Public Relations Tips: March 2009

When it comes to running a business on thing that every good business owner needs to think about is being successful at publicizing their business. The reason for this is that if business owners fail at publicizing their business then there is a strong chance that their business will fail. So in order to keep their business up and running they need to have a sound business plan that covers publicizing the business, which means they need to get their company's name out in the public eye. Basically in order to publicize your business you are going to want to make sure that anybody and everybody knows about your business. And one of the best ways to go about getting publicity for your company is to hire a PR person. The reason for this is they are trained to handle the media and they also know the best way to get your name out to the public and also how to create the best image.

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Since one of your jobs in public relations is to create ads that help create a public image for your clients' one thing that you are going to need to think about is where to place these ads. You can place ads on websites that your target customers frequently visit. This would involve buying ad space from other people who have designed websites that your target customers would visit. But before you can even get this far you will have to figure out who your target customers are. If you are looking to target young adults for your target customers a great place to purchase ad space is from websites such as MySpace or dating websites. By placing ads on websites that your target customers visit frequently you are increasing the exposure of your company and you are increasing your chances that your target customers will click on your ad and visit your website.

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One thing that you can do is combine business with pleasure by planning an event for a charity that you like. This is actually quite similar to how politicians work, except for the fact you are trying to draw in customers so you most likely won't be charging each person an amount to enter. A great thing to do is to do a donation type of event. A really popular charity is Toys for Tots and many stores will offer their customers an incentive for donating to Toys for Tots at their store rather than somewhere else. By doing this you are going to meet lots of new people and can get a chance to promote your business which can bring you more customers. At the same time you are able to prove your leadership skills which can cause people to have more confidence in your company, which can lead to word of mouth referrals.

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As a public relations person your job is to get the message out to your clients' customers about the product they are selling, the service they are providing, etc. One of the cheapest ways to do this would be to have a newspaper or news teams do a review or an editorial on your client's place of business. This works best for business that offer services, but it can also be done on businesses that are selling specialized products. Editorials and reviews carry far more weight in marketing then paid advertisements do. People who write these reviews are reporting what they have discovered about your business which can help draw in even more customers. For example a restaurant that gets a five star review will most likely get more customers from the newspaper than a similar restaurant that only got a two star review.

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Being involved in the public relations field you need to be aware of how important profiling is and you will need to convey this to your clients. In marketing and press releases profiling is very important because it allows you to target your message to a certain group, which makes the press release that much easier to write because you are directing it towards certain people. Because of the way profiling is used it is actual a very important tool when it comes to marketing because it is used to reach certain target groups. Basically what this means is that through the use of profiling your company can reach their target group of people that they want to sell. How this works is that through profiling you can help your clients because you can find out where people shop, what they shop for, the ages of people who shop in a certain location, and any other kind of information that they can gather.

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Video casting is a great way to help promote a new business or a new product because of how many different things you can do with video casting. You can have a talking head on your video and use numerous special effects in the background to help emphasize your points. The special effects are something that is needed to catch a customer's eye and get them drawn into the website, kind of like that personal touch; they feel that you are talking directly to them. Video casting also helps boost your business because it will draw more people to your website. The more people that visit your website the higher your website will be ranked in search engines and the more potential you have to make sales. The great thing about the video casting is that news of good videos travels fast and continues to travel, so the better your videos are the more people are going to come to your website.

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As a PR person the most important job that you have is keeping your clients public image good, basically this means that you are going to need to make sure that the public thinks highly of your client. But sometimes this can be hard to do because your client doesn't do what they are supposed to do. So one thing that you are going to want to do is to make sure that your clients live up to what they have promised their customers. But if you look at it another way you are going to have to live up to the promises that you have made them. You also need to think about what you have promised the customers as a business and make sure that you deliver on your end. Basically what this means is that you need to live up to your company's promise to the customer.

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To be in the public relations industry you are going to need to take advantage of some of the newer technology to help get your clients name and image out to the public, one of the newest things you can do is video casting. Video casting can help increase your sales because it allows you to connect on a personal level with your customers. When you make a video cast you are using making a physical connection with your customers with your voice and your expressions. Another way it can help your business is that it is very cost effective. Creating a video cast and then promoting it on your website is a lot cheaper then paying for television, cable and radio broadcasts. Video pod casts on websites can also be accessed anytime a customer wishes, where other types of broadcast are only run at certain times. Video casts can be continuously updated or changed completely relatively easy. This means you can create numerous videos and update your page as often as you wish.

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In the PR industry one of the most important things that you are going to need to do is to help your clients create the right public image So one of the first things that you are going to need to think about when it comes to creating a product image is the name of the product that your client is selling. There is no magic formula that you can follow when deciding on what to call your product, but you do want to think carefully about what you are going to name your product because you are going to want to make sure that the name is relevant to the product or company that you are creating. Having the right name for the product is a great way to create a good product image. The reason for this is that when people think about your company's image they are automatically going to think about the name or names of your company's products that go along with that image.

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Some thing that you need to think about when it comes to product placement is that sometimes it just simply happens. What this means is that the PR person putting together the movie or TV show or publicizing the book might just find something sitting around that will actually help to complete the scene or enhance the project itself. So what they do is take the object and then just place it in the scene. Another way that public relations people will use product placement is to make a characters life seem more real to the viewers or readers. What this means is that they are going to add some little details to make the character seem real, such as what foods they like, what they drink, what they drive, etc. And in order to do this they are going to need to use actual products.

But the most common type of product placement that you are going to come across is where there is a trade off for using a certain product or there is some type of financial compensation.

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Some thing that you need to be aware of when it comes to product placement is that it is more common to find products placed in movies than it is on television. Part of the reason for that is that when it comes to television you also have to deal with the regular advertisements from the company's that are paying for that 30 second spot and because those 30 seconds spots are what allow television stations to survive they are more important then product placement in the television shows. But this doesn't mean that you won't be able to use television as a means of product placement it is just harder to get that spot. Not to mention the fact that you can use other media outlets for product placement, such as books and video games.

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If you are involved in public relations then you know your job is to get your clients product's name out to the public eye or you are trying to get your clients view point out to the public. One great way to do this without being over bearing is through product placement. Product placement is basically a form of advertising, but rather than making the product the central focus of the advertisements the product is placed in the background and is used to enhance the scene. Because of how tired most people are of looking at ads product placement is quickly becoming popular because it allows a company to advertise their product without the actual advertisements. If you think about it you have probably seen many instances of product placement in movies, TV shows, books, plays, etc. And if you think about it this form of advertisement is a lot more effective than slamming the viewer with information about your product.

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One of the major aspects to public relations is marketing. And as most of you know a major part of marketing is ads. When you are writing your ads there are some important aspects that you will need to think about. Some of those things are the wording, graphics, arrangement of the wording and graphics, how your audience will interpret the ads, their placement, etc. The reason for this is that poorly done ads can hurt you worse than not having ads at all. One thing that you need to know is that a common mistake among inexperienced ad writers is that they write the ad to themselves, rather than to their current and potential customers. Your ads should clearly state the benefits to your customers so what you want to do is clearly state the ads in terms that the customer will value, for example, easy access, low cost, easy to use, reliability, etc. Your ads should answer the customer's question: "What's in it for me?"

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Many people tend to think that the only people who need public relations people is the rich and the famous or those huge companies. The reason that they think this is because so many times those are the ones you hear about using the public relations firms because they have run into something they can't handle and they need somebody to a spin on it to make it look better. For example, a oil company who has recently had an oil spill hires a PR firm to talk about how they are helping to clean the animals and coast that was affected by it or a famous movie star who was pulled over for their tenth drunk driving arrest hires a PR firm to handle all aspects of the media. Now that you see kind of what a PR person does you can better understand that sometimes everybody needs a little PR, just so we can get others to think like us.

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One thing that not many people are aware of is that over time the public relations field has actually changed. In fact over the past decade the PR industry has been adversely affected because of their old school practices, which means they have been harmed because they have not changed they way that they have done business. The reason for this is that those old practices are so ingrained in the industry's culture and its archaic business model that they're difficult to shake. So what some PR firms are doing is they are opting to break the old PR model of deep hierarchies, big egos, and humongous retainers. The reason for this is that these firms are beginning to realize that seasoned professionals with strong business backgrounds will take the PR bull by the horns. And these firms have actually realized that if they are going to stay in business they are going to need to change how they do business. The PR firms who insist on doing things the old fashioned way are not going to make it for much longer.

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Not only do public relations people keep the lines of communication open and maintain relationships with the media. But public relations people also have to write press releases and they may be involved in producing sales or marketing material. Because of the variety of job duties that a PR person has public relations is a good career for the generalist. A PR person must keep abreast of current events and be well versed in pop culture to understand what stories will get the public's' attention. It takes a combination of analysis and creative problem solving to get your client in the public eye. The content of the work is constantly changing and unforeseen challenges arise every day. When it comes to public relations people not only do they have to deal with the good, but they also have to deal with the not so good and the down right bad. So many times a public relations person has to get creative to try and help their client.

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Many people understand what public relations is in the government, but what they might not be aware of is what public relations entails in the outside world. In the working world public relations people work for a company that might handle consumer relations or they might handle the relationship between parts of the company such as the managers and employees, or different branch offices. But one thing that doesn't change regardless of what kind of public relations you are doing is that the job often involves the dissemination of information, which is also referred to as "spin doctoring." Something else that the successful PR person must be is a good communicator, in print, in person and on the phone. The reason for this is that they cultivate and maintain contacts with journalists, set up speaking engagements, write executive speeches and annual reports, respond to inquiries and speak directly to the press on behalf of their client. PR people must also keep lines of communication open between the many groups affected by a company's product and policies: consumers, shareholders, employees, and the managing body.

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If you are thinking about finding a job in public relations you might be wondering if you need to have any kind of education or some kind of a college degree. The truth of the matter is that you are going to need to have some kind of college degree, but you don't necessarily need to have one that specializes in public relations. In fact only some colleges even offer a degree in public relations and most of the industry's professionals agree that degree is not necessary. The reason for this is that public relations requires familiarity with a wide variety of topics so a broad education is the best preparation. Any major that teaches you how to read and write intelligently will lay good foundation for a career in public relations. And the best way to get some kind of on the job experience in the public relations field is through an internship. In fact internships are a common way to get some practical experience and break into the field.

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If you are looking at a career in public relations something that you need to keep in mind is what exactly somebody does who works in public relations. Basically if you are going to be going into the public relations field you are going to be in charge of creating images for your clients that the world will remember. Your job is to generate positive publicity for your client and you are going to have to enhance your client's reputation. The client can be a company, an individual or a government. But if you are going to be working for the government in the field of public relations you should know that it is going to differ from other public relations jobs. To start off with in the government PR people are called press secretaries. And what they are in charge of doing is keeping the public informed about the activity of government agencies, explain policy, and manage political campaigns.

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Now that you are aware of the fact that a PR campaign can produce tangible results and that there are ways you can track these results it is probably a good idea to know about some of the ways that you can track those results. Or basically what types of methods you can use to track the PR campaign. One example is the number of people who see your message in the media, but if you are using this measurement as a way to track results you want to be sure that only those impressions in your target markets and sales channels are included. Advertising cost equivalency is another commonly used measurement of campaign effectiveness but something you want to keep in mind is this does not take into account the invaluable benefit of third-party validation and the clarity of your message. You should also keep in mind that you do not be timid when setting your expectations.

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If you are using a PR firm that tells you that the results are intangible then you are going to need to find a new PR firm. The reason for this is that it is possible to get tangible results from your PR campaign. But something that you need to know is that it can be difficult to quantify results in a discipline based largely on shifting market share and awareness, but tangible effects on the bottom line are the hallmark of any well-planned, executed and tracked campaign. So before you decide to start and enact any kind of PR campaign you must make sure that everybody, and this means your board of directors and the PR firm that you are using, agree on what kind of tangible results you will be seeing with this PR campaign and how you are going to be able to measure those results or track the results.

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Something that every person involved in public relations knows is that press releases are a very important tool in the industry. But if you have not been involved in PR for a period of time you might be under the assumption that a press release is the most important tool that you can use in the PR industry, but this is far from the truth. Press releases are an important tool, but they are not the most important tool that you can use. In fact when it comes to press releases you should actually use them in combination with other PR tools to help get your clients or your organizations message across to the general public. But those other PR tools should be focused on tracking current and emerging trends in your industry. A good saying to remember about press releases is that "PR does not stand for press release".

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Because of the fact that you are going to have to place cold calls to members of the media in order to sell your pitch you are probably going to face rejection more than once. The people who are good at PR know that they can actually take that first rejection and turn it around to use it to their advantage, but people who are new to PR may have not developed this kind of strategy yet. Basically what you are going to need to do is to create some kind of a strategy to help you break through those media barriers. But in order to develop a good strategy you are going to need to have a deep and through understanding of your client and what they are trying to do, basically what kind of a message they are trying to get out so that you can develop the perfect pitch.

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Regardless of what you have been told or taught something that you need to realize about PR people is that they have to be great sales people if they want to be successful and the truth of the matter is that there are not very many PR people out there who are great sales people. The reason for this is that they actually have to place cold calls to numerous reporters and other media personnel. With this cold call they have to make a pitch to the reporter or other media personnel which can actually be rather terrifying. Something that you need to keep in mind when making your pitch is that reporters and other media people can be down right rude when you call them regardless of how prepared you are so before making these calls you want to try and develop some kind of thick skin. The thick skin will actually help you to deal with the rejection you might have to face if your pitch doesn't go through.

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There are so many different options when it comes to how to do PR. For example you can use your local news stations. A lot of local new stations have a morning show that follows the news. A lot of these morning shows have different companies that come every morning or they have a morning show during the actual morning news where a crew goes to a business and does a story on it. If you have done something good in the community or you have something interesting that the news thinks is good marketing they will probably do a story on you. This is a great way to get people to come down and see what your company is all about. You can also offer some type of special for people that mention the morning news show which is also enticing to get people to come because they will think that they are getting a better deal then others.

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There are a lot of different ways that you can market PR. One really good way is to market at big events. For example if your community has an annual parade with a fair afterwards a great thing to do is to rent a booth and give out thing with your company name on it for example little Frisbees or blow up balls. Not matter what it is make sure that you put your logo on it so people will know who you are. You will also want to make sure that you do some kind of drawing so that people have a reason to stop and chat in the first place. For example if your company does vinyl lettering you might want to give away some free product. If you are an insurance company or something you might want to make sure that every person that puts their name in the drawing gets a pamphlet from you that tells about your company and your rates. By doing this you can meet a lot of people and get your name out among the community.

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Depending on what of company you have will depend on what type of Pr you will want to do. One tip that can be helpful for a lot of companies is to do your marketing at big college events. For example if your community is really into college football and they make it to one of the bowls you will want to make sure to try to get involved. One tip is to be a sponsor by either donating things to help them get to the bowl or to help do fund raisers for them to help them get money to go. A big tip is to make sure that you put your company name and log on everything that you hand out. You may also want to have a banner made and have it hung up on game day so that people can see that you support this team and have helped the team out.

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One option that will help your company to do some PR is to throw a charity ball. Charity balls can be a very good thing for your company if you throw them right. The first tip is to make sure that you get a charity that is going to make a difference. You don't want to throw a charity ball for something the community has never heard of and doesn't care about. The second tip is to make sure that you get the community involved. Make sure that you invite more then the higher up people. Make sure that you involve teachers and people that make a difference in the community. This will help people to know that you are about the little people too. Plus inviting people in the community is going to help get the word around of what is going on and will help you to get more donations. You will want to make sure that you advertise your company and what you are doing either in the newspaper or see if you can get on the local news morning show. This will help you to get people to recognize your name and know that you are in the community.

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One option to help your PR in the community is to get involved with graduations. For example in elementary at the graduation of 6th graders you could offer a bond or some type of savings fund with $500.00 or something along those lines where the community can see that you are serious about education and want to be part of education in kids lives. You can also be part of college graduations for example if your company offers grants or something you can have that as one of the prizes if the high school does a graduation party or something along those lines. You can also do something like if kids reach certain goals or get a certain grade point average their name gets put into a drawing to win prizes. If you are going to do things like this you will want to make sure that you also advertise your name and logo on everything that is handed out whether it is flyers, or newsletters to parents. This will help parents get to know you as a company that is really interested in helping their kids succeed by giving them incentive.

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There are a lot of different ways that you can use PR to your advantage. One way is to get your name out in the public. For example you can have a Grand opening when you first open your company. One way to market your Grand opening is to go somewhere where there is going to be a lot of people. For example if you are selling sports equipment or insurance or anything that you think college students might be interested in you can see if you can market at the football games or if they are in the playoffs see if you can get some marketing in the playoffs. No matter what the even is just make sure that you make your name noticeable. For example you can hand out pens with a bright colored flier that says grand opening. You will want to make sure that you have some kind of incentive for people to come in so you might want to add that you have a free drawing to win something. For example if you are an ATV shop you might want to have a drawing to win free riding gear or even a free ATV. Just make sure that each flier or pen you had out has your company name and logo on so the public will start to recognize your name.

Posted by DK at 07:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)