PR Primer

Public relations is approximately reputation management - getting a good reputation and keeping it so customers will see you and use your products. read more does mean relationships together with your publics.

Who are "your publics" anyway? Well, it's not just the public. A business benefits from good relationships with board and staff members, distributors, service providers, potential prospects, present and past customers, businesses near your office, businesses within an allied field, other business people that can steer customers for you, sources of capital perhaps, and the media.

Strategies and Tactics

Public relations strategies and tactics - like commemorating your company's 25th anniversary or donating your staff members' time to tidy up and plant shrubs in a pocket park in a blighted urban neighborhood - ought to be an integral part of your overall, ongoing online marketing strategy.

Garnering good coverage by the media conveys credibility or endorsement. Therefore, an article about your organization is remembered by readers more than an ad.

With today's diverse and fragmented media venues, it's difficult to know where you can send your news - or, frankly, think about you might be newsworthy. Generally, it's hard to convince busy media of the news headlines worthiness of one's story.

Don't have any real news at this time? Consider informing reporters and editors about your expertise in your field - position yourself as a resource to be quoted - best timed in connection with hot national news or perhaps a new trend. For instance, my wedding planner client did not have any particular news, but upon learning from her that lots of folks get engaged at ROMANTIC DAYS CELEBRATION, I called area newspapers using that nugget and offering her up as an area expert. The effort led to an interview of her by her area newspaper!

Writing articles for publication is really a strategy that elevates your reputation and could bring you business. For my clients who have written articles, I have placed these in national and regional magazines. Being published, furthermore, gave the author additional online presence as the articles are "picked up" by Web search engines.

Face-to-face networking can be an important pr strategy widely employed but not necessarily effectively by a lot of people. In fact, many folks are uncomfortable meeting new people. One method to overcome the anxiety and maximize the business networking opportunity would be to plan to employ listening skills and consider how exactly to be of value to each individual with whom you shake hands and exchange business cards. Giving gets!

You cannot physically appear everywhere. Nevertheless, you can virtually "be" everywhere. The advent of Blogging platforms 2.0 has presented marketing and PR folks with new challenges in addition to opportunities to attain a wider audience and receive comments and opinions. PR and marketing professionals alike get their company's or client's messages across via online language resources such as for example ezines, presentations on YouTube or the firm's intranet, social and business networking sites, podcasts, webinars, RSS feeds, and other tactics.

10 Tactics

There are various avenues a potential customer may travel before contacting you, so consider integrating these 10 tactics into the PR/Marketing mix:

1. actively network in person,

2. have a professional online presence

3. use examples and testimonials to illustrate your worth;

4. help a charity and share that news,

5. host or sponsor a special event,

6. optimize your online site for search,

7. make presentations about your industry,

8. post a video of one's presentation on your internet site and YouTube,

9. produce a "give away" item carrying your logo and telephone number.

10. Retain in contact periodically together with your customers past and present as well as your business allies

Get Professional Help

If you don't have the means to employ a public relations professional, you can find talent to activate for projects. Ask your organization network or talk with the neighborhood chapter of Public Relations Society of America (www.prsa-ncc.org) or the Independent PR Alliance (www.ipra.org [1]).

Suzanne T. Fulton can be an independent pr consultant situated in Northern Virginia. Contact Sfulton@SoaringsPR.com