PUBLIC RELATIONS FORUM
Public relations deliverables
The business benefits that public relations can deliver are wide and varied. The precise mix will depend on the environment in which the organisation operates and the corporate, marketing and communications objectives that it sets. They encompass:
- Awareness: the most common, some would say most effective, and certainly almost universal function of public relations activity is to make people aware in some way of an organisation’s products, services, technologies and position.
- Education: the best customer is an educated customer. Public relations is a particularly effective tool for educating markets about new technologies.
- Credibility: a key benefit of public relations as a communications medium is that it has a high degree of credibility in the mind of the receiver when compared with other marketing communications channels.
- Third party endorsement: an important driver of this credibility is that the message originates from and is therefore endorsed by a third party: frequently journalists but also other commentators and other authorities. A good technical article in a trade publication is not only read but it is believed and, the more credible the publication, the more credible the message.
- Permission to buy: consumers are no longer content to rely purely on product performance; they also need to be reassured that they are happy to do business with the organisation providing the product or service.
- Differentiation: once the market has been educated, interest has been generated in a technology or product category and awareness of our brand established, public relations messages need to differentiate our brand from that of the competitors.
- Positioning: differentiation is delivered through positioning, but positioning is not only to do with the product or service on offer, rather it is about differentiating the product in the mind of the prospect and is therefore best achieved by high credibility communications.
- Relationship marketing: modern marketing is more about relationships than transactions and public relations’ orientation is building relationships through communication that is two-way and informal in style.
Public relations is also effective in terms of costs and targeting. Although not ‘free advertising’ (the main costs associated with public relations are consultancy fees or in-house salaries), no media costs means that public relations can be relatively cost-effective. Also, public relations can be used to reach specific audiences in a way that paid media cannot, which is particularly important with increased media fragmentation and segmentation of markets.