B2B PR: Is it Worth Getting Into?

What is the aim of b2b pr? Good public relations are anything that enables you to increase the sales of your products and improve the reputation of your company. The leads that you can gain from your public relations are very important. One of the ways through which leads are generated is publications. It is basically all about spreading the word through magazines or newsletters. You need to get your name and your business details published in a particular spot in the magazine. You can even get someone from your company to write a short piece about your company.

In order to enable good leads, you need to share a healthy relationship with the press. It will be very good for your business if you know some influential people in the press. A good relationship with the individuals who are part of the press will enable you to conduct a public relations campaign successfully. Although it is a cheaper way to publicize your company than paid advertisements, it requires certain techniques specific to b2b pr, some of which are given below:

• have more impact by enhancing your campaign with email and other activities to get noticed
• use great background, pictures, article content etc
• establish a healthy relationship with the editorial staff
• Get your articles written down by individuals working in your company or by hiring skilled writers.
• Incorporate testimonials from customers who are satisfied with your services

Choosing the magazine is also an important part. For good b2b pr, it is very crucial to keep a lookout for the ideal magazine. Try to go for a magazine whose readers are your target customers. The readership is a very important aspect of the whole process. Your message should merge well with the overall content of the magazine.

After choosing the right magazine for your purpose, check out the website and then get in touch with someone who will help you out and guide you through the entire process. Get all the information that you need about the date of publication and the kind of stuff you want. In order to settle the time, you need to go through the editorial calendar that will enable you to figure out the most convenient date for the publication. According to the calendar, you can decide when you will submit which article for publication.

Once you are able to create a healthy relationship with the editorial panel, you will gain a lot. B2b pr is all about reaching out to other businesses and communicating with others. You will be able to drop in a suggestion or tow and at the same time you could even get in touch with the editors when you have a great idea in your mind that will enable you to enhance your business. But while making suggestions, remember that if you can make them according to the editorial calendar, they will be readily accepted. Also, another thing that you need to keep in mind is that once you give an idea and show the willingness to submit an article for a particular editorial, you need to stick to the deadline. Often, it is a good thing to get your work done by a ghost writer.

The Power Of A PR Strategy

PR strategy is a very power tool that is used in profit making as well as non profit making organizations like wise. With the help of PR strategy the managers try and modify the behavior and attitude of its employees as well as outside people. It is a very effective tool and can help the managers to influence the thinking and thus the actions of the people in the favor of the management.
PR strategy is mostly used to influence the behavior of outsiders who matter a lot to the company and any decision or action taken by these outsiders are of direct effect to the company in question. Considering the importance of public relations and its effect, I am sure most of you would agree that it would be great if the managers had a complete outline that could help them and their colleagues to work in a specific manner to achieve the ultimate goal of modulating outsider stakeholder’s behavior.

So here we have for you a blueprint that can assist in implementing the PR strategy. The most important thing to remember here is that people form a judgment based on the facts that are presented before them, and we can influence these opinions by reaching out to the concerned people, we can influence and persuade them and thus can favorably affect our business as well.
You will be surprised by the magnitude of the results of this, you can actually get proposals for joint ventures as well as strategic alliance, a marked increase in the showroom visits, an increase in the purchases made by the customers and better and improved relationship with the government bodies as well other communities such as labor, financial and educational communities.

The next important thing is that you have to delegate the responsibility of implementing PR strategies. It is important that it is clear to everyone what their job is and what all is expected out of them, the work can be done by either a staff whose regular business is to look in to the PR matters, you can also hire a PR agency crew. No matter who the staff is the important thing is that you must keep in mind that the staff members are committed towards their work and are able to monitor the perception of the key and influential members.

Your staff members will perform well only when they realize and truly believe in the importance of monitoring the perception of key members with regards to the company’s operation. If the staff members do not believe in the key cause then its effect will be shown in the form of poor results.

Public Relations Consultants

In today’s world it is very important that you carefully monitor how the public perceives your business, because more often than not perception equals reality. It is the job of public relation consultants to create a positive and accurate image of the target company so that they can woo the target audience. How the public relation consultants achieve this depends entirely on the needs and the nature of your business. The work may be done through a large number of applications or through a single announcement.

After a research of the company you should be able to shortlist the appropriate candidates who can be appropriated for an interview. Along with the services and the work that these public relation consultants provide, it is important that the people you choose have a good personality and an equally good communication skill. It is very important that the public relation consultants are passionate about the well being of the business, also it is very important that the office staff believes in the importance of PR and trust in its results, without trust it will become very difficult to bring in the passion in the work.

It is important that the firm had press clipping and case studies in order to prove its worth, also it is important that the press releases that you make are free of error, and these press releases should be such that they make for a compelling read. All the different media has different requirement so it is important that your press release is such that it targets the exact need of the media house. It is important to note that getting a review published in a general publication i.e. a newspaper is more difficult than a trade publication. After conducting interviews, request written proposals and quotations, in order to scrutinize the services offered, the relative cost, and legalities around results guarantees. Remember that cost will generally vary according to the level of experience of the public relation consultants, so expect to pay more for an experienced firm that should ideally provide you with a more effective campaign.

After you are done conducting an interview it is wise that you ask for a written quotation or a proposal. This is important so that you can analyze the effective cost and also the results. The costs will vary according to the experience of the consultants. So in case you are using the services of an experienced firm you should be ready to shell out the extra money.

The success of your venture lies in building good relationship with the media, it may take you some time before the results are clear. You cannot expect to see overnight success here. It is important that you check the results of your efforts on an annual basis and incase you find that the results are unfavorable on continuous basis then that should be an indication for you to replace the firm.

Public Relation Services

Be it the television, the radio or the newspaper or any other media for that matter, they are all filled with advertisements from business houses. All these are done with an attempt to increase the sale, but these advertisements do burn a big hole in the pockets of these business houses, most of the times these advertisements cost a whooping amount of thousands of dollars and thus the effective cost of the product blows out of proportion. A better and a cheaper alternative to advertisement are public relation services, although it is a highly useful technique, its importance has been undermined by most of the business houses till date.

The importance of public relation services is truly understood by manufacturer, entertainment executive, inn keeper, book publisher or any other service provider. What happen when you see a good review of a restaurant that has opened? Don’t you get a good impression about the place, don’t you mentally make a point to visit the place when you are dining out the next time, what happens when David Beckham is seen sporting a new watch? The sales of that watch sky rocket, this is the power of public relation services.

In case of a service industry, a PR has more of a layering effect; the success of a service industry cannot be estimated with the help of direct sales figure. Here very mention of the organization in the newspaper or any media brings the organization in the public view, people begin to know the organization and their trust level increases. Thus in turn they start to use the services that are offered by the organization.

If you are splashed all over the media, people are bond to notice you and that too in good light, by being in the media you are selling a brand name. no matter what your business is, you may be a small concern or in the top 5000 companies, media exposure is very important in order to be seen by the people and to gain their trust and confidence, it is a common belief that if the person is on CNN or the wall street journal then that person has to be good enough to have made it there.

Here you should not undermine the importance of public relation services as well as any media. Radio is as powerful as newspapers or the television. You must be thinking that people put on the radio only in cars while traveling, yes this is mainly true but only in case o commuters, most of the office goes and business officials have their radio on the whole day, in case you are quoted on the radio you will e surprised at the number of people who will come up to you and tell you that they has heard you on the radio.

Public relation services are very important to spread the right word about you and to get you in to the lime light.

Small Business PR Tips

In this day of cut throat competition, the small and the medium businesses are generally left out of the lime light, they struggle to get their share pf recognition, this is mainly because they cannot advertise as much as their larger counterparts can. But still in order to capture a decent market share, most of the times, even these small and medium businesses are forced to advertise and thus increase their cost out of proportion. A better and a cheaper alternative to this is small business PR, not only is this free but it also provides quicker and surer results as compared to advertising.

Here we have for you a few small business PR strategies that can help you to increase your business, it is obvious tat the strategies have to be customized by you to suit your personal needs such as the work environment, client base etc, but these strategies should give you a brief idea as to how you can go about with small business PR strategies.

1. Covert a part of your business in to a meeting place. It is very important that people actually come to your business, before they can become your customers. In order to draw people to your business you can provide them with a special meeting place, this becomes very effective in case you are in a business that faces tough competition or else you are in a n unconventional business.

Next it is very important that you have some fun activities for the members to be occupied; you can organize some fun games or a lecture.

It is important that the topic of the meeting should be such that it is of concern to a majority of the members, this way you will be able to gather their attention.

Another thing to keep in mind is that the topic that you choose should be one that is related to your business. These small business PR strategies can really help you to take your business to0 new success.

Try and hold a competition with a difference.

In order to add that extra zing to your competition it is important that you hold such competitions in which you are trying to break a record. In case your place is dinner then incite the people to break the Guinness book record in eating. In case your business is to make chairs then you can ask the people present to bet on the fastest time in which you will be able to prepare a chair.

If you want to be in the news then it is a good idea to organize competition for those selected people who make it to the news.

i. You can have a competition for disabled people, street children or elderly people.

ii. In case you want to get a provocative image of your business, ten you can hold competition to that effect.

iii. You can have a competition in which men can compete against machines such as a computer or equipment; this small business PR strategy should be really interesting.

PR Experts And The Legal World

Right now, the popularity of litigation PR is on the rise. Litigation PR is basically the handling of public relations at the time of any kind of legal issues. This is very important because it helps manipulate the way everyone looks at the client. It becomes a matter of reputation. Thus, one can notice that law firms are resorting to PR consultants in growing numbers nowadays. One reason behind the coming of public relations into the field of law is the increasing media coverage gained by high profile cases.

When it comes to an organization or even an individual who is something of a public figure, it is very important for him to uphold his reputation. Negative publicity needs to be avoided at any cost and this is where litigation public relations come in.

There are many ways in which litigation PR experts can help attorneys. They PR experts, are extremely important people who help in the preservation of the client’s reputation after the case as well. Everything needs to be taken care of by them – be it the media coverage, the amount of exposure that is good for the case and also making an attempt to help the public and the media understand the case properly. This balancing of the public and the private is something that the PR experts are skilled in. given below are a few ways in which the attorney can make use of public relations: Get hold of a public relations expert who will be there in your team.

Try to select only those PR experts who have a good reputation and expertise in Litigation PR. Give your PR expert all the information about the case so that a good strategy for communicating with the media and the public can be thought of.

Get cracking with your PR expert and select someone who will be the spokesperson for any public appearance related to the case. Try to work together with your PR expert because that will help you to look at things with a broader perspective and might even give you a whole new take on the case.

After you have selected your expert, trust him when it comes to matters of communication with the media.

Make use of the connections that your hired PR expert has. Get the maximum benefit from his resources and get help for the case.

Whenever you are expected to make statements in front of the public or the media, do so only after talking to the expert.

Remember that you are an expert when it comes to the legal field and when it comes to communication; it is the PR agent who is the expert. Working by complementing each other is thus the best way to go ahead. Let the PR expert write the public statements for you in a language that is easily understandable for the public, devoid of the legal jargon.

Even attorneys need to have a little bit of media training so that they do not get cold feet while interacting with the media. You can take a little bit of training from the PR expert as well.

PR Strategies That You Have To Use!

Professional service providers need an unusual approach in PR strategies when it comes to promotion than is needed by other kinds of business people. This is why:

• People purchase professional services depending on knowledge, credibility, goodwill and reputation.
• Professionals will have to distinguish themselves from each other by using PR strategies and creating their unique niches which will build up a good reputation, create credibility and display knowledge.
• One can advertise products, but since professional services are insubstantial, the provider of the service has to create the selling point.

Inexpensive PR strategies which you can use right now:

• Guest columns
• Radio Expert
• Speaking engagements
• Award submission
• Special Events
• Acting as a volunteer on charity committees, being a member of a charity board, doing pro-bono work for a charity
• Web Site
• Publicity
• Newsletter (e-mail)

How you can decide what PR strategies will work out for you:

• What kind of public relations stuff are you comfortable with? If you like to speak in public or do radio shows, then you can outsource the writing bit to someone else. But, if you hate to speak in public but like to write, then you can let someone else do the enthusiastic promotional speeches for you.
• Make sure you continue to do what you start doing – newsletters have to be sent periodically, whether it is weekly, fortnightly or monthly. You should be able to stick to a schedule.
• What are the other professionals in your field of work doing? If there is a radio show you’d like to be on, but your competitor has beat you to it, then you might try doing a Q&A column in the newspaper.

You have to remember that uncommon PR strategies will help you a lot to promoting professional service providers. Whether you own a small home based business or a big corporation with many hundreds of employees, you will certainly have to have good PR strategies.

You should choose your target audience: you cannot sell your business to everyone, no matter what it is. It would be nice to reach everyone in the audience, but it will never work, so it would be best to select an appropriate target audience.

Have an audience survey to have an idea of their knowledge level: you might not have to survey your audience directly, but you can do an internet search to find out the beliefs of your target audience. Checking out forums related to your business and a Google search will help you to understand their knowledge.

Check out how your target audience is reacting with their current knowledge: your audience will form opinions around the ‘knowledge’ they have.

Create some goals which you want to reach with your campaign: you will need to plan your PR strategies for your promotional campaign. Set up goals which you would wish to reach at the end of your campaign, such as an increase in web hits, change of government rules, etc.

Why do you need public relations business?

At present, great public relations are very important for the thriving of your business. Any business that wishes to be successful needs to pay extra attention to the aspects of public relations. Nowadays it does not just depend on the type of business that you have. Be it any kind of business, you need to take care of the public relations. And contrary to some people’s knowledge, business pr not only mean a relationship with the media, it means a lot more. It is basically dependant upon the interactions that your firm has with the public. And needless to say, the better these interactions are, the better your business booms!

A great public relations strategy is dependant on the kind of business that you doAnother thing that you need to take care of when it comes to business PR is having great ways of communicating with your clients. One thing that you need to pay extra attention to is the fact that your public relations business strategy should be specific to your business. Each business has its own kind of specialties, and thus the strategies have to be carved out according to the business at hand. For example, the strategy for a car manufacturing company will be completely different from that of a cosmetic based firm. Thus, you need to churn out the business strategies in order to meet the demands of the business. In order to ensure that your clients get hold of the most suitable strategies in the business, you need to be well versed with what is happening in each field. If you know what is going on in the industry, you can cash in on the trends that are doing the rounds and suggest great strategies for your clients. Another thing that greatly helps in getting hold of great business pr is the advice of an expert. If you can manage to get hold of the expert opinion in the business, you stand a great chance of doing your clients a world of good!

Get to know the media wellWhen you are into business pr, one of the things that you need to take care of is the media. If you are thorough with the way the media conducts itself and how you can use the media to your full advantage, there is nothing like it. You could even launch a website for your client that would help him market his products and increase his sales through effective advertising. However, before you decide to contact any publication, you need to know certain things about the publication like the kind of content that it publishes and the reputation that it has in the industry. Other than that, you also need to find out the publication’s target audience.

Whenever you provide some information in any publication, try to make sure that it is authentic. In fact, never make the mistake of promising something in your services which you will not be able to deliver later on. Try to be true to yourself and the business and things will fall into place.
Thanks to the wide acceptance of the internet, online public relations are here in a big way. Thus, you can also se this aspect to get your business booming.

Press Release Creative Checklist

Here are some questions you need to ask your self to ensure your press release success

Is the topic newsworthy? Is it something that people want to read about? Is it new? Would it interest the editor of a particular publication? Is the topic or the angle you’re using controversial?

Does it have a new twist? Have you included the most important benefits first? Does the headline shout out something controversial or unique? Have you written it in a “what’s in it for me”, benefit-orientated way?

Is it easy to read - double spaced with wide margins? Are you submitting it with enough time to meet a publication’s deadlines? Have you introduced a ‘spokesperson’ for the company? Have you included statistics or quoting authorities to back up your claims?

Have you checked and double checked the facts? Does it include all your contact details including e-mail, fax, address and telephone? Have you included a good quality photo that is visually appealing? Is it long enough to contain all the facts? Does it contain any padding?

If so, cut it.

Without this checklist your advertising campaign could fail!

Press Release: How Good Is It?

A ‘Press Release’ is a publicity medium. It is a way using which a business lets the world know about the latest developments concerning maybe the business, and also the market sometimes. Sometimes the business published a press release to announce the coming out of a new product or even a new line of business. A press release is also published to announce changes in its board. May be there is a new Marketing Head. May be the company has got an award – all this can be effectively publicized through a press release.

A press release is referred to by many other terms such as a ‘Press Statement’ or a ‘News Release’, but they are basically all the same. In the traditional world a company would distribute press releases to the media houses (both print and audio visual). Sometimes a company would also call a press conference where the press release would be distributed. But in the Internet world a press release is also relevant.

Press Release and the Internet

There are online news agencies that publish such releases. Then there are directories and PR (public relations) websites that also publish a press release.

But for best results, a company needs to publish a press release often so that it can stay in news again and again. It also gives the reader a feeling that the business is a happening place. But the main advantage of a press release is that it comes with a link back to the website of the business. A link back enhances the PR (Page Rank) of the website which in turn has a positive impact on the search engine ranks. And since the websites that publish such releases enjoy high rankings too, a link back is always desirable. It has been seen that publishing a press release on the Internet can lead to a sudden boost in web traffic. So if this is done as often as possible (of course the actual news has to be newsworthy), then there would be surely a constant inflow of qualified leads.

But more importantly, a press release gives the reader an opportunity to immediately visit the website of the business by clicking on the provided link. This is never possible in the offline world, and this is where the online press release scores over its offline competitor. Traditional media houses are also browsing the Internet for information and they often end up publishing or braoadcasting material taken out from an online press release.

There are many services that are now even pod casting press releases too for a fee.

However sadly, most businesses fail to realize the potential of online press releases. In an effort to boost traffic and attracting customers they go in search engine optimization, PPC management, and even newsletters and email campaigns, but online press release marketing has not been given its due importance.

But the fact is that, a press release can be an extremely powerful tool for the business to reach out to its customer base and the society at large. It is a good way of motivating people to take the desired action.

How A Press Release Can Benefit A Home Based Business

Many home based business owners are focusing too much on becoming familiar with the latest technologies that allow them utilize trendy marketing tools and less on the importance of traditional methods of marketing their services to customers. One of the simplest tools, the press release, can have quite an impact on consumers and, until Internet marketing strategies took over the business world, used to be one of the most popular methods of advertising.

An announcement that highlights a business, service, event or sale, a press release can be written up as though it is a news story and printed wherever content is accepted. Though many consumers do not realize it, there are several press releases printed in daily newspapers and many magazines run releases disguised as feature stories. As the Internet gains popularity, press releases are being sent out in email format, posted in blogs and featured on websites.
What are the main benefits of creating a press release?

1. Free Publicity Unlike print advertisements, it rarely costs a cent to run a press release in a newspaper, magazine or on the web. Most publications or websites, when lacking content, are more than happy to run releases that they think are newsworthy. Though there arent nearly as many businesses utilizing press releases as there used to be, its important to make sure your release contains as much news as possible so that yours will be weeded from the rest.

2. Search Engine Rankings By submitting your press release online, youre creating another link to your website. The more links you have scattered throughout the Internet, the higher your business with rank on a search engine. Internet surfers are more likely to visit sites listed on the first few pages of a search engine, so youll generate a lot more web traffic.

3. News If something new and exciting is going on at your business, such as a special event or new service, you can write a press release to alert your customers. Running the release on your website or pasting it into a mass email will access a lot more people than if you were to try and contact each person individually.

4. Keeping Your Name Fresh Press releases are a great way to remind your customers that you are still around and running strong. Written well, a press release seems a lot more personal than a quick email with a few bulleted highlights of new services you may be offering.

Since a press release should be written in article format, its important to hire a professional writer in order make sure that your business is represented properly. You should also pay attention to the responses you generate from your press releases so you can learn about what information seems to interests customers the most for the future. As you learn about your customers and what theyre interested in, youll be able to offer them services theyll be more likely to spend money on.

Effective Marketing Tools: The Press Release

Used for communicating directly with consumers, press releases have become effective marketing tools that can be found throughout the Internet on websites, search engine listings or in emails. In the past, press releases have been strictly used to communicate between public relations firms and the media in order to promote their products, celebrities or events. Similarly, businesses are now creating their own press release to promote their services.

When a press release is distributed online, it can gain as many as five hundred additional links. The trick to getting more links and listings is using popular keywords in your press release and in the name of the website where it is originally published. News agencies access press releases by using wire websites and, if you are release is search engine optimized, they could come across yours and print it in their newspaper, magazine or on their website.

The full benefits of press releases are often not recognized by business owners or marketers, but its important to make sure that your press release generates as much recognition as possible in order to be syndicated throughout the web. Some tips for achieving this are

Make sure your release is newsworthy because, even if you have a hundred keywords scattered throughout the content, the media will not republish it if it is not interesting and useful content. Be as specific as possible and provided detailed information that is unique and cannot be found elsewhere.

Phrases that contain the most keywords should be located in the title, subheading or towards the beginning of the release in order to be sure the website featuring your press release is ranked higher on search engines.

Press releases should offer more than just information and should include contact information and how a reader can learn more about the business and services. The release should offer links to a businesses website as well as to a place where potential customers can download other informational material such as newsletters, reports, free trials, special offers and white paper downloads.

When sending the release to media outlets, you should also provide a brief summary detailing the content in your press release. You should provide a summary of your business, the services you provide and information about the writer of the release.

Offer your press release to bloggers who write about your industry. When writing about different topics within the field, bloggers will often include a summary or excerpt from company press releases and then credit that business, including their name and website.

When distributed throughout the Internet, a press release can get a lot of exposure and generate traffic for a website, leading to higher sales of products and services. Posted not only on websites, in blogs and in emails, press releases can be printed in traditional forms of media as well, such as magazines and newspapers, but will be viewed much less than it would be if it were posted on the web. The more places your press release is posted, the more links to your website there will be floating throughout the Internet.