When it comes to marketing strategies, PR is often overlooked in favour of advertising, to the detriment of Australian businesses. Public Relations is a powerful tool that provides much of the news and articles we consume on a daily basis, which by and large is an underappreciated fact.
PR is like the supporting actor who makes every movie they feature in better but rarely gets top billing (think Anna from Frozen or Sam from Lord of The Rings). Considering how valuable and cost effective that actor is it’s befuddling they haven’t been given a starring role yet. The same goes for PR.
Businesses tend to think of their marketing strategy as making a big splash and that often means the bulk of the budget is funnelled into expensive advertising. While advertising is still effective there’s so much more that can be achieved if PR is given a few more lines — both figuratively, and literally on the budget sheet.
What is PR?
Perhaps PR isn’t given the platform it deserves because its purpose is misunderstood. Public Relations is often portrayed as damage control when it’s really about spreading positive messages from the get go.
PR is a like a great first impression you get to make over and over again. These impressions build your reputation and the stronger your reputation the more business you are likely to receive. That’s just one reason why PR rocks.
Controlling the story
Innovation is not just about concepts: it is also about perception. Some Android users relish telling iPhones users that they’ve had Apple’s ‘new’ features for years but thanks to PR the average smart phone owner sees Apple as the innovators (sneaky, right?). The tech giant has controlled the narrative through consistent and relentless PR. They are in regular contact with key influencers in the media, both mainstream and social, which gets their message in the public domain and repeated by trusted sources.
The personal touch
The nature of advertising is the communication of a message en masse. The choices of what to communicate are ‘specific’ and ‘generic’, although to be honest there is very little difference between the two. Given the cost of advertising it’s not unsurprising most opt for communicating with as many people as possible but this is a rather inefficient and shotgun approach to spending the budget. Sure, you’ll hit a few targets and will probably see a return but it pales in comparison to what could be achieve with an ultra-targeted campaign.
PR allows you to communicate more precisely. Advertising in national media is great but often the message tries to be too many things to too many people. With PR you can focus on getting targeted, more personal messages out to the different subsets of your audience.
On point
Public relations can be opportunistic and therein lies its greatest strength. To stick with the movie theme, movies, like advertising campaigns, are long in the planning and there have been hundreds of movies renamed, reshot or delayed due to public events the studios feel would negatively impact on box office performance.
This planning leaves little room for spontaneity, something PR thrives on. Public Relations can consider on a daily basis what is newsworthy, what is trending and what will be trending tomorrow to take advantage of viral opportunities. Tapping into trends can have an amplifying effect, getting the message out in a more influential and memorable way.
PR is an art form and like all arts it can often seem esoteric and therefore too troublesome to consider too deeply. However, PR is an accessible and effective form of communication much like motion pictures and books. Public Relations is often the unsung star of the show, complementing and elevating the performance of others. The next time you’re putting together your marketing budget, consider casting PR in a bigger role — you might be surprised what a box office smash it will be.
