How does PR play a part in your game-plan for business growth?

PR is a vital part of the marketing mix, and for many people, this is what they think marketing is all about (plus a bit of paid-for advertising too perhaps).

However, PR is just one aspect of the complex and ever-evolving discipline that is marketing.

To clarify, the Chartered Institute of Public Relations defines PR as being ‘about reputation – the result of what you do, what you say and what others say about you.’

To expand:

‘Public Relations is the discipline which looks after reputation, with the aim of earning understanding and support and influencing opinion and behaviour. It is the planned and sustained effort to establish and maintain goodwill and mutual understanding between an organisation and its publics.’

Meanwhile, the latest (2007) definition of marketing from The Chartered Institute of Marketing explains that:

[Marketing is…] ‘the strategic business function that creates value by stimulating, facilitating and fulfilling customer demand. It does this by building brands, nurturing innovation, developing relationships, creating good customer service and communicating benefits. By operating customer-centrically, marketing brings positive return on investment, satisfies shareholders and stake-holders from business and the community, and contributes to positive behavioural change and a sustainable business future.’

In practice, strategic marketing is about going back to basics and the bigger picture for your business:

• looking at your brand values, vision and mission,
• understanding and defining your target markets,
• creating customer journeys to nurture prospects through a buying process,
• ensuring customers have a good experience of your product or service to engender long-term loyalty
• pricing and packaging your products and services in the most profitable and effective way

You need to start by taking time out from working ‘in your business’ to working ‘on it’. This will give you headspace to define the marketing strategy that will drive your business forward. You can then move into campaign execution, where you start to employ the various communication channels (online and offline) which form ‘the marketing mix’. This is where PR comes into play.

Together, a well-considered, holistic, integrated strategic marketing plan, and tightly focussed, well-managed PR campaign will produce a winning game-plan to drive sales and power your business to achieve its objectives.

With the fast-pace of change in our world today, your business needs to review and refine its marketing strategy on an annual basis to stay relevant and agile. If you would like to be guided through a comprehensive process to review your current marketing strategy, and map out an approach to move your business forward, check out the Get Fruitful Marketing Playbook – a practical step-by-step guide to transform your marketing and create a more passion-fuelled, profitable business.

Click here to find out more and buy online at Amazon.

About the Author: Anwen Cooper is the Creator and Director of Get Fruitful Marketing. She brings a fresh insight and experience from working with over 70 different organisations in the last 15 years to achieve record-breaking sales and an improved bottom line. You can read more at www.getfruitfulmarketing.com