What is PR and why is it important?

• Public relations (PR) means getting your business known about by the public and/or the press in the way you want, by managing your business' image and the information you give out about it.
• It also includes reputation management - how to deal positively with a crisis and handle any negative PR or coverage.
• There are loads of different ways to do PR - see below for examples.
• PR differs from advertising because your audience usually receives the message you send out about your business through a third party - such as a magazine you've sent a press release writing an article hat includes a positive mention of your latest product.
• Because of this, you can often build more credibility for your brand through PR, as it's no so direct a sell for your business as advertising is.
• This is essential as customers are more likely to trust a third party than they are you when you try to promote yourself.
• PR is crucial for engaging, informing and building a relationship with target customers, and also with your staff, suppliers and other companies you do business with.
• It's very much tied in with your brand, as you want to be sending out positive messages that are in line with our brand at al times.
• As well as being aligned with your brand values, good PR tailors information given out about a business to perfectly appeal to that business' target customers. It uses the language, messages and ideas that they respond most positively to.

How to do PR as a small business

• Because of the need to for PR to be in tune with your brand and your target customers, it requires careful planning and research, as well as very close management. One damaging article in the press can have greater effect than ten positive ones.
• You can either do your own PR in-house or employ a PR or communications agency to do it for you.
• Read more about whether an agency would be best for you in our guide on how to use a PR agency.
• Read more about doing PR yourself in our guide how to get your business into the press.
• You may want to use an agency just when you want to generate most publicity - for your launch or for a heavily-invested-in new product range, for example - and manage things yourself for the rest of the time. This is usually a cheaper option.
• If you're running a business that's going to need more or less ongoing PR and publicity for as long as you can foresee, it may be well worth bringing in an employee specifically to handle PR.
• In the long run, this will probably work out to be cheaper than using an agency full-time for a long period of time.
• Someone working in-house will also be fully associated with all aspects of your business and brand so will ensure messages going out to the public are always consistent, on-brand and highlighting the best details of whatever it is you're telling the public about.
• They are also likely to be much more dedicated to any PR campaigns you do and to convey passion for your business much better than a PR agency handling lots of different companies and not as familiar with your business.

With thanks to

smarta.com