What does a PR company actually do?
The thought occurred to me whilst leafing through the dozens of CVs we receive from hopeful graduates in PR that we have received each day since lockdown. People new to PR often hold a certain view of PR and what the job involves, although most soon realise that it’s not about boozy lunches with editors and clients, but more about zoom calls, generating media coverage and evaluating results.
There are a few common misconceptions about PR companies and what they do. Here, our PR team aims to dispel the myths.
Firstly, people think that we only do Public Relations. These days PR professionals are digital experts as well as writers and journalists. This means we understand the difference between writing for an online audience and we also invest time and energy into understanding all the relevant digital platforms and getting to know their key contacts. As many of these digital media platforms are hosted internationally, we regularly liaise with web editors around the world about securing media coverage for our clients.
Second misconception – PR can’t do SEO.
Nowadays all our staff have to be competent in Search Engine Optimisation. Why? Because there’s a good chance that any article we draft may be used online. We are often asked by businesses to review why their website might not be generating the traffic they would like. It may be that they don’t have a news or blog page or that they aren’t regularly updated. It may be that there is no SEO at the back of the website. Many businesses think their website company took care of onsite SEO, when often they don’t and this is an area where we can help in creating and uploading the correct metadata. We carry out keyword research and implement SEO strategies alongside the PR campaign, including blogs and news stories that are keyword optimised. This can have a huge impact on google searches, enabling clients to appear on page one, therefore hugely increasing web traffic.
Third misconception – PR is expensive
Public Relations is now more affordable than ever. We work with many SME manufacturers and construction companies and our PR campaigns are always cost effective and well evaluated. Having retained some clients for over 10 years, this is testament to what great value we can bring to a business.
Some campaigns do require a large budget or run for a longer period, but most of the campaigns we work on run for 6, 12 or 18 months and are very affordable.
Fourth misconception – you can’t evaluate the benefit of PR
In the old days of PR, advertising value equivalent values gained were pretty much the only way to evaluate coverage. Nowadays there are a wide range of PR tools that we can draw upon to demonstrate how our campaigns are providing value for money. However, we don’t get all caught up in pretty pictures and pie graphs, we understand that if you are an MD, Marketing Manager or Sales Director of a business you need to know how many sales enquiries or web leads have been generated by our PR activities. For this, we have developed a comprehensive way of reporting back to you each month with the coverage we have generated and what that means in terms of sales enquiries and web traffic.
Fifth misconception – PR must be done as part of a long-term campaign
It isn’t true that PR campaigns need to be based on retainer fees. We have worked on a number of ad-hoc campaigns over the years and these can run for a minimum of one month. Whether it’s an anniversary celebration, an award application or you just fancy dipping a toe into a PR campaign, then an ad-hoc campaign can be the way to get a feel for the results you could expect.
We even offer a free review of your PR campaign, with no obligation, so we can demonstrate the kind of results we could generate.
So, if you are a business that sells to other businesses, then we could be the PR agency for you. We have a wealth of experience in the construction, manufacturing and food industry, plus many other related areas and could really help you to generate enquiries, improve your google ranking or raise awareness in your target markets. For more details and a non-obligation quotation, please email hello@dragonflypr.co.uk or call us on 0114 349 5341.