5 Reasons PR Is Essential for All Small Businesses
One of Goho’s main priorities is to build great relationships with our clients (Partaaaay), we believe by developing a bond we can better understand our clients' goals and needs and therefore deliver a better product. A key aspect of PR is relationship building, which is massively important to any business, but especially for those smaller companies who are striving to achieve a foothold in the market and ultimately grow. PR should be a very important element of your business, so in this article we will run down the top five reasons you should be aiming to really smash your PR targets so you can maximise your potential client list, and therefore future profit.
Building Relationships
PR is a strategic communication process that builds mutually beneficial relationships between an organisation and the public. As mentioned in our introduction, building relationships is of upmost importance, PR helps prospective customers feel connected to your brand, and if they feel connected there is much more chance they will return, if someone feels connected to a certain brand, they are much more likely to tell their friends and family about it, so don’t underestimate the power of building strong, long-lasting relationships.
Keeping people informed
PR is your main tool for keeping people informed with what's happening within your business, again helping to build relationship with key audiences. Furthermore, PR helps you to communicate to your target audience about specific updates, informing them about your brand, products or services. Keeping the press and general public informed and up to date will raise your company's authority, which will hopefully provide further exposure opportunities as a result.
Cost Effectiveness
As appose to paid advertising, PR is earned publicity. By developing your followers and clients via PR you are growing organically and with little expenditure, this is hugely important for smaller companies who may not have the budget or financial resources that a larger more established company enjoy. Doing PR yourself also has the benefit of a long shelf life, paid advertisements run for only a certain amount of time, self-actioned PR will build a quality, trusting and returning audience, little by little over time, and it will be stored online indefinitely with no time restraints, offering you the biggest ‘bang for your buck’.
Boost your brands online visibility
Following on from point number 4, as time goes on your online content will simply gain more and more value, remaining in search engines forever. The more people see and click on this content, the higher your brand will be in search engine rankings, by remaining in internet search results
indefinitely, bloggers, news outlets and customers can also easily share your company's content, again helping your company to grow organically. By positioning your brand online via respected and notable media outlets, with many online interviews, press releases, news articles and so on...like Goho, this shows you are the ‘go to’ company within the industry, positioning your business and brand with authority.
Reputation Management
Small businesses rely heavily on word of mouth, with positive reviews and people talking about your company in glowing fashion is the best publicity you can get, but this can also have a detrimental effect to your online image if someone leaves even one review or online comment, talking about your company in a negative light, this can spell disaster. You cannot be in total control, but by keeping on top of what is being said about your business, and ensuring information that is being spread is accurate and up to date is a good way of maintaining a positive image, being alert to misinformation and ensuring you are quick to respond and correct will ensure you uphold a professional representation of your business. Also, try to stay ahead of the game, building a constructive, strong, empathetic and positive online presence, utilising PR to deliver meaningful content to your viewers, whether it be useful, educational or inspiring, providing value to the reader, empathizing with your audience and engaging with them, you will win people's attention, over time gain their respect, and ultimately stand yourself in a good light - take care of your public relations and your reputation will take care of itself.
Summary
Public Relations for any business are of huge importance, but especially so for a small company endeavouring to grow. PR is an invaluable tool and one you should have in your arsenal, to both develop your brand, build strong, beneficial relationships and develop positive credibility. It may seem that building and maintaining relationships via PR is a time consuming and arduous task, but with a systematic and effective daily or weekly routine, you will start to develop and establish trusting and long-lasting relationships with your target audience, position your company effectively within the industry, which in turn will boost brand visibility and future profit, all while m maintaining a positive reputation and gaining publicity for free with minimal expenditure, what’s not to like? PR can be very powerful, and by committing even just a few hours a week to a strategic PR routine, you’ll see the positive returns in no time at all.
