Public Relations - Fundamentals of PR

Public relations, commonly defined as the practice of managing communications between a business and their target audience- usually existing or potential customers. If you are a business owner, proactive PR is fundamental. It is a must. You need to set your messages and you need to get them out there.

The purpose of this article is to share with you the fundamentals of PR- what you need to do as part of your public relations activities and also what you need to think about.

You need to set goals- You need to know what you want to achieve. Public relations should not be considered an afterthought. It is an integral aspect of any and all businesses and should be a part of your day-to-day routines. As it needs to be part of your everyday activities, you need to set specific goals. You should have short-term goals and long-term goals.

You need to work out how to achieve those goals- Once you have set your public relations goals, then you can think about how you are going to achieve these goals. Proactive public relations tactics need to be thought out. Your audience is not going to actively seek you out but you need to also make sure that you are not too pushy and spammy with your sales approaches.

You need to work out how you are going to measure the success of your goal setting- When you set your goals and choose your tactics, you need to make sure that you can measure and assess the results. You need to make sure that you can assess the relative success or failure of what you are doing. Website stats, phone calls, Facebook fans, Twitter RT's and percentage increase in sales represent only a fraction of the possible measurement tools you can use to measure the relative success or failure of your goals and the tactics that you are using.

You need to work out how you are going to differentiate yourself from your competitors- You need to make sure that your goals and tactics effectively differentiate your business from the business of your competitors. Proactive public relations means developing your own message, framing your own business and how it is different, and then effectively presenting those messages.

You need to know what you are capable of- You need to know what PR activities you, and your staff are capable of, and then you need to decide whether there are other PR tactics you need to implement and whether you should outsource some of this work.

You need to do it- It needs to be reinforced again. Proactive PR is something that needs to be implemented every day in your business.

You need to make sure you follow the fundamentals or PR that I have outlined in this article if you want to grow your business. Do yourself a favour and get started today.