How Can a Public Relations Agency Help My Business?

I wish I could tell you how many times in the past I have been called upon by clients to perform marketing and advertising tasks. Of course my answer is always “sure”. Of course there have been times when I have been tempted to pass some knowledge along in the process but as a freelance professional PR man, that would have been putting me out of a job.

However; now that I am no longer making my living by marketing my skills by the hour I am free to let you and any anyone else for that matter know that here is a difference between these two tasks. Also as it concerns Public Relations, it is unlike marketing and advertising in that it does not function to sell a product outright. Rather, PR is performed to effect the public’s perception of a person or an entity in one or all of three ways.

#1 PR is done to position or enhance the position of a person, product or business within the marketplace.

#2 PR is done to differentiate or set apart a person product or organization from its competitors in the marketplace
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#3 PR is done to improve or create a public identity for a person, business entity & its products and or services.

So now let’s take a quick look at how #3 applies. That is how PR functions to improve or create a public identity of a say a business. The task at hand for PR pros is to increase the level of public awareness of a company, such that when the average person in the target market hears or sees the company name, he or she immediately connects it to their products and or services.

This is basically done by positioning the companies name and or its products in front of its targeted customer or client base. How this is done depends greatly on the client’s goals, budget and demographics of their customer or client base. Some of the more common methods can include press conferences, press releases both online and through conventional media, direct mail campaigns, special events, the creation and distribution of brochures & newsletters etc.

The “improve” part of #3 quite often involves what is commonly referred to as “spin” and of course it's done after there is some measure of public awareness of the person, business entity or products that are to be focused on. Spin can take two directions in that it can be done in a way that reality is twisted to fit public opinion of a product. Then there is the spin that is done as a product is changed to fit a pre-existing public perception.

The first stage prior to performing any of #3 is the most important stage. Also it's the one that is neglected by most people who attempt to perform their own PR. It's called market research and it can come in many forms. In the end though in its many forms, market research involves the collecting and analyzing of business intelligence and product data that is analyzed and used to best formulate and direct PR strategies.

Chris Tyrrell writes for the Message Merchants a public relations agency based in the Midlands UK. Public Relations Agency

Article Source: http://www.marketingarticlelibrary.com

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