Notes

PR Primer
Public relations is approximately reputation management - getting a good reputation and keeping it so customers will see you and use your services or products. PR does indeed mean relationships with your publics.

That are "your publics" anyway? Well, it isn't just the public. A small business benefits from good relationships with board and workers, distributors, service providers, potential prospects, present and past customers, businesses in close proximity to your office, businesses within an allied field, other business people that can steer customers for you, resources of capital perhaps, and the media.

Strategies and Tactics

Pr strategies and tactics - like commemorating your company's 25th anniversary or donating your staff members' time and energy to clean up and plant shrubs in a pocket park in a blighted urban neighborhood - should be a fundamental element of your overall, ongoing marketing strategy.

Garnering good coverage by the media conveys credibility or endorsement. Therefore, articles about your organization is remembered by readers more than an ad.

With today's diverse and fragmented media venues, it's difficult to learn w here you can send your news - or, frankly, what about you may be newsworthy. More often than not, it's hard to convince busy media of the news headlines worthiness of one's story.

Haven't any real news at this time? Consider informing reporters and editors about your expertise in your field - position yourself as a resource to be quoted - best timed regarding the hot national news or a new trend. For instance, my wedding planner client didn't have any particular news, but upon learning from her that many folks get engaged at Valentine's Day, I called area newspapers using that nugget and offering her up as a local expert. The effort led to an interview of her by her area newspaper!

Writing articles for publication is a strategy that elevates your reputation and could bring you business. For my clients who have written articles, I have placed these in national and regional magazines. Being published, furthermore, gave the author additional online presence as the articles are "found" by Web search engines.

Face-to-face networking can be an important public relations strategy widely employed but not necessarily effectively by a lot of business people. In fact, many folks are uncomfortable meeting new people. One way to overcome the anxiety and maximize the business enterprise networking opportunity would be to plan to employ listening skills and consider how to be of value to each individual with whom you shake hands and exchange business cards. Giving gets!

You cannot physically appear everywhere. Nevertheless, you can virtually "be" everywhere. The advent of Blogging platforms 2.0 has presented marketing and PR folks with new challenges in addition to opportunities to reach a wider audience and receive comments and opinions. PR and marketing professionals alike obtain company's or client's messages across via online resources such as for example ezines, presentations on YouTube or the firm's intranet, social and business networking sites, podcasts, webinars, RSS feeds, along with other tactics.

10 Tactics

There are many avenues a possible client may travel before contacting you, so consider integrating these 10 tactics into the PR/Marketing mix:

1. actively network in person,
2. have a specialist online presence
3. use examples and testimonials to illustrate your worth;
4. help a charity and share that news,
5. host or sponsor a particular event,
6. optimize your web site for search,
7. make presentations about your industry,
8. post a video of your presentation on your site and YouTube,
9. produce a "hand out" item carrying your logo and telephone number.
10. Keep in contact periodically together with your customers past and present as well as your business allies

Get Professional Help

Unless you have the means to employ a pr professional, you can find talent to activate for projects. Ask your business network or talk with the neighborhood chapter of Public Relations Society of America (www.prsa-ncc.org) or the Independent PR Alliance (www.ipra.org [http://www.ipra.org]).

Suzanne T. Fulton can be an independent pr consultant located in Northern Virginia. Contact [email protected] or call 703-328-8578 or visit [http://www.soaringspr.com]
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