Public Relations

Make news…in a good way. Market your products and services using press releases and publicity on products and personnel. Promote events and seminars. Use periodic newsletters and targeted publications to keep everyone informed and up-to-date.

Fundamentally, public relations (PR) is the practice of managing the flow of information between an organization and its publics.

Public relations works to gain an organization or individual exposure to their audiences using topics of public interest and news items that do not require direct payment, such as advertising. And because public relations places exposure in credible third-party outlets, it offers a third-party legitimacy that advertising sometimes does not offer. Common activities include speaking at conferences, winning industry awards, working with the press, and employee communication.

PR can be used to build rapport with customers, investors, employees, or the general public. Almost any organization that has a stake in how it is portrayed in the public arena should employ some level of public relations.

Though public relations and publicity are not synonymous many PR campaigns do include publicity campaigns, defined as the spreading of information to gain public awareness for a product, person, service, cause or organization.

Public relations and publicity are not synonymous, but many PR campaigns include provisions for publicity. Publicity is the spreading of information to gain public awareness for a product, person, service, cause or organization, and can be seen as a result of effective PR planning.

Among the tools available:

  • Publicity events, grand openings, product introductions, industry advancements, personnel changes and appointments, memberships, honors.
  • Direct communication (carrying messages directly to constituents, rather than through the mass media) using newsletters – in print and e-letters.
  • Collateral literature, traditionally in print and now frequently in the form of web sites.
  • Speeches to constituent groups and professional organizations; receptions; seminars, and other events; personal appearances.

The advent of social media is probably the most pre-eminent trend in PR today. Social media releases, search engine optimization, content publishing, and the introduction of podcasts and video are other burgeoning trends.

Blogs (web logs) have low over-head costs and help provide heightened news coverage and analysis. Blogs are increasingly sprouting to supplement traditional media.

Public relations can offer a similar benefit as advertising in the form of targeting, enabling companies to identify the target audiences, and to tailor messages to appeal to those audiences. It can be a general, nationwide or worldwide audience, or a market segment. Messages can be tailored to an industry, to employees, and virtually any identifiable group of individuals by demographic and geographic traits.
For example, localized public relations could be directed to Lancaster, York, Harrisburg, Reading, Hershey, Lebanon, Philadelphia, Pottstown or Pottsville.

Industry news can be segmented by trade category or to a region like south central Pennsylvania, the Delaware Valley, or Berks County or by profession such as medical professionals, purchasing agents, or new home buyers.

With public relations, virtually any group can be reached with the right message and the right vehicles to reach them.

Recently, Tower Marketing developed a national campaign to attract people of retirement age who were also of Ukrainian heritage to a retirement community in Berks County, near Reading, PA. The campaign consisted of a periodic series of press releases to publications and radio stations serving the Ukrainian-American community, inserts to Ukrainian church programs and publications, a website, and collateral material for marketing.