Hiring a PR Firm

In the world we’re living in today, marketing and public relationships have a big overlap and intertwine with each other, and, in order to take advantage of one of them, a brand has to take advantage of the other one as well. However, between writing out blogs or ad copy and media management or brand awareness, businesses don’t have a lot of time. Yet, public relations is a full-time job, no matter how small or how big the business might be.

That’s why many businesses decide on hiring a PR firm to do all of that work for the business. These are firms that handle the reputation of the business and the messaging for the press. This is all done through owned, earned as well as paid media, and the main goal of a public relations firm is to manage the reputation of the client and to improve brand awareness.

However, while the strategies from both industries are intertwined and tend to overlap, PR and marketing serve different purposes. The main goal of a marketing campaign is to drive sales, while the main goal of public relations is to boost the reputation of a business.

There are various services that public relations firms offer to their clients, ranging from reputation or crisis management to media relations and market research.

Reputation management is one of the main services PR firms offer to clients and includes blog content, social media management, responding to reviews, and engaging with the audience. Crisis management, on the other hand, happens whenever a business is going through a PR crisis. It’s up to the public relations firm to make sure there’s a crisis communication plan in place for such events, and the business is ready to go through the crisis with a minimal amount of damage to the reputation of the brand.

Media relations and outreach are somewhat similar in nature. Media relations is essentially the relationship between the brand and the media and includes pitching stories to journalists and influencers to cover. Meanwhile, with outreach, the PR firm establishes relationships for the brand with other brands or events in the industry through various events promoted across different channels.

These activities can be promoted with press releases and on social media platforms as a way for the business to communicate with the audience. A PR firm employs different tactics for communication with the audience as well as the influencers in the same niche as the client.

When it comes to participating in events within a particular industry, the PR firm also helps the business with speech writing and media training for the spokesperson who will be appearing in front of an audience – and this can be done for interviews as well.

Finally, a good PR firm these days also means that it also provides market research to its clients, which ranges from feedback forms and surveys to focus groups and online reviews. All of these services are essential for a business to have a positive public image, which is the main goal of hiring a PR firm.