Notes

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

Who are "your publics" anyway? Well, Additional info isn't just the public. A small business advantages from good relationships with board and staff members, distributors, service providers, potential customers, present and past customers, businesses near your office, businesses in an allied field, other business people that can steer customers for you, sources of capital perhaps, and the media.

Strategies and Tactics

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

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

With today's diverse and fragmented media venues, it's difficult to know where to send your news - or, frankly, think about you might be newsworthy. get more info than not, it's hard to convince busy media of the news 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 in connection with hot national news or perhaps a new trend. For instance, my wedding planner client didn't have any particular news, but upon learning from her that lots of folks get engaged at Valentine's Day, I called area newspapers using that nugget and offering her up as an area expert. The effort led to an interview of her by her area newspaper!

Writing and submitting check here for publication is a strategy that elevates your reputation and could bring you business. For my clients who have written articles, I've placed these in national and regional magazines. Being published, furthermore, gave the author additional online presence because the articles are "picked up" by Web se's.

Face-to-face networking is an important public relations strategy widely employed however, not necessarily effectively by a lot of business people. In fact, many people 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. But you can virtually "be" everywhere. The advent of Web 2 2.0 has presented marketing and PR folks with new challenges as well as opportunities to reach a wider audience and receive comments and opinions. PR and marketing professionals alike get their 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 potential customer 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 online site for search,
7. make presentations about your industry,
8. post a video of one's presentation on your internet site and YouTube,
9. produce a "hand out" item carrying your logo and telephone number.
10. Retain in contact periodically together with your customers past and present and your business allies

Get Professional Help

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

Suzanne T. Fulton is an independent pr consultant situated in Northern Virginia. Contact [email protected] or call 703-328-8578 or visit [http://www.soaringspr.com]
Homepage: http://www.pearltrees.com/valentin21stout