Harnessing the Power of PR

Friends, Thank you very much for taking out time from your busy schedule to read my blog(s). Sharing knowledge with you has become my passion now. I feel encouraged after reading your feedback in the comments column. Friends’ Everything I do or say is PR.

Friends’ I’m delighted to share my 113th Blog titled ‘Harnessing the Power of PR’. Friends, before delving into understanding the power of PR, please remember the five things that PR is not spin, PR is not advertising. PR is not publicity, PR is not propaganda, and PR is not lobbying.

Friends’ out of 26 alphabets, these 2 alphabets P and R are very powerful because of diverse expressions. P stands for personal, professional, press, pitching, positive, persuasion, promotion; public, perception and above all Pyaar or LOVE. R stands for Response i.e. feedback, Reputation and Relations.

So PR is personal relations, professional relations, press relations, pitching to the media, press release, taking feedback from your target public, building professional as well as personal relations with your target audience, maintaining good relations with Press and media, building positive relations with the publics’, promoting by sharing the goals, objectives, vision, mission and growth with the publics’, pursuing the publics’ to help in achieving goals, and perception, image and reputation management.

Harnessing the power of PR means to apply, to employ, to develop, to exploit, to utilize the power of PR, in simple terms, to keep communicating   with and at the same time listening to your target audience and acting on their feedback, because PR is a two way communication i.e. communication supported with feedback, to build and maintain a mutually beneficial relationship.

Friends’ Public Relation is something Mr. Bill Gates, Chairman of Microsoft had once quoted “If I was down to my last dollar, I would spend it on Public Relations”. In early days of Microsoft, Mr. Bill Gates and his company were under attack by some skeptics who believed that home computers would never catch on with the general public. These skeptics were often quoted in the media, and it seemed they had a lot of influence over prospective customers. Friends, rather than letting the skeptics bother him, Mr. Bill Gates came up with a brilliant solution. He invited the four most influential critics to Seattle for a tour of Microsoft and a chance to spend time with Mr. Gates himself. The critics agreed and once they arrived at Microsoft Headquarters, each one was given a private meeting with Mr. Gates. After the private meetings, every single one of them was converted into believers and supporters. The lesson is clear: any business can use PR to turn negative influencers into positive ones and that is the Power of PR.

Friends’ PR means communication and every prominent individual, or small business, and big organisation, need to communicate with people.

As I had earlier said that PR is not advertising because the purpose of advertising is to sell product and it’s a one – way communication. Nor is it propaganda because propaganda aims to win you over to a position whether it is right or wrong, PR is about finding ways of interacting with people. It is telling people about us, our business, our passion and our products. It’s about shining a spotlight on our attitude to the environment and how well we treat our employees. It’s about sharing good and positive news that we have won awards. It’s about telling people about other companies who trust our products or services. PR helps to provide a 360° view of our business to the public who matter to us.

Friends’ PR is two-way communication i.e. Good speaking and Good listening. Good speaking is about interacting with those people and responding to what they are saying to us. Good listening is a skill that every business needs because we learn a lot from our customers and potential clients.

In today’s interconnected world, PR has become crucial for each and every organization to effectively manage its image, build strong relationships, and cultivate trust with their stakeholders using effective media relations.

There are three things that PR is particularly good at. First, it can create awareness and visibility. Second, PR constantly reminds our target audiences that we are still around and are providing good products or excellent services. Third, PR helps in creating positive perception, image and reputation of a brand and also enhancing brand recognition. 

Friends’ we, the PR professionals are great storytellers and are capable to create strong emotional ties with an individual to an organization. Being PR professionals, one of the 1st things we need to do is figure out who we are talking to i.e. the target audience who can be employees, shareholders, investors, customers, suppliers, distributors, media, competitors, influencers, or the government(s) or its agencies. 2nd would be, to prepare a list of each of the target group that we should be communicating with and to rank them in order of importance. This will determine how much time we’re to invest on each of the target publics. And the 3rd would be, to find out how to reach or communicate with them i.e. the PR tools and channels of communication. Therefore, we’ve to list the PR tools and the channels of communications that are to be used to communicate and influence these groups.  

To conclude;

Friends’ people want to associate with winners not losers.  And as a winner if you don’t make news or you’re not in the news, no one will ever know about you. Therefore, getting the attention of the target publics is only possible through effective PR tactics, and using appropriate PR tools, therefore we must harness the power of PR and never ever underestimate or overlook the same. Friends’ PR becomes very powerful when combined with advertising, personal selling, sales promotions and direct marketing. Please remember to include the above elements while planning a comprehensive communication plan and make sure to maintain a clear and consistent communication - message throughout the campaign.  

Thank you for reading the blog.

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