PR - Public Relations - SME Marketing

Increasing your exposure

Whilst advertising can be incredibly successful at encouraging consumers to purchase a company’s products, many people are now very cynical about it and its effectiveness can be questioned at times. Public Relations (PR) can a very effective way of supporting claims made in a company’s adverts and also generating consumer loyalty and awareness . PR is fundamentally about getting objective, third-party endorsement. This can be through the media, professional bodies or other forums. PR can be especially useful when launching a new business or product, and can be cheap if you are clever and willing to speak out.

Public relations can be driven by activities such as:

• Issuing press releases when you have something that is newsworthy to announce, such as a revolutionary new product or a new appointment to your company  
• Speaking to journalists who might want opinion or information for features they are writing
• Writing letters in response to newspaper articles or broadcast programmes (or at appropriate events)
• Writing blogs on your company’s website or another third party website to speak directly to your consumers – remember though that people will only read something that is informative and unique 
• Arranging for company leaders to appear on broadcast programmes to talk about issues that affect your customers or your business
• Asking journalists or opinion formers to review the company’s products so that consumers have an objective endorsement
• Organising interesting events that your target audience or media may be interested in

New angles get people talking, so the more creative your PR is, the more exposure the company can get and ultimately the more people will then know about the company and its products. It is possible to drive all of these activities internally while the company grows. At some point though a company will need dedicated PR team or an external PR agency to help drive third party endorsement.