What is PR?

Public Relations (PR) is using the business and news press to carry positive and appealing stories about a company or product that your particular agency is representing. It’s important to help grow a good relationship with local or global press representatives.

This branch of business is the polar opposite of advertising. In advertising, you pay a fee to have your message/advert placed in a newspaper, television or radio spot. In this branch of business the article that features your company or product isn’t paid for. The correspondent, whether broadcast or print, writes or films about your company in product as a result of information they have received and further researched.

Publicity has been more effective than straightforward marketing for years and there are several reasons that back this up. Firstly, it is first more cost effective than advertising. Even in cases where it isn’t free your expenses are usually limited to the costs of phone calls and postage. Secondly, publicity has greater longevity than advertising. A well written article about your company or product will be remembered for far longer than a short snappy advert. Publicity also reaches a far larger audience than most advertising. If you’re lucky, your story might be picked up by the national media, which spreads the word about your business or product around the whole country. Finally and most importantly, publicity is considered much more credible in the public eye than advertising. Readers or viewers generally feel that if you’ve received a good representation or write up by a third party source your company or product must be reputable and trustworthy.

As your business develops, you will hope to become more prominent and publically recognised in your community and in your specialised industry. This means everything you do becomes more worthy of notice and then publicity becomes a central feature of your business. It will start to play a more central role in your company as it grows and you can seriously benefit from it. It’s an excellent tool as you are getting exposure for no great monetary cost but getting decent publicity does require a lot of leg work. Getting good publicity requires exact planning, hard work, determined effort and of course some small capital outgoings in the production of press releases, copy writing services and consultants.

Public relations is a massive sector of the business industry. To work in this sector you need to be extremely determined. Publicity is essential to business success and should be integral to your long term business plan.




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