by Alana Ridge
When crafting a marketing plan for your business, the term “public relations” – aka PR – may pop up as a strategy your team considers. Yet public relations still comes with many misconceptions. The main misconception being that PR is marketing. It’s true that public relations and marketing are used together to enhance a brand. However, they are not the same thing. Marketing aims to sell a product or service, while public relations creates an environment that fosters and supports marketing efforts. So, what exactly IS public relations, anyway?
My preferred definition is public relations is a strategic communication process that builds mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their publics. Contrary to some beliefs that public relations uses spins and propaganda, PR uses a myriad of strategies that help boost your organization’s brand awareness in earnest. These strategies include:
- Securing earned media – this is any material written about you or your organization that you haven’t paid for or created yourself.
- Tip: Identify a storyline that is educational and/or inspiring about your brand. Leverage this story to reach new audiences on third-party outlets, i.e. news sites, blogs or social media.
- Creating bylined content, such as subject specific articles, that help position your business as an expert in your field.
- Tip: These are best received from company founders and C-suite executives and can be submitted to a number of publications and sites for consideration.
- Building relationships with journalists who write or produce for your target publications.
- Tip: Do your research on each journalist. Find out what their beat is, what they have recently written about, and how your business can fit into the needs of their audience. Offer yourself as a source to help journalists write their stories.
- Booking speaking engagements, where you can share your knowledge and expertise, to position you and/or your business as a trusted leader in your industry.
- Tip: Check out speaking opportunities at local chapters of industry professional organizations (for PR professionals, it’s the Public Relations Society of America, or PRSA).
- Applying for awards and accolades that give you the chance to highlight your organization as a top business.
- Tip: Awards opportunities are available right in our Northern Nevada backyard. Don’t skip over these great chances for local and statewide recognition.
- Hosting special events that bring together industry professionals to meet, network, celebrate and learn from one another.
- Tip: Virtual events via Zoom, Google Hangouts, etc. are a great way to stay connected during the pandemic.
As you can see, public relations is a robust, multi-faceted strategy.
Need more expert PR advice? Head over to The Abbi Agency’s recent blog post on PR strategy, which delves deeper into this very concept.
Alana Ridge is a Jr. Account Executive at The Abbi Agency and NCET’s VP of Public Relations. The Abbi Agency is an integrated communications firm helping clients in the B2C and B2B space with branding, public relations, digital and design. With offices in Reno, Las Vegas and New York, the team of experts behind the agency is ready to help its clients achieve their communications goals. Learn more at theabbiagency.com.