We hear you asking: “But really, though, what is the purpose of PR?”
Public relations – often referred to as PR – is a concept that confuses most people. It can be notoriously tricky to define for those who aren’t well-versed in the ins and outs of the industry. Well, we’re here to set the record straight.
In a world where more and more businesses are launched every day, there is a lot of information within a myriad of industries that needs to be delivered to consumers correctly. Especially with the internet connecting us across the globe, around the clock, there are millions of eyes and ears to account for.
How is this monumental task meant to be handled on such a scale?
Enter: public relations.
PR is essentially a crucial middle-man between businesses and the general public – it is a sector that has spawned a network that multiple companies can tap into and get results that they would not be able to achieve on their own.
Public relations roles work as mutually beneficial relationships between the PR professionals and the media – what we like to call media relations – and help spread the word about a certain person, company, or brand.
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What is the role of PR in marketing?
Public relations is a field of work that manages and improves communication between individuals, organizations and their communities. These are crucial aspects of marketing. Public relations is often used as a marketing tool in order to keep good media and public relations in place.
But how does it compare against other marketing strategies, such as influencer marketing and social media marketing?
As we’ve outlined slightly already, PR fits into the marketing mix as its own entity. That being said, it needs to be complimented by other disciplines to make it the most effective.
We suggest that public relations work in tandem with existing marketing efforts to ensure that it’s well executed and doesn’t contradict. There’s no use doing double the work when both elements aim to achieve the same results – that might be to target prospective customers and generate leads, raise money, boost brand credibility or something else entirely.
Whatever it is, figure out how it slots in and make the most of it.
1. Brand Reputation
For starters, brand reputation is crucial. PR is needed to build this reputation by sharing positive information about brands with the appropriate people and publications. Look at the case of Samsung and its exploding phone batteries in 2016. They had a nightmare with their PR! And they are still feeling the repercussions of it today.
So the question of ‘What is the purpose of PR?’ here is that PR can make or break a company. Ensuring that a brand’s reputation stays intact is arguably the fundamental pillar of the sector. Crucially, gaining a negative reputation can take years to rectify – this is where crisis communications come into it, but that’s a whole other blog post.
And you might be thinking, “Well, my business isn’t as big as Samsung… surely I don’t need to worry.”
INCORRECT.
No matter how big your company is, there is a reputation that needs to be upheld for your customers. Stakeholders within each business are rooting for its success, so ensuring that the reputation of the brand image is at its highest is paramount.
A public relations specialist is an image shaper. Their job is to generate positive publicity for their client and enhance their reputation. A public relations professional will typically draft a specialised communication plan and use media and other direct and indirect mediums to create and maintain a positive brand image and a strong relationship with the target audience.
2. ‘Organic’ Attention
Another vital purpose of PR is to generate what is known as ‘organic’ attention from the public instead of paid media like advertising.
Stories with positive messages that appear in magazines and newspapers, links to company sites on blogs and online articles and exposure on television are all prime examples.
They are all essentially free, and it’s something we like to call ‘earned media’. Hence, the attention garnered is organic.
But it’s not just the fact that it’s free that’s appealing – although it’s a huge benefit – the public is savvy and more likely to be sceptical of paid advertisements, whereas an endorsement from a trusted third party carries a lot more weight to it.
In today’s world, everyone knows when something is paid for. Not just because most outlets now have to disclose that information, but it’s clear within the content or images that it’s a part of advertising.
With public relations, PR campaigns attract that attention whilst also going through a gatekeeper as such (the newspaper, magazine, TV producers etc.) before being released or published to the general public.
3. Pitch, please.
PR is starting to sound a bit more important now, huh?
There’s a lot of content creating and pitching that PR agencies take care of for brands. The most frequent tasks include the writing of press releases, speeches, pitches, blogs, and posts for social media platforms, to name a few.
These things don’t write themselves, you know! It’s all about communicating with the public and journalists in the most effective way. So ensuring that pieces of writing are well-written and packed with information is a very important job that PR covers.
A well-thought-out strategic communication process will help to streamline every piece of content that is produced for a business. It will distinguish the paid media from the earned media, outline the specific PR strategies alongside the marketing communications, and help to establish how all these elements all work in tandem.
4. Little black book of contacts
And last, but certainly not least, to answer the burning question of ‘What is the purpose of PR?’, PR ensures the expansion of contacts for businesses within all kinds of industries through personal networking – this is what we referred to earlier as media relations.
It’s easy to forget that corporations aren’t just faceless entities. There can sometimes be thousands of people working there.
What we do is take out our little black book of contacts to ensure that your story gets into the hands of the right journalists – one that speaks to your target audience. After all, PR is all about who you know, not what you know.
Remember, these media outlets have a job to do too. They are just as willing to generate media coverage for a company’s success as it means they are fulfilling their duties as a reporter/journalist. But this doesn’t mean that they have a moral obligation to publish everything.
Each press release, story or tip-off needs to have some element of news to it. That’s what it’s for. When you’re discussing how you can use public relations to spread the word, keep asking yourself, “Would I read this?”.
If the answer is no, then it’s more than likely that the media channels wouldn’t publish it either.
Final thoughts
So, there you go – next time somebody asks you, “What is the purpose of PR?” You can say, “Well, actually, sweetie darling, there’s a lot more to it than you might think!”
And now that you know the true meaning behind PR, be sure to check out Key Tips for a Successful Digital PR strategy.
