Investor Relations » Pr Firm

What Kind of Things Can a Public Relations Firm Do For Your Corporate Business?

Admin — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 07:52:39 +0000

A company’s success can hinge on the relationship they have with the public and how they are perceived in the media. Some companies choose to try and handle all of these matters from the inside with their own PR department but others feel the need to enlist an outside service to ensure that all matters of public view and perception are handled by highly trained professionals.

A good public relations firm can take your businesses success to levels you never even imagined, but the question on many CEO’s minds remains, “Will the results obtained from enlisting an outside PR firm offset the cost we have to pay for the services?”

What can a PR firm do for You?

Establish Relationships

The key to success in any business is developing and maintaining solid relationships, not just with your clients, but with investors, vendors and employees. Most of the time an in house PR department can easily grow and maintain the relationships with customers and vendors, but it gets much more difficult for an inside department to handle relationships with vendors and especially other employees.

An outside firm can readily handle all of these relationships impartially, with only the company’s best interests in mind. This almost makes the company’s investment in an outside firm worth it without even considering all of the other positives they can offer – happy employees and investors make a much more productive work place and in turn can really drive the profits and, therefore, the success of the business.

Save you Money

It may not look like it at the outset, because the initial investment of enlisting a public relations firm can be reasonably high, but hiring an outside firm to handle all of your public relations can save your corporation a good deal of money in the long run.

Without a PR firm to do at least some of the work involved in overall company public relations, your corporation would need (depending on the size of the company) at the very least one, most likely several, full time employees. The hourly wage paid to these full time employees may seem like peanuts when compared to the dollars that would be paid out to a public relations firm, but when you factor in the benefits, paid holidays, paid vacations and overall annual salaries of these employees your corporation could end up saving thousands and thousands of dollars a year by hiring an outside public relations firm.

You can use the services of a public relations firm when you need them, and forego the services when you don’t. It’s not as if a member of the firm will be in your office collecting a paycheck – you pay for the services that you use and nothing more.

Diversity

A good public relations firm can often offer you much more than what used to be considered the basics of good PR. Many public relations firms today can offer everything your PR department and your marketing and advertising departments can do and more.

By enlisting the services of a good, reputable public relations firm you can effectively turn your own office into a lean and mean machine. You won’t have to cross train employees to take on roles that they are not comfortable or experienced with – your sales force won’t have to be concerned with any phase of marketing or advertisement. Your valuable sales staff can get focused on what they were trained to do – sell, while a PR firm takes care of developing the relationships and public perceptions.

Emergency Services

A public relations firm can bail you out of trouble in the event of a PR emergency. PR firm representatives are trained to handle all types of scandals or problems that crop up and can affect your corporation’s image in the public eye. Press releases can be quickly written and submitted and press conferences can be put together in short order to ensure that your company keeps its positive reputation with all of your current and potential clients, investors and employees.

Whether you decide to enlist an outside public relations firm to handle any or all of your company’s PR or marketing, solid relationships are the cornerstone of your company’s success. If you don’t have a rock solid PR department, than hiring a public relations firm could be the best decision for your company’s future.

By: Amy Nutt

Writing a Public Relations Plan: 5 Steps

Admin — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 05:00:21 +0000

Public relations can be defined as the practice of managing the information exchanged between an organization and those who are interested in – or potentially affected by – that organization. Effective public relations can be carried out by an organization’s own internal PR team, or it can be entrusted to an external agency. In any event, it is wise for an organization wishing to conduct public relations to devise a solid plan before acting.

An effective PR plan is one that satisfies the needs of both the organization and its various “publics” (i.e., those who are interested in and/or stand to be affected by the organization and its future actions). The organization itself benefits from a PR plan because the plan can help organize its thinking and actions related to how to best get their intended message out. Meanwhile, the intended recipients of the campaign’s message – and often many unintended recipients as well – stand to benefit from the process by being better informed about something that matters to their lives.

Whether your organization chooses to conduct its own PR work or to be represented by a PR firm specializing in the field, it is important to start with a solid plan.

Here are 5 tips for writing an effective public relations plan:

Step #1: Determine what message you want to convey, and to whom:

Every organization has its own challenges in terms of public perception. Some are looking to get more exposure, while others are looking to influence or change the public’s pre-existing perceptions . Still others want to highlight recent achievements in order to gain the attention of prospective investors, partners or customers.

Your public relations plan needs to start with a clear sense among the members of your PR team as to the nature of the message your company wants to convey. Then, your team needs to clearly define whom you would like to receive that message. For both items, be as specific as possible during the planning phase: they set the tone for the rest of your campaign.

Step #2: Gauge the current public opinion about your organization:

It is very important that your plan include your conducting of some formal or informal research about the nature of public opinion vis-à-vis your organization as it stands today. Rather than making assumptions about how your stakeholders – as well as your prospective investors, customer and partners – view your firm, it is important that you find out more about what they actually think. This type of research can take the form of secondary research such as reading opinion polls or articles about your firm, or it can take the form of primary research such as via interviews, surveys and focus groups. The bottom line: you need to know where you are now in order to know where you are going.

Step #3: Set a budget:

Effective PR can be done cheaply or even for free in some cases. However, as a rule you should anticipate some level of expenditure for your campaign,. Budget concerns are an important factor. Since your PR budget has a strong effect on the resources you can afford to put behind your plan, be sure to carefully set an appropriate budget by including all of the relevant stakeholders. Tip: if your CEO (or equivalent organizational leader) can be convinced of the potentially wide-ranging financial and reputation-related effects of the issue you are trying to convey to your publics, he or she will be much more likely to earmark the appropriate funds for your PR initiative.

Step #4: Decide how you will get the word out:

Good public relations work is a multi-faceted area of practice with a multitude of options available in terms of ways to communicate your message. For example, you may find ways to entice reporters to write special-interest articles written about your organization. Or, you might hold a public relations event, submit your organization for consideration for an industry award, or hold a press conference – just to name a few. The mode of communication you ultimately choose will depend upon many factors, including the nature of the message you want to convey, the current political climate around the issue (if applicable), the degree to which the issue is of general public interest, your PR budget, and other factors.

Step #5: Create a plan of execution, including a detailed timeline:

Every good public relations plan must include a step-by-step plan that outlines the key milestones of your PR effort and fills in the specific details for executing the plan. An important element of your plan of execution is to assign each task to a particular person, along with a deadline; this creates a sense of accountability for each task. Of course, once the execution phase is launched and some time passes, you will likely find yourself needing to adjust your tactics to meet an ever-changing environment. Still, this need to make ongoing adjustments to your plan is no excuse for skipping the mapping out of the tactical steps ahead of time. During periods of relative chaos, you will be glad to have a plan to which you can refer in order to keep things on track.

Every solid public relations plan should be built upon the basic framework highlighted above. Whether you conduct your own campaign or entrust your PR campaign to an expert PR firm, your plan – and the thinking you go through to formulate it – will go a long way toward helping you reach your PR objectives.

By: Melissa Anthony

Using Public Relations to Market Your Business Startup

Admin — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 10:06:25 +0000

Marketing a startup is one of the biggest struggles for any entrepreneur. You need to increase sales and grow your customer base, but effective advertising is expensive. While the internet provides significant opportunities for low-cost and no-cost marketing, many business owners overlook the value in establishing an in-house public relations system.

What is Public Relations?

Public relations encompass the work that needs to be done to get your company in the news. The efforts should include building relationships with appropriate news editors, writing effective press releases, and planning how to best use press relations to enhance your marketing plan. Of course, it is possible to hire a PR firm to do this work for you, but they can be expensive and do not have the same stake in seeing your venture succeed as you do. In addition, a PR firm will have to be taught about your company — what you do, how you do it, what will be newsworthy, and who should be targeted. You will be charged for the hours it takes to get them up to speed. A better entrepreneurial option is to teach yourself all you can about effective public relations, then assign the tasks to your key employees as you grow.

Planning PR

The primary objective of public relations is to expose more potential customers to your company and product(s). You may have a secondary objective of exposing potential investors to your company, as well. Thus, your first step is to define what is and will be newsworthy about your business. Sending out sporadic press releases is far less effective than developing a steady stream of publicity. The editors who review hundreds of press releases per day are more likely to notice yours and hopefully become interested in your progress if they see your company name on a regular basis.

News events are fairly easy to come by with a startup. Consider planning press releases for:

- What your business will do

- Who will benefit from your product or service (consider seeking “testers”)

- Securing investors or financing

- Business launch or grand opening

- New product releases

- New contracts awarded (with your client’s permission, of course)

- Staff changes and additions

- Website content additions, especially freebies

- Events you sponsor or co-sponsor

Once your business is launched, every milestone that you noted in your business planning is an opportunity for a press release. Be creative and stay on top of the process. Interesting news is important, but consistency is critical.

Meet the Press

The best planned PR campaign is only as effective as who it reaches. Do your due diligence in finding the right news sources to reach your potential customers. Most newspapers and television stations have editors dedicated to business news. Find out who they are and make an effort to get to know them. Let them know that, as an expert in whatever it is you do, you are more than happy to provide information on your business, industry, target market, or whatever else they need. One great way to meet members of the press (local, anyway) is through networking events. If there is an important guest or popular speaker, chances are the beat reporter will be there. While everyone else is clamoring to make contact with the star, take that opportunity to get to know the reporter.

Building a good relationship with the right members of the press is invaluable. If they can count on you to provide informative and interesting quotes or sound bites, you will not only build your reputation as the expert in your field, but your company will garner free advertising every time you are used as a source.

Finding the right outlets, and knowing their editorial schedules, is critical. Don’t just randomly send out press releases, but do your homework so you know they are going to the right person at the right publication. Most magazines have a three-month advance requirement, meaning articles they write today will not be published for three months. Local newspapers and magazines tend to have much shorter news cycles. Keep this in mind when setting up your public relations marketing plan. Select the media outlets that are likely to meet your objectives. Whatever your target market reads, that’s where you want to be. Gather all the editorial information you can about these sources. Read the magazines (and subscribe), watch the TV shows. Pay attention to the details of how they present information. If a single, square, color photograph is standard with an article, be sure that is what you send. If articles are short, keep your press release short. Building these contacts takes time, but is well worth your effort. After a few distributions, you will establish a system for reaching your best opportunities and the time required will be significantly reduced.

Writing the Right Press Release

Press editors are flooded with press releases, often reviewing a hundred or more each day. The trick is to make your press releases stand out to the reviewer. Every news item you distribute should say “News Release” and your company name at the top. Avoid sending press releases on standard letterhead. The next line is your headline. Headlines can be the most difficult, yet most important line in the entire document. It needs to grab the editor’s attention and urge them to read on. Reporters and journalists are looking for news items that are important to their readers. Spend some time on the headlines, they are your first obstacle to getting free press.

The body of your press release contains two parts — the news item itself and a general company description. The news item should include complete answers to the classic questions — who, what, when, where, why, and how. Use an active voice — say what you do, not have done or will do. Include quotes from you or other key employees and be sure to make the information relevant and interesting to your target market.

The final paragraph of your press release should be “About the Company” — a good description of what your business does. Include media contact information at the end, with at least your name, title, telephone number, and email address so that the contact can reach you for more information. Excellent samples of press releases from within your industry can be found at PRWeb by searching your keywords.

Get Your Public Relations Started

Wherever you are in the startup process, get to work on developing your company’s public relations plan right away. Identify the media most relevant to you, and brainstorm newsworthy items that you plan to distribute. PR can be an effective marketing tool and it’s free. Don’t overlook the possibilities for your venture, get started today.

By: K. MacKillop