Public Relations

Public relations is fundamentally the art and science of establishing relationships between an organization and its key audiences. Public relations plays a key role in helping business industries create strong relationships with customers. Public relations involves supervising and assessing public attitudes, and maintaining mutual relations and understanding between an organization and its public. The function of public relations is to improve channels of communication and to institute new ways of setting up a two-way flow of information and understanding.

Public relations and advertising are both great ways to reach key audiences. However, I think PR should be the foundation upon which all other marketing communications tactics are built. Now, it is true that you have more control over your initial advertising message than you do over your public relations generated messages. You pay for that luxury and that is the problem. Your audience knows that you paid for the message delivery and immediately discounts it because it is from you. Also, your advertising message has a very limited shelf-life, although that is changing. With the advent of sites like YouTube your TV ads can be archived.

Business relationships much like personal ones are built on impressions. These impressions spring forth from how one entity presents itself and is perceived by another. The world is built on these emotional structures which guide our judgments on how we interact and exchange thoughts, ideas as well as with whom we will share our commercial activity for mutual gain. The business environment which surrounds us, therefore, depends upon kinship between companies with the goals of a shared success in mind. Each side of the partnership has a vested interest in cultivating a positive image to the other. This is for the purpose of gaining the attention and respect that could lead to a state of connectedness for the purpose of profit and company health on both sides.

It’s amazing how powerful a bit of advertising in the press can be. The public seems to take the printed word as the gospel truth! If you manage to get your work published, you’ll find that your credibility goes up enormously. It’s been proven that coverage by the media is more powerful than advertising in the press by 100% at least. TV shows like “A Current Affair” have a massive influence on people’s perceptions and buying habits. A while ago, one of our clients appeared on “A Current Affair”. He runs a large mortgage introduction company. After his organization’s phone number was quickly flashed up on the screen, the phones rang hot.