The Public Relations Blog

4 ways to make sure you are investing enough in this vital area

With billions of dollars in revenue, it is easy to become complacent and rest on your laurels. After all, to get to this point, you must be doing something right. Still, you may be wondering, “Is there more that I can do to further tip the scales and ensure relevance?” The answer is yes, and the solution lies in public relations.

Build on your company’s future and increase profits with the right tools

Is your general contracting company name well known in your industry? Do clients and prospective employees seek out your construction firm over your competitors? Are you using social media and other technologies to their full potential in reaching prospects and increasing sales? If you answered “no” or “I don’t know” to these questions, then your company can benefit from PR.

Learn why PR is important and how to use it effectively for branding and business strategy

Entertainer Milton Berle said, “If opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door.” In business, if customers are not knocking down your door, it may be because you need to build credibility first, and public relations can help.

You cannot build credibility in a day. However, there are strategies you can adopt today to lay a strong foundation of trust and develop a solid reputation, using public relations tools and techniques.

Why you need both for successful PR campaigns

As a public relations professional, do you know the difference between strategies and tactics? Just like how many people incorrectly interchange the terms goals and objectives, they also confuse strategies and tactics. Everyone should understand and recognize the distinction between these important business terms.

A crisis can happen to any business and the results can be devastating. Even something seemingly insignificant, like an off-the-cuff remark by a CEO or other top executive, can snowball into a major public relations nightmare. When it happens to your company, what can you do?

Here is a checklist your business can use to ensure you handle the problem in the most effective way.

Learn why both are important to your company’s image and bottom line

Your company’s reputation precedes you in every meeting, event and interaction with the public. It’s what consumers use to decide whether they can trust you and your product and if they should spend money with you.

You may think that a good reputation just happens; that if you are well behaved and don’t actively seek to do harm, people will notice. But this is not the case. It’s vital to manage your reputation – and do so ethically.

It depends on how much you want to avoid (or survive) your next crisis

Ben Franklin said, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” Indeed, it is much easier to safely extinguish a campfire with water and soil than it is to battle a raging forest fire. You can say the same for crisis management.

Prepare for the worst so you perform at your best

Consumers are irrational. It’s part of the thrill of doing business: seeing if your company can decipher the right combination of wants versus needs and create an optimum strategy for pricing products for maximum profit.

Businesses generally have policies or processes to handle expected variables such as low inventory, staff illnesses or a new product launch. Rarely, however, are companies in the mindset to pre-identify triggers that would help them recognize when events start drifting outside of the realm of normal operations.

When you compare cost to results, you will always come out ahead

As a medium-sized company, you have more resources than a small business, but can still maintain a level of flexibility not present in large corporations. Although you have more money to work with, you still need to ensure that you spend it wisely. So, are you spending enough on public relations?

Ben Franklin knew a thing or two about reputation. Not only was he concerned about his own, but also about the effect his actions would have on his parents' legacy and on the ambitions of his children. In short, he knew that one's reputation was a most valuable thing. Here are a few other insights on reputation from the self-proclaimed printer, revolutionary and statesman.