PR FAQ: How does PR add value?

PR is an important element of your brand marketing strategy. While it’s not always straightforward to accurately measure its ROI, PR is one of the best ways to build overall brand awareness and credibility within competitive markets. It also helps your business engage with various stakeholders, including existing and prospective clients, investors, employees and your wider community, to foster positive relationships and shape your business’ reputation. 

Discover below how PR adds value to businesses of all types. 

Word of mouth

Editorial coverage, driven by PR, is often regarded as the next best thing to word of mouth recommendations from your most loyal customers. Column inches in print and digital titles act as a seal of approval from journalists, who are considered credible and trusted tastemakers by their audience. The more your target audience sees your brand featured in journalists’ content, the more they’ll come to recognise your brand and, in time, purchase from you. 

Making your brand relevant

Consistently tying your brand’s messaging into wider trends and evolving news cycles is a valuable skill. By situating your brand within topical conversations, you’ll be seen by more of your target audience who, if your brand messaging is relevant to them, will recognise your brand and what it stands for when they come to make a purchase. This can help attract new customers and encourage existing customers to purchase again. 

Reinforce your marketing strategy

PR is considered earned media, achieved only at the discretion of independent and credible journalists. Journalists endorsing your business in the press can also enhance your paid media channels, such as print and digital advertising, and your owned channels, such as your social media. When these three channels unite in a consistent way, they amplify your brand’s voice and help you reach more of your target audience. 

Managing crises and repairing your reputation

By proactively sharing your news with the press, you can influence the public perception of your business and build trust with existing and prospective customers. Your investment into building a strong and positive reputation through PR can pay dividends if a crisis threatens to overshadow your good work and weaken your integrity. 

Interfacing with government

Many larger companies incorporate government relations into their PR strategy to help influence public policy within their sector and achieve a more favourable regulatory environment. Smaller companies may also interface with the government through sector bodies such as Walpole, the trade association for the British luxury sector. This shows how PR can also enhance your business’ overall commercial and operational health. 

Highlight your environmental, social and governance (ESG) efforts

Given many B2C and B2B clients prefer purchasing from businesses with strong ESG policies, it’s important for businesses to demonstrate their credibility in this area. Proactively sharing your ESG initiatives and news with press and via your own platforms will help reassure existing and prospective clients that you take your commitments seriously, helping increase the likelihood of them purchasing from you. 

Boost employee morale 

People like working for successful companies. If your employees see that your business is an influential player within your sector, they will be more motivated to contribute to its continuing success. Achieving editorial coverage through PR shows your employees that your business is being endorsed by influential journalists, signalling to them that the company is doing well and in turn boosting their morale.  

An arterial road

We like to think of PR as a motorway with many lanes. A car driving along each lane represents a different sub-section of PR; for instance press relations, event management, VIP and talent relations, speaker events, podcasts and product seeding. By keeping all these cars moving in the same direction along their lanes, you’ll build a strong, consistent and aspirational brand image that has strong brand equity, integrity and credibility within the marketplace, ultimately helping you grow your revenue. 

To learn more about owning your PR in-house, email hello@fallowfieldmason.com.