Small business owners must often play the role of accountant, sales manager, admin assistant, and so much more. They are also responsible for building networks with the right people and spreading the word about their business.
There are many ways of getting a small business noticed including digital marketing tools, networking, and of course, Public Relations or PR. This tool is all about building relationships with your clients, and the public. And it isn’t only for massive corporations either. Small businesses can benefit significantly from PR and the exposure it brings.
So, what exactly can public relations do for a small business? Read on to find out!
What PR can offer a business
It provides legitimacy
Customers trust radio and TV presenters. They also believe articles in magazines and newspapers, perhaps too much. But if your business manages to feature on someone’s trusted TV and radio show or land an article in their favourite magazine or newspaper, in their minds, you must be legitimate. People will see your business as established and want to do business with you. For them, you’ll be a thought leader, an expert, which will give your business the credibility that it needs.
PR helps in your link-building strategy
Online publications will usually have a very good page rank and will also have a very good reputation. If you provide them with high-quality articles they will link back to your site. The more inbound links that you have to your site the better the page rank will be for your site which will help you climb up the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs).
It creates brand awareness
A small business must let people know that they exist and that they have products or services that customers need. By getting your company mentioned in the media consistently, through public relations, you create brand awareness. Through positive, value-adding articles, reviews, and interviews, your small business becomes searchable and – more importantly – findable on search engines such as Google. And when people are aware of you, they are more likely to do business with you.
It builds valuable relationships
Public relations is all about building trust while giving value to the people interviewing you or those listening to or reading about you. In situations like these, you build long-lasting relationships with your customers, target market as well as the network of people who make the publicity possible for you. PR also increases customer confidence because people tend to believe the content in the media more than they do paid advertising.
If you have a great relationship with members of the media, and they see that you consistently give them good-quality contributions, when they are writing articles that will link up with your areas of expertise they will be more likely to contact you for a comment.
Get in touch with the Digital School of Marketing
Become an expert in digital marketing as well as digital public relations with DSM’s Digital Public Relations Course. The digital era has drastically changed the way we do traditional PR and the way PR work is measured. It’s become so much easier to measure the effect and reach of your PR efforts thanks to articles referring traffic back to your website.
With this course, you will learn how to meet organisations’ and your target market’s needs by weaving the fundamentals of traditional Public Relations into a digital world. This digital public relations course will teach you the art and science of engaging with media on all different digital channels to enable you to spread your brand’s message through strategic communications. Visit our website to find out more about our digital public relations and online digital marketing courses!
