The Public Relations Blog

Customer service is hard. Dealing with conflict and complaints is even harder. For many companies, this can be a make-it-or-break-it point. If you have poor relationships with customers and clients, it can even permanently tarnish a company’s reputation. To avoid that and strengthen customer relations along the way, here are three tips for responding to a crisis response when customers have been offended.

Do advertising firms have the focus on PR you need?

A while ago, I was talking with a public relations agent working in an advertising agency. During our conversation, she discussed her experiences, which stuck out to me. 

Work smarter, not harder, to let prospective customers know about your company

News media coverage is important for companies, especially for franchises.

Franchises rely on the local community in which they reside to see success, and positive news media coverage helps to build a franchisor’s brand and improve the specific franchisee’s reputation. News media coverage also places your business at the forefront of prospective customers’ minds. Media coverage that includes the parent franchise also helps to bring awareness to the brand for those looking for franchise opportunities, especially in local areas where your franchise doesn’t have a footprint.

If you are a franchisor or franchisee, you may now be asking yourself how you get your franchise in the news.

Over the years, I’ve heard many businesspeople say, “I’m not sure what PR is, but I know our company needs it.”

When people think of public relations, they tend to associate it with news coverage. This is what PR pros call “earned media.” The dictionary defines earned media as “publicity gained through promotional efforts other than paid media advertising.”

Use three points to make a pitch that a media professional would love

Pitching stories is one of the key parts to a successful public relations plan. Those that want their stories pitched have the story. However, they need one other key ingredient for success: what the reporters are interested in.

Let’s get SMARTER about PR

By now, you’ve probably heard about S.M.A.R.T. objectives (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Timely) and using them for PR. We blogged about SMART objectives and how to be a SMART communications pro frequently.

There’s a movement to add ER to SMART objectives and push for SMARTER objectives, and we love it! 

How inbound marketing is best for your customers… and your company.

The Inbound marketing approach to doing business is based on building conversations and relationships with the people you want to attract the most. It allows you to talk with, not at, your most valuable audience. Most importantly, Inbound is a technique that meets your customers in their comfort zone and on their own terms and sites. 

People are always growing and changing, which means your company should be too. Inbound is about drawing customers to you, not spamming mailboxes with marketing materials. In today’s fast-paced world, you have to stand out from the crowd and offer something new, relevant, and personalized to get the attention you desire.

This is a better way of doing business.

Use these three tips to get back to normal.

This is a story about COVID-19 and its impact on business and PR. Read Media Relations during COVID-19 and four communication actions your company can do during COVID-19 for more information.

The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly slowed down the economy, putting a dent in your company and your public relations plans. However, now that lockdowns are starting to rescind, you need to begin thinking about how your company will get back to business and how your public relations plans will go forward.

As things start to open up again, consider these three points as you plan for things to return to how they used to be.

In memory of George Floyd...

We've created the George Floyd Business Mentor Program, an absolutely free program that's open to 50 black men who want to succeed in life, business, and personal finance.

The definition of vanity metrics, and why they don’t really matter.

What we usually think of as vanity metrics are numbers like impressions, advertising value “equivalents” (AVEs), mentions, likes, shares, re-tweets, clicks, page views, downloads, etc. Although some vanity metrics may be important for historical benchmarking or baseline purposes, they shouldn’t be relied on for real intelligence. 

Vanity metrics are good for feeling “warm and fuzzy” and bad for action. In other words, vanity metrics are numbers that feel important yet are fundamentally superficial, or worse, deceptive. They are numbers for numbers’ sake.