Public Relations, sometimes referred to as PR or publicity is a great way to generate awareness of your business, product or service, or even you as an industry expert. It's an extremely cost effective small business marketing tool and it provides a third-party credibility factor.
Consider this. When you see an advertisement for a product or service, you know that company paid to put that message there.
However, with public relations, your marketing message becomes part of the editorial content of the magazine, newspaper, website, radio or television station it runs in. The public perceives it as objective "news" provided by the news outlet.
What many people don't realize is that much of what we see and hear in the news is generated by PR folks, or businesses with a marketing agenda. Granted, reputable media won't run a blatant promotional story - they do make sure there is a solid news hook.
However, with the introduction of PR on the Internet, the boundaries are blurring a bit. When pitching the media directly you definitely need to have a strong news hook, and you must avoid promotional language.
However, you can post press releases online, on paid and free publicity outlet websites and they are not quite as strict. I still recommend you only issue press releases with newsworthy hooks to maintain credibility with the media and your audience, but with online PR you can post press releases more frequently and generate lots of great exposure for your business.
While for the most part PR is not a direct response medium and tracking sales directly to a press release may be difficult, PR is a great way to generate awareness and to position yourself as an expert in your industry.
PR is a big part of my marketing plan. In fact, I try to issue a press release every month. You can review the releases I've issued over the past couple of years, and some of the press these releases have generated on the News page of my website.
How about you? Have you used PR to promote your business? If so, post a comment and share your results.