Public relations (PR) is about establishing and maintaining a relationship between an organisation and the public. It typically focuses on building trust, credibility and brand reputation, helping people to understand and appreciate what a company does.
There are a number of different types of PR, ranging from digital content to crisis communications. They are designed to target a range of concerns like managing online output, building media relationships and establishing branding.
As a digital PR agency, we provide PR and marketing services to clients across the East Midlands and beyond, working on their social media, writing press releases, pitching stories and interviews to target media, and writing content for their websites, emails and sales literature. Read on to find out more about different types of PR and how they work.
Why is public relations important?
The CIPR (Chartered Institute of Public Relations) defines PR as “the planned and sustained effort to establish and maintain goodwill and mutual understanding between an organisation and its publics”.
PR works through developing effective messaging and communicating this across different channels. For example, internal PR focuses on business communications with employees and other stakeholders, while consumer PR targets members of the public as potential customers.
PR is important to establish the reputation and credibility of a brand with reputable sources. Without feeling overly salesy, you can increase awareness of your company and its values, while sharing relevant news or updates.
For long-term, sustainable growth, PR is a strong option. You can use professional PR services to ensure you reach consumers and stakeholders.
Internal communications
Internal communications is the process of using channels to share updates with employees and create a workplace community. This can help to keep members of a company informed and appeased.
You can use internal comms to build connections between departments and colleagues, while encouraging staff participation with interactive elements like Q&As, chats and polls. The aim is to ensure that staff members and other stakeholders are motivated, up-to-date and on your side regarding any company developments.
An internal comms strategy might begin with broad approaches like email, social media and team meetings. You can also tailor your strategy to specific goals or deadlines, encouraging greater productivity and engagement.
Media relations
Media relations helps you to reach large audiences and communicate your key messages without relying on advertising. You should try to work in partnership with the media, offering information that is news-worthy, engaging and valuable for the publication as well as your company.
This might involve identifying which outlets are most relevant and pitching your story effectively to convince them that yours is a story worth telling. If you don’t have a story to tell, then you can also help journalists to tell other stories in the news by providing expert insight and commentary that adds to what they are able to say or find out for themselves.
Using the media for PR can be extremely effective thanks to the large audiences they can reach and the credibility and authority they hold. However, the media can be fickle and unpredictable, and they’re always on the lookout for the most sensational story, which could be your bad news if you’re not careful.
Crisis communications
Crisis communications is about anticipating and preparing for circumstances that could damage the reputation or credibility of your brand. It can also relate to PR activity that mitigates any negative publicity that arises.
This type of PR prioritises timely, accurate and strategic messaging. You can also leverage more positive media relations if a crisis should arise.
How you respond to a crisis can depend on your reputation, your target audience and the nature of the problem. Some companies benefit from honest, informative and transparent confessions and apologies, while others can opt for silence or even flippancy if they calculate that it serves them better. On rare occasions, firms can even embrace chaos and use it to build their infamy, as long as their core audience is happy.
Consumer public relations
Consumer public relations focuses on building relationships with the general public and potential customers. The trick to this is in making sure your brand appears in the media that your target consumers are likely to see. This can include linking your services to lifestyle and news topics, collaborating with social media influencers or providing authoritative commentary on relevant subjects, or growing your own presence on social media.
Consumer PR aims to build customer recognition and promote better attitudes, which can help to gradually move consumers through the sales funnel.
Digital PR
The phrase Digital PR seems a little old fashioned these days because the majority of media consumed by every demographic is digital.
Digital PR uses online channels to advance a company’s visibility. This can be any kind of online or digital publication type, including news websites, blogs, podcasts and social media
You can improve your digital PR efforts with practices like SEO, which involves enhancing aspects of your website or digital content to rank higher in search engines and appear to more users.
This type of PR might involve earning backlinks on other websites or writing guest blogs and thought leadership to widen your digital presence.
Before digital became the norm for media consumption, companies were much more limited in the ways they could get their name published in the media, with only print or broadcast media being available to them.
Now, companies can use a digital PR agency to access a much broader range of large and small publications, as well as reaching consumers directly through social media, email marketing and digital advertising.
To learn more about how different types of PR can support your business goals, or to find out more about our PR services, get in touch with our team of experts.
