Mark Schlarbaum on Public Relations

By Samantha Johnson
Published by Janet Schlarbaum Philadelphia Pennsylvania
Pity those poor companies that’ve tried so hard to craft PR campaigns, only to see them land wide of the mark – or in some cases, fail outright – because they weren’t organized and cohesive enough to cut the mustard.

Professional public relations advisers have always believed that an organized, cohesive effort to develop a company’s reputation is likely to yield better results than one which happens without any thought or organization. It may seem an obvious truth, but many companies have in the past attempted to cut corners and do without it. And as we’ve already pointed out, many of them have failed miserably.

PR is a dedicated need that needs to be filled by a dedicated person and service. The person you approach to help you promote a product is probably quite different from the one you should be talking to about managing your lobbying of parliament or setting up a community relations program.

The good thing about PR is that it isn’t an all-in-one thing. It comes in all shapes and sizes and each version has a pricetag to match. You’ll have to judge the level of advice you need according to the problem you want to solve or the aspect of your communications you want to manage.

Frank Jefkin’s book “Public Relations for Your Business” seeks to teach readers exactly how to craft and implement the best PR campaign for a business. It aims to take the mystery out of PR, and present it as a practical aspect of good business. It demolishes a great many myths about PR and provides many examples of its successful application.

Areas covered by the book include corporate identity, getting media coverage, public relations on the internet, dealing with reporters and interviewers, sponsorship, corporate advertising, and good customer relations.

Posted By: Janet Schlarbaum, Pennsylvania
By: Ross Lincoln
According to the forecast of the Bureau of Labor Statistics in the United States, the field of public relations will continue to reap thousands of job openings in the next few years. In fact, professionals even predicted that the growth rate of job opportunities in the field of public relations will continue to rate higher than the other fields.

With so many fields requiring the expertise of public relation officers, such as medicine, science, finance, etc., many people consider taking public relations careers to gain profits and recognition.

By definition, public relations is an ability and discipline of administering interaction or the process of exchanging ideas among individuals and organization that they belong to so as to supervise, create, and keep up its constructive representation.

One of the advantages of engaging into public relations is that people need to spice up their everyday task. With public relations, you can present ideas in a creative way and reap positive results.

Nowadays, people certainly need their creative outlets. The opportunities for creative expression are numerous. People just have to keep their minds and options open.

With public relations, an organization can boost their sales performance. Advertising alone cannot reap those greens.

Through public relations, you can create an information packet about your company. At the very least, you could overhaul the company’s image by incorporating branding tools into words and paragraphs.

So if you want to reap profits and build a totally changed image of your organization, get a public relations officer now and start building your future.

To get you started, here is what you have to do:

1. Research

The onset of public relations embarks on the setting up of research. Today, various disciplines know and accept the value of research.

In public relations, PR officers know the impact of research on their evaluation process, program development, and planning.

One must take note that before you can create a good public relations plan, you must first collect, classify, and deduce information according to their significance and relativity.

You can never start creating good public relations plan without doing research first.

2. Program Planning

Planning is vital to every activity. Nothing succeeds without the right plan. Hence, it is extremely important that you create a good program planning to facilitate the process of creating strategies and techniques through public relations.

Planning creates proper organizational skills. In this way, you are able to categorize and prioritize things according to their specific function and importance.

What most people do not know is that planning can actually make or unmake an organization. With proper planning, you can boost your company’s image and reap better sales. Wrong plans can bring your company down in a flash.

Programming planning incorporates the synchronization of various techniques, idea, and strategies to obtain positive and detailed results.

Systematic organization is the key to a successful program planning. You do not create actions and ideas based on what how they appear in the plan. With program planning, you take each step one by one and obtain feasible results concretely.

Indeed, communication is imperative in every endeavor and discipline. No wonder why public relations is viewed as something that people and organizations necessitate. Without public relations, advertising and other promotional tools will have no meaning and value.

So the next time you try to boost your company’s status, it is best that you use public relations programs and see the obtainable results yourself.

By Karen P Miller

PR can be a powerful tool to establish credibility, garner good will in the community and attract new business. Yet, too often organizations don’t show enthusiasm or interest for their own product or service. It brings to mind that classic line from the movie Jerry McGuire, “Help me help you!”

If you’re going to (wisely) invest valuable marketing dollars and hire PR professionals, make the most of your funds by learning how to be a “smart” client. Smart clients – those who get bang for their buck – are actively engaged in the public relations process.

The following characteristics will help you become a smart client and have positive results to show for it:

Assist your PR team in learning your business.

No one knows more about your organization than you. Take the time to educate your public relations team on your product, growth plans, target audiences and industry sector. Even if your PR pro has worked in that sector before, every organization is unique with its own story to tell.

Pass along trade magazines relevant to your industry sector.

There are literally thousands of industry specific magazines and e-newsletters available, and the number continues to grow (the Internet’s cost-effectiveness has enabled online publications to flourish). Don’t assume your PR person knows that a trade publication important to your organization even exists. In today’s day and age, there are just too many to keep track of unless they directly affect your business.

Be responsive to requests for information.

It’s flabbergasting to work with a client that asks for help promoting an item, idea or service, but doesn’t respond to requests for information about the topic. It’s this simple: a good PR consultant knows how to use the media and other outlets to help tell a story, but they need ammunition to do so.

Most clients have a wealth of information at their fingertips. Take a moment to jot down a few notes, pick up the phone or send an email to your PR person so they can learn about a particular topic and determine how to best position your organization for maximum visibility.

Show enthusiasm about your organization or project; it’s infectious.

Enthusiasm is contagious, inspirational and empowers your PR team to share your vision with key audiences. You hired public relations help because you think you have a worthwhile product or service. So, “pitch” your story to your PR people as if they were a potential customer or investor. This will enable your team to show a similar level of enthusiasm when pitching the story to reporters and other target audiences.

Let your PR team review your letters, sales pitches, collateral and web copy before it’s made public.

Public relations professionals specialize in copywriting. Take advantage of their expertise to ensure your organization has consistent, concise, grammatically correct, jargon-free and compelling content.

Remember to share information about your organization’s internal events and milestones.

You never know when a seemingly routine internal development might be newsworthy. A good public relations pro is always looking for ways to link your organization’s milestones or anomalies to current events – one of the most effective ways to get a reporter’s attention.

Realize that good PR is about building relationships. This takes time, patience and persistence.

Again, it comes down to a candid and constant flow of communication between you and your public relations team. Set up weekly conference calls, share information via email and meet in person periodically. The more your PR professionals understand your core business, the better job they’ll do in helping to showcase your organization with reporters and other influential audiences.