Picture this: You produce the greatest product of all time, at low cost and high quality. You imagine that your product will be flying off of the shelves and headlined on the cover of the New York Times. Your life is set as this moneymaker will continue to reel in cash for the next decades. The only problem is that nobody knows about your product yet! Your company needs Public Relations for several reasons listed below.
Increase Exposure – Working with a PR firm will allow your product to be placed directly in the spotlight. PR professionals utilize connections with influencers and media outlets in order to reach your intended audience. PR allows your product to be tailored to specifically fit a type of media or platform. Buyers tend to trust and purchase from credible brands more often, which means that an increased exposure of your product in the market will drive more sales than traditional marketing. By partnering with social media influencers and bloggers, your product will be candidly and seamlessly integrated into their channels.
Build Relationships – Public Relations is all about building relationships, whether through social media or personal connections. By building relationships with customers, influencers, and media outlets, your product will be able to earn more meaningful impressions often at a lower cost than traditional paid advertisements. These impressions ultimately translate into a direct measurable impact that is an increase in sales. Also, with earned impressions, you have potential to connect with hard-to-reach target age groups who utilize the Internet more than they consume traditional media.
Manage Reputation – Managing a company’s public reputation is often very messy and difficult, especially from the company’s internal point of view. Hiring a PR firm will provide your company with constant guidance for every kind of situation, from United’s dragging nightmare to Wendy’s funny twitter replies. PR professionals are there to give an objective, third-person point of view in order to place your company in the best spotlights or recover from the worst nightmares.
Increase Engagement – In today’s consumer-driven economy, connections and personal engagements are the keys to success. There are dozens of social media platforms available for your company to reach its intended audience. Leave it to the PR professionals to decide which platforms are ideal and the best fit for your product. It is important to maintain a strong social media presence in order to keep up with the media-obsessed consumers. Additionally, increasing social media engagement also establishes your company’s credibility while allowing you to keep up with your competitors and improve your own strategy.
Every company, large or small, has a need for Public Relations. By either dedicating an in-house team to PR or outsourcing the job to a PR agency, your firm will benefit greatly from the increased exposure and engagement as well as professional maintenance of public image.
