PR and Why it’s Important to Get it Right — Review

A common misconception among most people is that Public Relations (PR) is nothing but advertising, well for the longest time, I was one of those people too.

I always knew that marketing and PR went hand in hand but I never quite understood what PR was really about. On one hand, I knew that the PR department at every organisation I worked for, was always involved in talks with some media agency or the other, but at the same time, I knew that this supposed ‘advertising’ did not work in the same way as the pay per click campaigns we ran in marketing.

I recently started a new course in CXL Institute’s Growth Marketing Mini-Degree which opened my eyes to what is the exact role of those involved in PR, and let me give away the ending by saying — they play a pretty damn important role!

So let’s review it.

Earned Media, Shared Media and Owned Media

The term ‘Earned Media’ was something I very recently became aware of. To put it in simple terms, earned media or earned content, is any material written about you or your business that you haven’t paid for or created yourself. Although this type of media is always published by a third party, there are ways marketers can position themselves for earned media opportunities.

Shared media on the other hand refers to content that is shared across third-party platforms, such as social media, or shared between multiple owners, including influencers, bloggers, partnerships etc.

Finally, the most straightforward: Owned Media is defined as the set of communication channels/outlets that an entity (organisation/individual) has complete control over. It includes properties such as websites, blogs, email newsletters, forums, and so on.

Now the main reason I’ve highlighted all these forms of media creation and distribution is to show exactly how PR first and foremost differs from the very basic concept of paid advertising.

Public relations involves maintaining brand identity, messaging and the exact knowledge of your concerned target audience.

Measuring PR Success

To add another difference between PR and Paid Advertising, PR is more difficult to measure, unlike paid advertising which offers clear cut and concise metrics of success or failure.

PR is divided into two main types:

• Defensive PR
• Positive PR

When it comes to measuring the success or failure of either, we need to take an approach different from how we track paid advertising or any kind of marketing activities. The difficult part of PR is that it can guarantee success, but never with a definitive timeline or number.

Defensive PR is for damage control and is usually used to correct and rectify rather than promote. Naturally, the success of these type of initiatives depends on whether the strategy was able to mitigate the danger.

For positive PR, on the other hand, it is possible to track things from a marketing front like social metrics, shares, sentiment and even sources, but this will always exclude the major thought process change or change in ideology that is inflicted on consumers, as it is impossible to track.

Therefore, a good PR firm won’t necessarily be the ones with the best analytics to show for it, but rather will be one that:

• Identifies the right messaging of your brand
• Identifies the right target audience
• Is able to distribute the relevant messaging to the different target audience and
• Is able to train and coach members of the organisation for media and for op-ed articles.

Pitching to Traditional and Modern Media Sources

Now that we’ve covered what is the role of PR and how to measure success, we can move into the main method of how they perform their functions. With PR, the biggest role to be played is in media. This includes traditional and modern media which utilises a different strategy in pitching to either.

According to Hubspot, media relations refers to building positive relationships with journalists, publications, and other news outlets. This process typically includes writing press releases, organizing press releases, and scheduling interviews. Not only does this gain exposure for your business and products but it also encourages the media to market your brand for free.

Traditional media includes your TV, Newspaper, Journals (online and offline) etc. Now with traditional media, it is a given that networking and connections are a huge plus point. However, in addition to this, a good pitch to a media house requires it to:

• Stand out from the millions of other articles they receive
• Well structured and informed research to back up claims in the article.
• Content created specifically for the right purpose: Eg the structuring of content for a news article is different from the content for a blog.

A few friendly tips in the course were also to always pitch in the morning to reporters and preferably use email channels over calls.

When it comes to modern media, the biggest media source is social media and blogs. This is where influencer marketing becomes your cash cow. However, unlike your traditional media, influencer marketing is structured differently. Influencers will only endorse products or services that are in line with their brand, therefore research is paramount to pick the right influencer, to begin with. Additionally, influencer marketing relies heavily on personal relationships that you maintain with the influencers, they value relationships over everything else and networking is your key to cracking this, besides, of course, paying them fairly and on time.

Internal PR and why is it important?

Employee relations, also known as internal PR, is the practice of communicating with and cultivating a positive employee perception of your company. This process may include dedicated employee newsletters or communications, employee perks and benefits, free training and skill-boosting opportunities, employee appreciation events, and working with unions or employee groups.

Employee relations not only keep your employees motivated, hard-working, and loyal, but it also encourages them to advocate for your business — which can bring in both customers and more high-quality employees. Additionally, it is also important that your employees are able to advocate for your brand as well as any front line employee.

To learn more about good PR strategies, check out CXL Institute’s Courses and enrol in one today!