR involves primarily developing the positive information about the company, owner, or product messages you hope to communicate to your market.
• The media controls the message and the method and timing of delivery of your message.

Your public relations should ensure that everything the press sees or hears is controlled and is consistent the image you wish to present. It is recommended that only your PR people actually communicate with the press. This includes all areas of PR, such as corporate announcements, defensive PR, and marketing PR.

PR should not be overlooked or taken lightly.

PR Tools >>