Product category:
Public relations
News Release from: David Gent Creative | Subject: Public relations
Edited by the Marketingservicestalk Editorial
Team on 02 April 2007
PR: what it is and how it works
PR is often mentioned in the media and seen as a must-have marketing tool, but... what exactly is it? PR consultant David Gent provides a straightforward business briefing.
Public Relations concerns communicating effectively with your target audiences, or publics, and positively influencing perceptions, opinions and trading Although it also targets the broadcast media, PR primarily operates through the editorial pages of the press, hence the alternative term Press Relations, and its output is read as news or feature coverage
This article was originally published on Marketingservicestalk on 26 Nov 2007 at 8.00am (UK)
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It can contribute directly toward business growth by opening up new markets, identifying new customers and creating favourable brand awareness.
Since it operates through the editorial medium and is effectively filtered by professional journalists and reporters, PR coverage is positioned alongside news and feature content.
This gives added weight to PR stories and is more likely to attract favourable comment from colleagues and customers.
It also tends to be fundamentally newsworthy and honest, partly due to the editorial filtration process, so PR material is often actually interesting to the reader.
Although the marketing goals are similar, PR is quite distinct from advertising.
Advertising relates to paid space or airtime and you control the message, the content and visual style.
PR stories are run effectively free of charge, but are published at the discretion of the editor or producer.
Whereas with advertising if you pay the price your message will appear, there is no guarantee that a particular title or programme will run your PR story.
Put the effort and expertise into making it interesting and newsworthy, however, and the prospect of coverage is considerably improved.
How does PR work? Getting back to basics, there are three main elements to a PR story: the client brief, the creative writing process and targeted distribution.
Regular client-agency briefing meetings provide the fuel for a PR programme, with the agency identifying the news stories and angles, as well as assimilating the information, and the client contributing the product or technical input and the market insight.
The press releases are written up in a newsworthy and readable style, then approved by yourself and any third parties quoted.
Each story, usually together with an accompanying picture, is distributed to a precisely targeted list of editors, freelances and correspondents, who might reasonably be expected to consider running the item.
The received wisdom is that press releases should be short, around 300 words of text on a single sheet of A4, but I disagree with that.
Many trade and business titles and website magazines actually welcome longer stories, on the basis that you can sub-edit text down but can't sub it up, while others will simply cherrypick the content they want.
Unless it's a really big news story, one-off press releases rarely work, since you need to build a dialogue with your target press and publics.
Besides, an ongoing PR campaign, with stories and other strategies happening every month, provides opportunities to explore and expound upon different aspects of your operation, building a more complete and convincing picture.
What are suitable PR stories? Virtually every organisation generates opportunities for PR coverage, whether it's product launches, key appointments, notable contracts or orders, interesting applications and case studies, or milestone events like awards and anniversaries.
In fact, most clients are initially amazed at the amount of potential material they have, then quickly become knowledgeable and enthusiastic about the possibilities.
Above all, though, PR should be newsworthy, so stories need to reflect current happenings.
Occasional in-depth feature articles provide a further platform for exploring more complex ideas and arguments.
Such articles are aimed at specific publications and the material needs to be sufficiently interesting, informative and free of blatant puffs to justify inclusion.
The trade-off is normally a company by-line, contact details at the end of the piece and the kudos of being seen as an expert in the field.
Why use a PR consultancy? In a word, expertise.
An experienced consultancy will be able to interpret your marketing objectives, identify suitable stories and news angles, present news releases and other material in a professional manner, and build dialogues with an up-to-date list of media contacts.
As an external advisor, the agency will take an independent view of your marketing strengths, identify promotional assets you might not even consider , and bring practical experience of other PR strategies to bear on your campaign.
The main cost element is the monthly PR consultancy fee, which includes management and writing time, campaign administration, news release production and, often, normal travel and communications.
Other operating expenses include postage and stationery, PR-related photography and prints, and a press cuttings service.
As to measuring results, an effective PR campaign generates coverage in the form of press cuttings, supplied by a specialist clipping service.
So a useful measure is the volume of coverage, combined with the level of output, say one release per month and occasional articles.
Perhaps a more effective yardstick is feedback from customers, staff, opinion formers and even direct competitors, indicating changing perceptions of your organisation.
But PR should also contribute to the bottom line, helping to generate leads and grow your business, and you are the best judge of that.
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