What Does PR Mean in Business?

PR is not the same thing it was a decade ago, or even a few years ago. It is a changing industry with a whole lot of upside.

This rings true for individuals, brands, and businesses alike.

If you ever look it up on the web, you’ll quickly realize there are multiple definitions of PR. This can make investing in this marketing tactic difficult at times.

We’re here to set the record straight and show the kind of PR your business needs to succeed in today’s environment.

The Meaning of PR in Business

PR stands for public relations. Business PR is designed to manage the perceptions of your company or brand. It helps you build relationships with current clients and attract new customers.

Public relations is also a way to get your business mentioned in major publications like Forbes, Inc., Entrepreneur, The New York Times, and others.

This means you can add their media badges to your website and show potential customers that you are an authoritative and credible company.

This strategic communication tool helps you build a reputation among your customers, vendors, partners, and the general public. Additionally, learning how to get PR for your business allows you to encourage behavior change as you raise awareness about your brand.

To be clear, PR isn’t the same as marketing. While a marketing campaign focuses on selling a specific promotion, your PR campaign revolves around building your brand image and reputation. Your PR campaign can end up supporting future advertising plans, but these are separate efforts with differing tactics.

Why is PR Important for Business?

Following the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, the Gulf Coast was inundated with oil. People all along the coast lost their livelihoods, and sea creatures were irreparably harmed. In response, the chief executive officer said, “There’s no one who wants this thing over more than I do. You know, I’d like my life back.”

Instead of using their PR team to showcase their efforts to clean up the spill or their remorse, BP’s leadership developed a reputation for callousness and incompetence in response to the spill.

While most examples of PR in business aren’t so grossly inept, this case study shows how important it is for businesses to get their PR approaches right. Good public relations helps you build and maintain a strong standing within the community, while it can take years or even decades to recover from bad PR.

As you consider the type of publicity you want and understand how to get PR for your business, it’s important to think of the benefits these efforts offer.

Boost Awareness of Your Company

The first point of PR is to improve the social awareness of your business. If people don’t know your company exists, they won’t come to you to solve their problems. Effective PR will get your business name and the people behind your brand to a broader audience.

Increase Your Profits and Leads

While PR isn’t the same thing as marketing, it can support your future marketing campaigns. By improving your reputation and image, you make it more likely that customers will come to you. As a result, you could end up boosting your profits, sales, and leads over time.

Become a Credible Business

Today, every fly-by-night company has an online website. If you want to show your credibility, people need to hear about you in trusted publications. Because PR stories come from people other than your business, they are often more credible than testimonials or online advertisements.

Prove You’re an Authority

Your business PR strategy could help you get media interviews, speaking gigs at conferences, and other opportunities. As a result, your company will be an authority in your field. Because you have this reputation, consumers will be more interested in turning to your company when they need help.

Save Money

A 30-second ad on a national network generally costs a minimum of $100,000. Whether you are a small business or a large corporation, PR campaigns can save you a significant amount of money. Because these campaigns focus on editorial campaigns and other free or inexpensive coverage, you can build your brand without spending your entire annual revenue on a few ads.

Interested in PR for Your Business?

We’ve talked about how PR and marketing are two different things. Both have their value and both offer the potential for their own types of business growth.

If you’d like to learn more about what PR can do for your business, get in touch with the team here at Canvas PR today!