Greetings!
My name is Shelby Kraus and today is my inauguration into the blogosphere. Although I am an avid follower of many different communications, branding and marketing blogs, I haven’t delved into writing one…until now. I may be a blogger novice, but am a veteran of 18 years in the public relations arena. So, it is nice to “meet” you and I look forward to sharing many thoughts and ideas with each other about public relations.
Over the years, I have worked with many professionals and they all had a different idea of what is public relations and what it can do for them or their company. Does every type of business or organization need PR? The answer is … yes. It can come in many different shapes or levels, but ultimately it is always necessary to share your story in a way that is relevant to your audience.
Let me say that again. Ultimately it is always necessary to share your story in a way that is relevant to your audience.
A challenge for any communications or public relations manager is crafting a message that will win over the CEO and a journalist. A tough assignment for sure. In the end, relating your news to how it benefits a customer or prospect should always win the day. It can be hard to convince a CEO or a V.P. of marketing and sales on that approach, after all they want to increase profitability. To show a tie between public relations and sales, a PR pro you should always be thinking how to measure results. Some common ones include:
- Clips reports
- Advertising equivalency measures
- More progressive agencies measure public opinion or audience sentiment – this includes time-consuming focus groups, polls, surveys
- Benchmarking results established with research
- “Share of voice” measurements, comparing press results to the results competitors generate (who has more mentions)
- Campaign tools that are offered by Cision and other PR applications
A story. Every business has one. Make it relevant to your audience and measure its effectiveness and you’re golden. What’s your story?
