Public relations is an incredibly important part of your marketing communications plan. It is essentially free advertising, done by journalists and reporters. It is used to promote products, people, places, ideas, activities, organizations, and even entire countries!
The benefit to public relations is that it is more credible than traditional advertising. News stories, feature articles, and events seem more real and believable to readers than ads do.
Some of the public relations tools that you can use are:
· Press releases
· Speeches
· Product publicity
· Public affairs
· Lobbying
· Investor relations
· Product Development
· Special Events
· Public service activities
Here’s where your marketing wheel starts to take place. Remember that in the first blog of this series, I talked about your website being the centre of the wheel and everything you do needs to lead back to your website. Your website is a great tool to use for public relations. People search the internet for information, not necessarily to purchase something. Using your website as a public relations tool gives your customers the information they are looking for. If your company has appeared in the news, put a link to that newscast on your website. Had an article written about you or your company? Put that in there too. Maybe your company just won an award. That needs to be broadcast too. All of this is giving customers information about your company, which is what they are really looking for.
Your marketing team needs to have a great working relationship with journalists and reporters that represent your industry and your target market. You need to know how they prefer to receive stories, whether it be by email or through a press release distribution site. I have also just called up some of my contacts and asked if they would be willing to do a story on a certain topic. If they have the time and they find it newsworthy, they’ll do it.
Now, here are some tips when submitting a press release. If you would like to submit a press release that will actually be effective
a) Make sure you have something newsworthy to say
b) Make sure your press release is professionally written
c) Make sure it’s truthful and it isn’t an outright advertisement
d) Make sure you are sending it to the correct place and contact person
So, remember to include public relations activities into your marketing communications plan. It will help build your reputation without breaking your bank account.
