How are you managing the reputation of your company? That’s why every business needs to have a public relations strategy in 2018. Differences between PR and marketing For starters, it’s important for you to be able to separate your PR strategy from your marketing strategy. Don’t get me wrong: public relations and marketing are very similar. The goal of your PR efforts would be to improve the reputation of your business. Understand the different types of media To keep things simple, public relations can be segmented into three main categories: owned media paid media earned media All three of these will help establish and build your brand reputation. Owned media will help improve your overall PR strategy. Customers saying positive things about you on social media is earned media as well. But you can still use attainable goals to see if your public relations campaigns are working. How is your company leveraging owned media, paid media, and earned media to improve your PR strategy?
How are you managing the reputation of your company?
If you are struggling to find an answer to this question, you may need to re-evaluate your strategy moving forward.
There are certain aspects of your brand’s reputation you have control over, e.g., the way you distribute content through your marketing channels and use website elements to add credibility to your website.
But a news story or a review of your product on a third-party site can be out of your hands.
Your public relations strategy encompasses all these scenarios.
Public relations, or PR, can help expose your business to new audiences.
Simply put, public relations is how businesses communicate with people.
There’s a common misconception about PR. Many business owners I work with don’t have a PR strategy.
They believe it’s only for companies that made a mistake, needing to run PR campaigns to issue apologies or make their businesses look better in the public eye.
While that would fall under the public relations category, that’s not the only reason why you would implement a PR strategy.
Your PR efforts will manage how you spread information. It’s part of your overall branding strategy, except it focuses more on your reputation and communication as opposed to things like your company slogan and logo.
In a digital era, information gets spread faster than ever. That’s why every business needs to have a public relations strategy in 2018.
It doesn’t matter how new or old your business is. Even if you’re trying to create an effective marketing strategy for your startup company, it’s not complete without PR.
I’ll explain everything you need to know about the basic concepts of PR and how it can help your brand gain more exposure.
Differences between PR and marketing
For starters, it’s important for you to be able to separate your PR strategy from your marketing strategy.
Don’t get me wrong: public relations and marketing are very similar. However, there are differences in the goals of these two departments.
For example, some goals of your marketing campaigns would be to drive more traffic to your website, get new email subscribers, or drive sales.
While you ultimately want your PR strategy to result in revenue, the primary goal of these efforts will differ from that of your marketing strategy efforts.
There isn’t necessarily a measurable impact on sales from public relations. It’s more of a big-picture strategy.
The goal of your PR efforts would be to improve the reputation of your business. You may already be doing this with things such as:
- displaying customer testimonials
- encouraging customers to review your products
- leveraging social proof
However, these campaigns would be marketing-oriented.
To improve your reputation through PR, you’ll focus on things such as press releases and guest-speaking engagements at industry events. These are indirect strategies to promote your brand.
With a marketing campaign, you’d run a promotion on one of your distribution channels. Do you see the difference?
Ultimately, your PR efforts will still support sales.
People don’t always buy products. They buy brands.
That’s why PR is so important.
If a consumer buys your products as a result of one of your marketing campaigns, that person has already established a connection with your brand through your PR efforts.
Understand the different types of media
To keep things simple, public relations can be segmented into three main categories:
- owned media
- paid media
- earned media
All three of these will help establish and build your brand reputation. This will help you get one step closer to achieving your goals.
I’ll go into greater detail about each one of these categories to give you a better understanding of how they work.
Owned media
Owned media is any piece of content your company has control over.
Although we are grouping owned media as a function of PR, it’s similar to your marketing strategy.
I’m referring to things such as your blog posts, social media content, and website copy.
For example, if you’re learning how to enhance your content by building infographics, this type of media is owned by you.
You control how it gets created. You control when and where it gets distributed.
Owned media will help improve your overall PR strategy. When someone hears about your brand from another source, you want to make sure the content you own is informative and drives them to convert.
Paid media
To improve the visibility of your marketing campaigns, you may consider using a paid media strategy.
Just as the name implies, this is when you pay someone to display your content.
Social media ads and PPC campaigns both fall into this category.
But for a PR strategy, you may want to consider using social influencers to increase your product credibility.
Influencer marketing has become increasingly popular in 2018.
Incorporating a paid media strategy will help expose your business to a more specific group of people who fit within your target market.
This is more effective…
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