Public Relations (PR) consists of any purposeful communications between an organisation and its public that aim to generate goodwill. Both marketing and public relations are the major external functions of the firm. Also, they both share a common ground regarding product publicity as well as consumer relations.
Together, however, they operate on distinct levels and from separate perspectives and perceptions. The long-held view is that marketing exists to sense, serve, and satisfy customer needs at a profit. PR exists to produce goodwill among the company’s various publics so that the audience members do not interfere in the firm’s profit-making ability.
What are the types of PR?
Speeches, presentations as well as speech writing
Key figures from inside an organisation will write speeches to be presented at corporate events, public awards and industry gatherings. PR company officials, together with company managers, often write speeches and design corporate presentations. They are part of the proposed and coherent strategy to build goodwill with the public. Presentations can be designed as well as pre-prepared by PR companies, eventually to be delivered by company executives.
Corporate literature
Corporate literature comprises financial reports, in-house magazines, brochures, catalogues, price lists in addition to any other piece of corporate-derived literature. They communicate with a variety of target audiences. For example, financial reports will be of a lot of interest to investors and the stock market as they give all sorts of indicators as to the health of a business. A company’s Chief Executive Officer CEO will often write the foreword to an annual financial report in which he or she has the chance to put a business case to the reader.
The public is the company’s stakeholders. PR is proactive as well as future-orientated. It has the goal of building as well as maintaining a positive perception of an organisation in the mind of its public. This is often referred to as goodwill.
It is often challenging to see the difference between marketing communications and PR s there is a lot of cross-pollination. This makes it a difficult concept to learn. Added to this is the reality that PR is often expensive, and not free, as some definitions would have you believe.
Interviews and photo-calls
Business executives must be available to create goodwill for their organisation. Many embark on training in how to deal with the media as well as how to behave in front of a camera. There are a lot of key industry figures that proactively positively deal with the media; for instance, Bill Gates (Microsoft) or Richard Branson (Virgin).
Interviews with the organisations or mass media often permit a company to put its own viewpoint on matters that could be misleading if just left to dwell untended the public domain.
Organising events
This has an immediate business payoff. A more informal occasion could include a day at the races or a short break abroad, where clients are entertained at the expense of a company to generate goodwill. This has an indirect business payoff.
Sponsorship and charitable donations
The term ‘sponsorship’ refers to where an organisation pays for their product or service to be related to an activity or event. The sponsors gain exposure and align their product or service with the attributes of the even that they sponsor.
Many companies make donations to charities in addition to good causes. When donations are publicised, once more, the benefits generate goodwill for the organisation.
Corporate events are utilised to woo the public in both a formal and an informal manner. A formal corporate event could consist of a manufacturer inviting employees, from all of its numerous distributors, to visit its manufacturing plant for a day of training.
Get in touch with the Digital School of Marketing
If you wish to find out more about PR, then you should do our Digital Public Relations Course. For more information, please follow this link.
