It’s no secret that a cohesive, strong and positive brand image is critical for achieving long-term success in today’s business landscape. How to use public relations for marketing is how accomplished organizations achieve lasting success — helping them shape public perception, reach target audiences, nurture customer engagement, boost brand equity, solidify credibility and, ultimately, drive business growth.
Public relations focuses on creating and maintaining a good positive image, identifying and growing strategic relationships, and effectively communicating key messages to target audiences, including a range of stakeholders, such as employees, investors, media, government and the general public.
Integrating public relations efforts into marketing strategies has a significant impact on brand perception and consumer behavior — contributing to improved brand image, emotional connections with audiences, attracting consumers and influencing consumer behavior that benefits an organization’s bottom line. In short, organizations must incorporate public relations tactics into their marketing strategy to achieve their full potential.
Understanding Public Relations
While distinctly different, public relations, advertising and marketing efforts can often be confused with one another as they are all promotion methods that work together to create a unified brand message. Here’s how to understand how they differ:
What is PR?
Public relations is the management of reputation and image. It refers to the process of building mutual understanding and trust between a customer and a brand. PR secures third-party credibility, while marketing and advertising leverage paid communication efforts. Studies continue to demonstrate that third-party endorsement plays a critical role in both the decision-making process and in creating brand affinity.
What is Marketing?
Marketing is defined as the process of identifying and satisfying customer needs profitably while building relationships and attracting consumers. This is mainly done through selling products that meet those needs.
What is Advertising?
Advertising is the communication technique used to sell products or services. While advertising plays a crucial role in building brand identity, enhancing customer engagement and educating consumers about products or services, it refers to an organization’s paid efforts.
What is the Difference Between PR, Marketing and Advertising?
Marketing focuses on creating revenue-generating opportunities by promoting and selling specific products or services. PR is concerned with securing third-party credibility to create and maintain a holistic, positive reputation for a company, brand or person. Advertising is the paid communication method used to sell products and services or influence behavior.
Essential key elements of PR
Crisis Management
A critical function of PR, crisis management should be handled swiftly consistently and strategically — and be proactive as well as reactive. Crisis management is the practice of acknowledging, managing and working to reverse negative communication and perceptions surrounding a business crisis.
Preparation is the key to successfully navigating reputation and crisis management with public relations — following a plan is easier than creating a plan in the moment. Organizations can also proactively avert crises with certain PR tools, such as monitoring online chatter and quality-checking any marketing or promotional material that may be misconstrued.
Media Relations
Media relations focuses on an organization’s relationships with journalists, publications and other news outlets. This can include press releases, pitching stories, contributing thought leadership commentary and conducting interviews. Media relations helps your organization gain exposure, gain credibility and tell your message to target audiences.
Storytelling Power
There’s no shortage of competition for headlines in today’s content-saturated world. However, one of the most effective methods for cutting through the noise and ensuring your message resonates is through the art of storytelling. Engaging stories that echo a brand’s core values forge deeper connections with audiences and ultimately generate results.
But a compelling story doesn’t only capture an audience’s attention — it also leaves a lasting impression. To accomplish this, organizations should identify unique angles and human-interest elements about their brand that can be shared through various platforms — from social media and influencer collaborations to media pitches and bylines.
Community Relations
Community relations refers to building positive relationships with the local community around your organization — from charity work and donations to special discounts and other collaborations. Community relations goes a long way in building strong relationships with your surrounding community and strengthening customer loyalty.
The Role of PR in Marketing
Public relations is more complex than meets the eye. Studies continue to demonstrate that third-party endorsement plays a critical role in both the decision-making process and in creating brand affinity. A holistic public relations strategy establishes trust, boosts credibility and complements marketing and advertising initiatives across channels and scenarios.
To boost your marketing efforts, incorporate these public relations themes into your overall strategy:
1. Raise Brand Awareness
Public relations can help you increase your brand’s visibility, build trust with existing and potential customers and create a lasting, emotional connection. Marketing campaigns that feature the right brand message, a well-chosen look and the right medium in which to share them can be the difference between controlling the conversation around your brand and letting others do that for you.
It’s important to note that awareness at first sight is unlikely. In fact, it takes 5-7 brand impressions before someone will remember your brand. Consistency is good with good branding — and streamlines every piece of creative work.
2. Bolster Your Reputation
Strategic public relations will help your organization create a positive brand image that resonates with your target audience. Use marketing tactics like press releases, social media campaigns and customer testimonials to bolster your reputation.
3. Craft a Winning PR Pitch
A compelling and timely PR pitch is essential to securing effective media coverage for your brand. Prioritize your organization’s PR efforts with the creation and extraction of content and story ideas to be packaged into various forms, including pitches, press releases and bylines.
4. Secure Media Coverage
Effective modern PR requires trusted reporter and influencer relationships, an eye for a story, a knack for amplification and a lot of persistence. Bring it all together and you have a dynamic strategy that stands up to the communications challenges of the moment. It’s all about creating a streamlined effort that champions story ideas that reporters and influencers will find interesting and extends the life and usefulness of every story.
5. Create Engaging Social Media Content
Create helpful, inspiring and creative content that engages your target audience and solves a problem, aids a pain point or evokes emotion. Did you know 50% of the world’s population uses social media? That’s 3 billion people engaging based on shared interests and the opportunity to connect.
Social media is a great way to interact with your target audience on a more personal level, better understand your consumer’s needs and generate credibility and trust. The right message at the right time on the right social media channel can elevate any marketing initiative. Consider posting helpful articles, hosting webinars or Q&A sessions with industry experts and featuring customer testimonials.
Developing an Effective PR Strategy
Building a strong, positive reputation and top-of-mind brand presence requires an effective PR strategy with several critical elements. Incorporate these five components into your next PR campaign.
1. Target Media Outreach
Media outreach and PR go hand in hand, but it’s not just about pitching stories. The key to this PR tactic is cultivating relationships with key reporters, influencers and media representatives, and staying on top of news cycles to identify when and where your message fits. When you take the time to establish a strong foundation with media contacts, nurture relationships by helping where you can and making their job easier, you better set yourself up for success when your organization’s message, story, subject matter experts or point of view is most timely.
2. Prioritize Content Creation
Public relations is all about disseminating your message to target audiences in compelling and thoughtful ways. The best way to do this is through creative and engaging content creation. What are the best ways to tell your organization’s story and get your message in front of the people who need to hear it? From press releases and blog posts to social media content, videos and podcasts, there are endless ways to cultivate creative content creation that promotes your brand’s key messages and values.
3. Identify Events and Conferences
The power of meeting your target audiences and other key stakeholders face-to-face is tremendous. Consider how strategic events and relevant conferences and speaking opportunities can advance your public relations efforts. Networking, demonstrating your subject matter expertise and collaborating with others in your industry can play a pivotal role in establishing credibility, building reputation and getting your message in front of the right people.
4. Embed in the Business
Whether in-house or an agency partner, your PR team should be an integral member of the business/brand. And the PR team should have complete access to all parts of the business, develop deep insights into every industry nuance, fully understand who your target audience is, where they spend their time and what they want in the future, maintain an updated crisis management plan and be at the pulse of your organization’s competitive landscape. The more transparency and communication your public relations team has with the rest of the company — at every level — the better position your organization is set up for success.
5. Establish Measurable Campaign Objectives
Every PR strategy should establish clear objectives that can be measured for success, such as increasing brand awareness, driving website traffic, attracting consumers or generating leads. These objectives should dovetail with your organization’s overall business goals. Evaluate every PR tactic along the way so you can make tweaks to accomplish your overall campaign objectives. H2: Integrating PR Tactics into Your Marketing Campaign
Once you establish your PR campaign’s objectives, you can pinpoint which PR tactics will be most effective. From event sponsorships and press conferences to influencer relations, there is a spectrum of tactics to consider.
Why are PR tactics important?
Public relations is broader and more complex than meets the eye. A holistic strategy complements marketing and advertising initiatives across channels and scenarios. In addition to story ideation, pitching and influencer relationships, incorporating a variety of PR tactics can maximize the impact of any PR effort.
PR tactics are important because they are opportunities for your organization to raise brand awareness, bolster community relations and strengthen crisis management capabilities. PR tactics help you build a stronger connection with your audience and increase their loyalty. In other words, PR tactics are the creative ways in which you convey your brand message to make a lasting impact.
Explore these common PR tactics you can use to gain a competitive advantage:
Press Releases
Press releases are a traditional PR tactic that organizations leverage to share announcements, such as a new product launch or merger, and continue to hold a lot of credibility in today’s modern landscape. 42% of people believe that press releases are the most trustworthy content.
A press release is essentially a detailed news article straight from the source. It should have an intriguing story angle to entice media to talk about the news or brand. Remember, while a well-crafted press release is key, so are the relationships PR professionals cultivate with media professionals to help cut through the noise and ensure the press release reaches its full potential.
Press Conferences
When organizations have news to share that will create a sizable shift in the market or is of substantial interest to customers and/or the industry at large, hosting press conferences is an effective way to disclose this information. A media event that allows journalists to ask important questions and gain immediate access to communication representatives, press conferences are a strategic PR tactic to directly share information, show transparency and disseminate information quickly.
Events
From small trade shows to large launch parties, events are a dynamic PR tactic to connect with current and potential customers and other partners in person. Events also generate buzz with influential attendees and offer exciting photo opportunities. Crafting an event experience that reflects your organization’s key messages can build brand affinity and create marketable moments that can be amplified in both third-party and owned channels, such as newspapers, social media, blog posts and video content.
Partnerships
Key partnerships can help your organization grow its audience by leveraging a like-minded brand’s following. When organizations with shared values and reputations team up, they can create a “win, win” experience for themselves and their target audiences. For example, Nike and Apple teamed up to bring music from Apple to Nike customers’ exercise experience. The partnership helps both brands provide a better experience to customers — and set themselves apart from their competition.
Ready to Achieve Your Brand’s Full Potential?
If your brand is what people say about you when you’re not in the room, public relations is your chance to join important conversations. It’s about being heard and seen for the right reasons. It’s about making your message count. In short, integrating PR into marketing campaigns is integral for organizations to achieve their full potential and achieve long-term success.
Through years of experience, across industries and up against tremendous challenges and opportunities alike, Communications Strategy Group (CSG®) has purpose-built a strategic public relations agency model that goes beyond media impressions to the tangible impression you make.
Ready to get your message in front of the right people? Contact us today to discover how our content value exchange strategy can take your next PR campaign to the next level — amplifying your organization’s storytelling, championing its mission and values and creating lasting brand affinity.
FAQs About How to Use Public Relations for Marketing
How to use PR as a marketing tool?
Leverage the potential of public relations as a marketing tool by pitching your brand’s stories to the media focusing on your target audience. When journalists and bloggers generate positive media coverage of your organization, it boosts brand awareness and credibility. Social media is another way to engage with your target audience and share engaging stories about your brand.
What is PR in marketing?
PR or public relations refers to the strategic communication from an organization to the public to maintain or cultivate public image and respond to public discourse. You might be familiar with the saying “Advertising is what you pay for; publicity is what you pray for.” PR is the storytelling and messaging your brand earns in the media and among influencers.
How do PR and marketing complement each other?
PR and marketing go hand in hand — and effectively combining them creates an integrated communication strategy, unified messaging and successful outcomes. While PR focuses on reputation-building and amplifying key messages to target audiences, marketing aims to drive sales or move the bottom line. Coordinated campaigns that include content marketing and data analytics create a cohesive approach that supports both PR and marketing goals.
How to use PR to grow your business?
Utilize these savvy five PR strategies to grow your business:
- Tell your story. People buy from people, not from brands. Make sure you’re telling your story, not just your brand’s. Share your personal journey — and other relevant journeys to your organization, such as customers, employees and others who inspire your mission. Tell your story on a podcast, write it in a blog post or pitch it to a local newspaper.
- Collaborate. Look for other like-minded companies that complement your services to create a “win, win” for your target audience. Sharing consumer databases and social media audiences is a great way to grow both businesses.
- Strengthen your media relations. If you want to be seen as an expert in your field, you need to be top of mind for media writing about your industry. First, make a list of outlets you want to be in. Then, identify key reporters and influencers you can build relationships with. Be sure to regularly connect with them about story ideas and news from your organization, such as product launches, big hires and collaborations. You can also offer to write thought leadership pieces.
- Engage influencers. Don’t overlook the power of influencers. Similar to media relations, it’s important to identify the major influencers in your industry that can help your organization move the needle. Once you understand who you want to work with — or who you want to talk about your brand — reach out to them to work together.
- Throw a party. What’s the best way to directly engage with your target audience, current customers, and even media and influencer contacts? Throw a party! Whether it’s an annual birthday celebration, a new product launch or a collaboration event, a party will generate buzz, allow authentic connections and give back to your supporters — and with strategic collaborations and sponsorships, it can even pay for itself.