By Lisa Metzger, PR Director
In a previous blog, we broke down the definitions for public relations and media relations, especially as they integrate into an Earned, Shared, Owned, and Paid (ESOP) marketing strategy. This blog will go a step further and outline the desired OUTCOMES of PR/media relations.
Broadly speaking, public relations/media relations have three primary outcomes.
- The creation of awareness. This includes news releases and company announcements.
- The crafting and maintaining of a brand’s public image and the communication of its value. This includes crisis communications, reputation management, and product launches.
Both outcomes ultimately share the same goal of ALL marketing initiatives (whether that be advertising, website development, copywriting and messaging, collateral design, creative, etc.) which is in the simplest of terms, to define and broadcast brand differentiation.
The third outcome, however, is singularly assigned to PR/MR:
- The building of trust and the elevation of a brand’s authority, and position in the marketplace. Avocet does this through strategic storytelling and creative thought leadership.
When public relations…or more specifically, media relations…is done well, people know your company, your products and services, and have positive feelings about them. They are aware of your brand — not only what it does but also its mission and how it can benefit their lives — from a non-promotional vantage point and are therefore inclined to CHOOSE the brand because they TRUST it. Their choice is made all the easier with the deployment of two key strategies:
- Strategic storytelling, because it creates relevance and relatability with customers, and
- Third-party endorsement, through thought leadership, to establish credibility.
At Avocet we deploy Artificial Intelligence (AI) across many of the strategies we deploy, including PR and media relations. While we don’t use ChatGTP to draft a release, we DO use AI to enhance our approaches. In addition to value AI platforms bring to how we track media hits, influencer identification, create media lists, and conduct thorough impression and sentiment analyses, we also use it to attribute sales results to earned media coverage. And most importantly to…
- generate creative ideas and stimulate creative thinking,
- assist in content generation,
- create videos,
- gather predictive analytics that give us the ability to analyze trends and data and then gain insights into customer behavior,
- provide audience analytics, and
- to analyze online conversations, social media mentions, and news articles to assist in reputation management.
The problem that public relations solves is a lack of awareness and trust. AND PR/MR can position a brand and its executives as respected leaders in their industry.
Thought leadership comes in many forms:
- Speaking engagements at important industry conferences
- Contributed and bylined articles offering insight and commentary strategically placed in key publications
- Op-Eds submitted to important news outlets
- White papers submitted to industry associations
- Timely blogs, vlogs, and newsletters that address current topics of interest to audiences, and,
- Coordinated social media content tactics.
At Avocet, we deploy intricate in-bound thought leadership strategies — structured around the insights conjured by the top minds that make up our clients’ executive teams — that build visibility, position for brand equity, generate demand, and build audiences. And something more: we focus on PR/MR strategies that build rapport. And rapport is the basis of trust. You cannot have one without the other.
What PR/MR DOES can be thought of as a bit more academic, perhaps. But it is an indispensable element in any high-level marketing strategy, one that can position, reposition, and elevate; one that can tell a brand’s story beyond its products’ features and benefits; and one that can elicit that all-important relational necessity for growth and success: trust.
