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

New York City Public Relations Firm Offers Tips on Blog Promotion

Admin — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 16:46:21 +0000

You’ve caught the blogging bug and think you have something to say. Even more, you think other people will care about what you have to say… They’ll find you, right? The old, “Build it and they will come,” philosophy…

Take from those of us (bloggers, I add) at this New York City Public Relations firm, if you have a blog, you will need to people to visit it. And, it is more challenging than you think given that there are millions of blogs around. To make things even harder, blogs don t have simple URLs or web addresses like websites. The blog URL usually is the name of the website hosting your blog then the name of your blog which turns up to be a very long and unwieldy URL.

In addition to our competitors, this New York City Public Relations firm has devised a number of effective techniques to use to promote blogs written by our clients as well as those penned (or, is that keyboarded?) by our staffers. And, guess what? They’re free…

Connect with other blogs: Blogs are a huge and growing community now. Google has made a whole category devoted to searching for information in blogs. Connect with other blogs to promote yours. Visit other popular blogs and participate in discussions and make comments. Remember, every time you participate, you leave a trail behind — a link to your own blog. Exchange links with other bloggers.

Expand your email signature: Simple, right? Told you it would be. Several of the staffers at our New York City Public Relations firm use the small sections at the bottom of their email – the signature – as a means to promote their blogs. Your name, address, phone and other contacts are there right. Add your blog address too. That’s free continuous advertising.

Leverage social networking sites: There is no denying the fact that social networking is spreading on the Internet like wildfire! Facebook and linkedin are just a few that have gained in popularity at Makovsky + Company as well as other New York Public Relations firms. Social networking sites are populated with vast numbers of people who might want to see what you have to say. Every time you post a new blog, share it with social websites! Just open accounts in 5 to 10 social networking sites and post in parallel with your blog. Don’t forget to link to your blog!

Using blog directories: Given the explosion of blogging, thousands of directories have been set up to help people find these blogs, social sites, forums, article directories and so on. Include your blog in blog directories. Pick directories that rank high (there are a number of services that do this such as Alexa).

Forums and online groups: Visit forums and online groups. You can easily connect with other people in forums and groups to invite them to your blog to view your thoughts and insights and they will gladly come. Quite a number of the staffers at our New York Public Relations firm are members of such groups and have gained followers to their blogs as a result.

A final thought… the better the quality of the content you have in your blog, the better your chances of getting people to like your blog and keep coming back. In addition, keep it fresh. Once you commit, you have to keep posting relevant and timely content which will keep your existing followers coming back as well as attract new ones.

For more information visit to http://www.makovsky.com

By: Kevin Waddel

Investor Relations » Public Relations Firm

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

New York City Public Relations Firm Offers Tips on Blog Promotion