Why is PR Important for Success?
Public Relations (PR) is a crucial practice for any organisation aiming to thrive and establish itself as a leader in its industry. But what makes it so important, and how does PR contribute to a brand’s success?
We explore 13 reasons why PR is essential for any organisation.
1. Increasing awareness and visibility
Gaining PR coverage in external media outlets is likely to result in a higher reach than through a company’s own in-house lists and platforms. Media outlets have long cultivated their readership by curating relevant articles and news.
2. Launching a new service or product
PR is an essential tool for launching a new product or service and sharing the details with your ideal audience. There are a lot of ways this can be achieved, through event organisation, press release campaigns, emails to your audience, creating social media posts and website news articles. The launch campaign can also run alongside your marketing campaigns to gain even more reach.
3. Building trust with PR
Which would you trust more?
a. An article written about a business in a trade magazine,
or
b. reading a company advert in a trade magazine?
Most people would trust an article (a) more, as it is seen to have 3rd party validation from the publication’s editorial team. PR coverage is harder to achieve than placing an advert, although it creates more of a feeling of trust.
4. Managing reputation
PR isn’t just about gaining coverage; it’s about maintaining the positive reputation of an organisation. Creating a crisis management plan can help prevent negative PR or deal effectively with any potentially harmful comments.
5. Increasing brand recognition
Seeing your brand regularly mentioned in the press, whether it is a product review, opinion piece, or article about your organisation, keeps your branding presence high. Coupled with a marketing campaign, it’s a powerful strategy for a brand’s success.
6. Supporting marketing initiatives
PR is a vital component in a marketer’s toolkit. Not only does it spread the cost and risk of an overall marketing budget, but it will also add value by enhancing the trust factor and awareness of a campaign.
7. Shifting perceptions
If your audience doesn’t currently have the right perception of your organisation, or if you have recently changed the direction of your business, PR is a good way to emphasise and communicate key messages.
8. Communicating with stakeholders
You may have identified different groups of stakeholders within your organisation. For example, charities may consider trustees, volunteers, fundraisers, ambassadors, staff, and members/ end users as different groups of stakeholders, each with different communication needs. Targeting your message through a mix of relevant PR methods is a good way of communicating with these stakeholders either through in-house platforms and lists, or external media.
9. Building a community
Creating social media content through a PR team is the ideal way of building a community. Not only will the team recognise the current sentiment of the community and create relevant content; but it is also best placed to reply to any comments, maintaining positive communications. (Feel free to link with me on LinkedIn!)
10. Creating content
The PR team is well-placed to create or coordinate relevant content for blogs, web articles, case studies, and news items, keeping your communications up to date and consistent.
11. Enhancing online activities
PR is a great way of achieving backlinks to your organisation’s website from a piece of coverage or mention gained on a trusted external media website. Online items can also be found on search engine results, improving your incoming web traffic and SEO stats.
12. Thought leadership
Thought leadership articles are an ideal way of giving experts within your organisation a voice to provide opinions and advice on relevant topics.
13. Retaining and attracting talent
Maintaining a positive reputation and brand presence makes your organisation more appealing to work for. This can help retain and attract talent and potentially save on recruitment costs.
Conclusion for Why is PR important:
Hopefully, this helped you to gain a better understanding of why PR is important and how organisations can use public relations to build a solid market position – based on trust and a healthy reputation.
In today’s competitive landscape, having good PR support is more crucial than ever. PR is essential because it can transform a company into a brand that truly connects with its audience.
By using a blend of the PR tactics above, a company can achieve remarkable success.
Mushroom Marketing & PR is a dedicated agency helping B2B customers, charities and health organisations to increase their awareness and grow. If you are interested in harnessing the benefits of PR for your organisation, please get in touch today.
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About the author:
Emma Estridge is the Founder and Director of Mushroom Marketing & PR.
You can link with Emma on LinkedIn here