What Comes First?
Is a number of businesses that provide services or products to others, however, even when they have a great product, they still have to connect with a customer base to be able to make sales. There have been plenty of debates on whether business owners should be focusing on marketing or public relations first, and in many cases, it’s the latter that should be more important at first.
Difference
Marketing and public relations are 2 very different industries. Marketing is all about promotion and it’s usually the next step after public relations tactics, so businesses can efficiently deliver their services or products to the people that have already heard about the business through its PR efforts.
Public relations is all about connecting to and building relationships with people that will be turned into buying customers as well as establishing the company’s brand image. The main goal of public relations is to get people familiar with the brand itself.
PR Comes First
Knowing this important distinction between marketing and PR means that the first few months or a year of a business is going to be all about PR. new businesses don’t have a solid customer base yet, And they haven’t earned the customers’ trust yet which means turning those people into buying customers is a difficult road to walk.
Being a new business also means not having a big budget and spending every part of that budget wisely without being wasteful. Creating a big marketing campaign before the customers understand what the business is about means being wasteful with the company’s budget.
Additionally, these days customers are very smart. They tend to research the company before they decide to make a purchase from the business and if they don’t find information that they’re looking for, they will end up disappointed and then not make a purchase which negates the company’s bottom line.
Making it Work
The first step in starting with public relations tactics for any business is to get people to refer to the business from the very beginning. The business might be in you and potential customers won’t have a lot of trust in it, but they will trust their social circle. That’s what businesses can use as an advantage.
The next step would be to create some valuable articles online. These articles can be published on the company’s website or on relevant industry websites and they will get people familiar with the business itself.
After that, is time for actual media coverage. Participating in community events, panels, becoming a guest on a podcast, a radio show, or a webinar, will all lead to people being more exposed to the business. These activities can also lead to media coverage in the mainstream, such as receiving coverage from bigger news outlets.
This way, the target audience will get to become familiar with the people behind the company, and it’s also a great way to interact with potential customers in a more direct manner.
