The Role of Public Relations Management
Those firms who try to save money rather than maintaining their customers through public relations might actually lose money in the long run. It’s fairly indisputable nowadays that advertising and marketing campaigns are not as cost-effective as PR efforts. Metrica, a global media analysis and evaluation company, recently released a new report on the effectiveness of PR. According to the analysis, public relations strategies are typically ten times more cost-effective than advertising and 300 times more cost-effective than direct marketing. Emmy Award winner David Henderson, the author of The Media Savvy Leader, has noted that “Public relations today achieves influence, more meaningful results, and greater credibility than any other tool available in a company’s marketing arsenal.”
The Public Relations Strategy
Here are some tips from experts that firms can incorporate into their plans in times of economic trouble:
- The most important thing? Do not hit the panic button and succumb to the perceptions created by the media’s sensational coverage, alarmist talks, and other fears and emotions. As Henderson has said, “Our perceptions may be real when we see different things in a cloud, but could it just be our imagination running away with us?”
- Identify target audiences while keeping in view the immediate problems faced by the firm, and then formulate public relations campaigns according to the findings.
- Positivity is the key to navigating through troubled waters. Never underestimate it. You might even lose your public relations job, but chances are more than likely that you will find another one very easily if you are competent enough.
- Redirect business strategies to win over lower-tier clients from big firms and towards stable firms which are doing fairly well in the midst of the recession.
- Try to connect marketing efforts and PR in terms of profitability and credibility, the latter being a primary benefit of PR. What is critical is that PR professionals prove the effectiveness of their efforts and demonstrate true ROI to those that hold the purse strings.
- Both traditional media hits and public relations media, if targeted with the right sense of precision and vision, can inspire social engagements, leads, search engine optimization (SEO), and greater faith from customers.
- Also, be more creative in engineering PR events for your company shareholders, as these can result in outstanding value for your firm and generate much-needed leads.
Companies hit hard by the current economic blight should actually increase their PR efforts in a bid to solidify their relationships with existing customers and gain new ones. If looked at from the right perspective, the current recession could prove to be a boon rather than a bane. Adversity can be used in a positive way to nurture new hope, to develop new relations, and to reach new heights.
