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.