5 Reasons You Should Consider PR
Running a business can be super stressful, and building credibility for your brand can seem like an impossible task! Sound familiar? PR could be the answer. Not only can it boost awareness around your brand and provide reach far beyond any of your other marketing activities, PR also helps boost professional relationships and secure credibility in the public eye and the all-important digital algorithms (did someone say SEO?!).
If you’ve started a business, you’ll know you can feel incredibly limited when it comes to time, budget and resources. But, to steadily grow your business (and income!) you need exposure! A great way to make the most out of the unique selling points of your business is through quality public relations - gaining free or earned publicity with your target audience, whether they are a masse or niche.
According to Reboot online, 61% of marketers assert that growing their SEO or organic online presence is a must-have priority. And, according to PR daily, 92% of consumers say they trust earned media over purely promotional content. Essentially, PR is about gaining brand recognition, trust, and the free publicity that comes as a result of that trust.
The majority of people think PR is only for international brands with huge marketing budgets, and we can understand how people jump to this conclusion. PR is a full-time job, and it requires time, resources, knowledge and relationships that most people can’t access. But PR is perhaps even more essential for small businesses to flourish and meet their full potential than for larger organisations.
So what are the 5 key advantages a small business can gain from PR?
It stretches your budget
For any small business, your marketing budget needs to stretch a long way. Getting PR placements doesn’t cost a lot of money, but it does take up precious time. By joining forces with a PR agency like Goho, you can be capable of building trust and awareness of your brand without spending too much money.
Word-of-mouth recommendations and organic buzz influence are better in terms of conversions than any paid marketing activity. Creating conversations about your brand in which your name is always brought up in a positive context – be it influencers, journalists, customers, or even employees – will undoubtedly help your business grow in the long run.
It’s more effective than advertising
According to a Nielsen study, PR is 90% more effective than advertising in influencing consumers. So securing a favourable mention of your brand, which is earned and not paid, holds much more weight in the marketing space than a costly advert.
If you put an ad in a print magazine with 4,000 subscribers, you get 4,000 impressions, most of which will ignore the message and flick straight past. BUT, if your PR agency writes even just one press release, they can send this same press release to targeted newspapers, magazines, radio and TV stations, networks and shows, online news sites and blogs - all with reach within your target market. Once the story is published, local media outlets may pick it up, increasing your potential reach exponentially.
In a world governed by social media, we’re constantly exposed to marketing content in our day-to-day lives. Thus, the conscious consumer is born. Consumers have developed a real lack of trust in brands and their messaging, making the authenticity brought through influencer marketing and public relations absolutely vital to the success of your business.
It supports (and boosts!) your other marketing activities
Public relations is a crucial way to reach your audience, build awareness and create a positive business image.
PR can supplement and support your other initiatives in a way advertising can’t. It can provide and deliver real value to your audience, in a medium and environment that they are comfortable with and actively chose to be in. It may sound complex, but all it takes is a good brief, a great PR team (like us, obviously) and some implementation time!
It builds brand awareness and generates credibility
Unlike traditional media, online media doesn't fade into the background. News articles remain visible on search engines for far longer than their print counterparts. This means any PR content you create can continue to become more valuable to you as it lives on!
Plus, other news outlets, bloggers and even customers may link and share the media coverage - creating backlinks and developing your credibility as a brand. By sharing timely and relevant stories across earned, owned and shared channels, you can maintain a consistently high position in search engine rankings. With the majority of people using Google and other search engines to find the products and services they need, this will inevitably bring more customers to your door (or website!).
It creates long-lasting relationships
PR helps your brand to establish lasting relationships and goodwill with influencers, media organisations and outlets, and many more, as the whole process depends on building trust and delivering real value.
Building and maintaining relations with these people might seem like an impossible endeavour, but any good PR team will have the contacts, the know-how and the time to make this happen.
