Public relations is essential to making sales and extending your customer base. Your PR game should be relationship focused. How you relate to your customers, stakeholders and partners is essential. Consider these unique public relations tips as you create a PR plan and optimize your PR strategy.
Define your goals
Take a look at your goals and consider what they’re really telling you. Goals should be simple, measurable and attainable. Be very intentional when writing goals. Think about your customer base, your messaging and how to measure success when thinking about goals.
Goals are important because they should direct your entire PR campaign. They should tell you where you’re headed and show where you are now. This shouldn’t just be a practice, but a way to get you to a place where you can genuinely reach your audience.
While thinking about goals, take the time to research your market and competitors. Create a plan and goals based off of your research. Understanding your industry and your competitors will help you differentiate and find a unique approach to reaching goals.
Focus on relationships
Whether online or in-person, PR is all about relationships. This extends further than customer service, though that’s important. Contacts are everything in PR. Make sure you have contacts that you know well in key businesses. These relationships will help you engage stakeholders when you need to make a move quickly. In today’s online world, video collaboration software is key to building and maintaining these relationships.
Relationships are also important when thinking about the press. Have contacts that will read your media releases and share the information through their channels. You can strengthen these relationships by adding value to the information you’re giving your contacts. Share industry trends and tips that partners will find important.
Up your web game
Since PR is about relationships, it’s important that the relationship you’re building with customers online is up to snuff. Your website should be professional and optimized for mobile use. Clients will try to reach your site on mobile devices, and you need to make sure they immediately get the information they need. Plus, not optimizing for mobile use makes you look like you don’t know what you’re doing, which could potentially lose you clients.
Another important part of your web game is your social media presence. Social media is about building relationships more than it’s about sales, making it significantly important to your PR game. Remember that your social media presence is about sharing with your customers and engaging them more than it’s about selling to them. This is why it’s so important to a PR strategy.
To cut through the clutter of social media while trying to build a presence, you need to consider unique avenues. Think about where you can really reach your audience. You may need to utilize platforms beyond Facebook and Instagram.
If your customer base is spending time on Snapchat or TikTok, that’s where you need to be too. You may want to consider using more traditional social media platforms in a different way as well. For instance, you can engage influencers to help you build relationships.
Host events
So much is done online these days, that sometimes promotional events and event sponsorship fall by the wayside. Events can do a lot for your brand image and for brand recognition though. Whether you’re putting on a grand event to promote or a guerilla-style event to really create a buzz, it’s important to think creatively and have a unique approach.
If you’re selling a food or drink product at an event that fits your target market, consider buying out the vendor and giving it away for free. This may have a huge upfront cost, but the brand recognition is undeniable and can be great for business.
Another option is to put up a huge art display or put on a big light show around a release. This can be done in multiple cities to create hype. It’s important to get a buzz going to get people talking, engaging and interacting with your product.
Don’t forget virtual events
This can be done online too. Social media apps offer filters. Partner with a site and create a filter that alerts people to your new product. This is a great way to get people talking and to break through the clutter of traditional PR stunts. This is something that can be done on a niche level as well.
You don’t have to offer the filter to everyone using the app either. You can limit it by region or demographic. Whoever you offer it to, make sure it’s something your target market will appreciate. You don’t want to offer something that will make your audience roll their eyes and move to the next choice.
Virtually or in person, there’s so much you can do to promote your brand. Make sure your PR strategy uses some of these tips to increase recognition and awareness.
