You may be aware of PR as a strategic communications tool, but have you considered the value-adding benefits of public relations when it comes to managing the totality of your company image and reputation? This article aims to shed some light on the most important advantages and disadvantages of public relations, so that you can gain a better understanding of the benefits of PR when planning your marketing and communication strategies.
The most notable advantages of public relations stems from the potency this communications tactic has in terms of building transparent and trusted relationships with consumers. Here are nine of the most important advantages of public relations:
One of the key benefits of public relations is that it helps to elevate the reach of your holistic communications and marketing strategy, ultimately generating increased brand awareness among the masses. Since PR aims to communicate a brand or company’s innovative, industry pioneering and future-thinking ideas, the stories tend to receive heightened levels of media attention.
After PR creates awareness, the PR team can start working on shaping a positive brand image in the markets where it matters the most. Many advantages of PR speak about image creation and maintaining a healthy brand reputation, this is because image greatly contributes to the company's market position and overall status.
A positive brand image greatly ties into the credibility of the company. Another key benefit of PR is that brand credibility is reinforced when someone else speaks positively about your brand. PR strategies are developed with this in mind - to create positive talk (from the media and public) about your brand, so that credibility is enhanced.
As PR starts developing your company’s credibility and reputation, your market position will start to enjoy the added benefit of new and qualified leads. This is because well-planned PR strategies make you more discoverable, by sending the right messages and call-to-actions to the right receivers.
A PR strategy is highly beneficial when needing to secure funding from investors. The right media placement and right timing can be used to make venture capitalists or equity investors aware of what you have to offer. Since PR is concerned with creating credibility, it gives investors more reason to believe that you're a lucrative investment opportunity.
The benefits of public relations in marketing is that it builds connections and relationships with media agents. Journalists and publicists who share the same values as you, or who are focused on your industry, will be more open to regularly engaging with you when you present them with frequent and newsworthy content. In PR, the priority is to maintain good dynamics with media agents who prioritise your stories above your competition’s.
Being published by a third-party endorser is very important when wanting to express the level of reliability and credibility your brand carries. This is why PR works to strategically place your news in front of lucrative audiences. When a third-party writes or speaks positively about your brand, they endorse your company’s expertise and leadership, often creating more consumer value than paid advertising does.
Most PR strategies are developed with a long-term goal in mind. This is one of the advantages of PR consultancy, the PR team works to nurture and maintain a positive brand reputation over time. Something that does not happen overnight, as consumers take their time in truly trusting companies. Luckily, PR is a highly effective tool when considering long-term reputation management.
Educating the public is one of the most important advantages of public relations. It's about value creation and sharing informative content with the public about brands, products and services that can truly help with problem solving. For example, thought leadership is one method PR employs to inform the public about authoritarian figures' knowledge. With this type of information, consumers are able to make more insightful decisions.
The key benefits of pr is that it helps build your credibility and reputation by gaining you elevated brand awareness, working through third-party endorsers who can support your market position.
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Being aware of the benefits, as well as the disadvantages of PR can help you make strategic decisions about managing your company’s credibility and also when it comes to the best ways of communicating with your target audiences.
Public relations in itself does not have a set measurement system in place to see how successful your efforts are. The metrics you use and KIPs you set is highly dependent on the end goal you have for your PR campaign. This being said, there are some guidelines you could use for measuring ROI of PR. Always keep your overall marketing goal in mind to align your PR efforts, this will help with measuring your progress as well.
Public relations is highly dependable on the willingness of third-party endorsers to publish your content. This means that you have less direct influence over the success of PR campaigns. Often, you’ll pitch your story to multiple journalists, with a very select few actually opening your email to read what you have to say.
Many disadvantages of pr comes down to the inherent nature of the marketing and communications industry. The landscape is highly dynamic and ever-changing, making it difficult to keep up with trends and the latest market shifts. Due to this, it is greatly important to stay up-to-date with current events and the latest news.
With any marketing campaign, success is not guaranteed. The biggest disadvantages of public relations relate to measuring the success of your efforts. If your strategy is not well-executed, you run the risk of getting no response from your target audience whatsoever. Perhaps the strategy was not the problem, many times the key message just is not impactful enough and passes the target audience by.
The main disadvantages of PR is that results are not guaranteed and ROI can be difficult to measure when you’re not a professional. To overcome this, making use of expert PR consultancy services is a highly effective solution to drive your PR success.
Hopefully this article helped you to gain a better understanding about the key advantages and disadvantages of public relations.
It's important to remember that the benefits of public relations are truly discovered when you have a long-term strategic communications strategy in place, as the results of your efforts become more notable over time.
In terms of the disadvantages of public relations, partnering with a PR agency can help you solve issues you might encounter when executing a results-driven campaign. Teaming up with PR professionals will also help you to better manage reputation, establish trust and credibility, as well as avoid difficulties when it comes to measuring PR success.
If you’re in need of professional assistance to help perfect your PR strategy and unlock the full advantages of public relations, contact our PR firm in Amsterdam for a free consultation session.
