The Ultimate Guide on How to Hire a PR Agency in 2023

Outsourcing PR activities is the best option if you own a small business and need to break into new markets. Not only does it save time, but it also enables you to get the best results faster while you focus on building a unique product. However, the sheer number of PR agencies promising different results can make the hiring process daunting. In this article, you will learn everything you need to hire a PR agency in 2023, including the types, costs, and questions to ask when interviewing firms. 

How to Hire a PR Agency in 2023

Here are steps to prioritize if you want to hire a PR firm in 2023 without making costly mistakes

Set Clear Objectives that Align with Business Goals

Many PR campaigns fail due to a lack of direction. You hire a PR agency because your competitor has one, and you try to replicate their tactics without considering how it affects your goals. That's a remedy for disaster, and you won't get the right results, especially if you hire a PR company that's only interested in the pay and not your business. To avoid this, you must first set clear objectives that align with business goals. For example, if your marketing goal for the first quarter is to reach 1 million people, your PR tactics will involve media publications, guest blogging, and other awareness-based strategies. This way, you can easily track key performance indicators and identify if your PR firm is getting the right results.

8 PR Campaign KPI to Prioritize

• Sentiment
• Share of voice
• Earned media value
• Media impact score
• Relevance index
• Key message penetration
• Quality of coverage
• Social engagement

Create a Budget that Aligns with Your Objectives

When setting your budget, consider your in-house PR workforce, business goals, and the type of PR firm you need. A full-service PR company might cost more than a crisis management firm. Consider this as they guide you in choosing the best PR firm for your business. 

What's the Cost of Hiring a PR Firm in 2023?

According to the Clutch PR pricing 2023 report, you can hire a public relation service company for a $100- $150 hourly rate. However, larger PR agencies might charge up to $500 hourly. In contrast, retainer PR agencies might charge between $1500 to $10,000 monthly. You can also expect larger PR firms to charge up to $25,000 monthly. 

Research PR Firms

With your clear objectives and budget, you should research a PR agency that meets your requirements. Your goals will guide you in choosing the right PR services and type of agency. You should ask for recommendations from friends, check review websites, and read reviews from forums or the PR marketplace. Select your best 10 PR agencies and schedule a consultation interview to get more information and see if they are a good fit for your company. 

Types of PR Firms and Their Services

Here is a list of different types of PR agencies and the Services they render

• General strategic communications PR agency focuses on all aspects of business PR strategy. Services include reputation management, brand awareness, media relations, internal communications, speech writing, crisis communications, investor relations, and more. 
• Press communication PR agency handles all strategies to improve media relations. Services include outreach, pitch writing, securing media coverage, interviews, and more. 
• Crisis communication PR firm focuses on creating and implementing crisis management plans. Services include risk planning and mitigation, crisis communications planning, crisis PR training, strategic counsel, and on-site crisis management support.
• Internal communications focus on disseminating information within the organization. Services include newsletters, announcements, training guides, policies, and procedures. 
• Investor Relations PR company facilitates effective communication between executive leadership and investor stakeholders. Services include conducting reputation audits, running reputation campaigns, strategic communications, and coordinating investor day events and announcements. 
• Reputation management PR agency handles all strategies to improve brand perception in the media. Services include web monitoring, training, content marketing campaigns, strategic messaging, negative content suppression, and social media reputation management. 

Interview Qualified PR Firms

Gather information about the PR agencies by asking strategic questions. The interview will help you understand their ideology, strategy, experience, and values. Consider agencies whose values align with yours and foster seamless communication. This will go a long way in building effective bonds that turn them from just an agency to a partner dedicated to your business growth.

Questions to ask During an interview

Here's a list of questions to ask during the interview

• Do they specialize in your industry?
• How will the firm get you media coverage?
• What's their pricing plan and cost?
• How do they measure success?
• How will they work with your marketing team?
• What should you expect in the first three months?
• Can you reach out to their previous clients to get more information?
• Will they assign an account manager to your business?
• Do they offer marketing and sales services too?

Onboard PR Firm

After the interview, review all proposals and strategies and decide the best-fit PR company. 

Contact your choice agency and sign the contract details. You should also set clear expectations so you are on the same page before work commences. Provide the PR firm with relevant information and documents to enable them to understand your business. It's also important to set strict communication channels and plans for effective collaboration. 

Partner with the Best PR Agency for Business Growth

At RPR, our services integrate customer research to identify critical issues and customer behavior, enabling us to create an effective PR strategy for your business.  

Schedule a free consultation today to partner with us for strategic growth.

by R Public Relations Firm

5 PR Platforms You Need to Know in 2023

Success in public relations is more than being an expert. You need a committed team, knowledge of current trends, strong relationships, and data-based decision-making. But that's not all; to streamline your processes, you also need the right PR platforms. Since there are many PR tools out there, we have compiled a list of the five best PR platforms you need to know.

1. Meltwater

Meltwater is a game-changing tool every PR professional should have in their arsenal. The PR platform provides targeted media monitoring, social media listening, and analytics tools for improved performance. You can track brand mentions and make data-driven decisions using the analytics features. It can also be helpful to show stakeholders the impact of PR and prove a case for continued investment. 

You can also stay on top of conversations, allowing better audience engagement and crisis management. For example, if there's mention of your brand in negative reviews or allegations, you will get alert and quickly respond to the news. This way, you control the narrative and maintain brand reputation. In addition to tracking brand mentions, you can also share analytics with your team members for seamless collaboration and improved PR strategies. 

2. Cision

Cision is a leading PR software that helps brands manage media relations, distribute press releases, and monitor earned media performance. This has revolutionized how PR professionals manage their campaigns and media relationships by providing the necessary tools to streamline workflows and achieve maximum impact. One of its main features is the global media database that houses over one billion journalists, influencers, and media outlets, making it easier to target the right audience for your PR campaigns. With this feature, you can quickly identify and connect with the right journalists and influencers in your industry. Doing this will increase the chances of securing media coverage and amplifying your message to a broader audience. 

The advanced brand monitoring features allow you to track mentions of your brand or specific keywords across various media channels, including social media platforms, news websites, and blogs. This way, you can adjust your strategy to meet urgent industry needs and score profitable points. 

Cision also provides comprehensive analytics and reporting features to track the reach and impact of media coverage, monitor sentiment analysis, and generate customizable reports. Moreover, you can distribute press releases directly from the platform, which saves time and allows you to monitor the outreach performance. This PR management software offers unlimited benefits which can complement your expertise and lead to improved performance. 

3. HARO (Help a Reporter Out)

HARO is one of the must-know PR platforms to connect directly with journalists looking for expert sources and get your clients or brand featured in top-tier publications. When you sign up as a source, businesses can receive daily emails with media opportunities in their industry. 

Beyond securing valuable media coverage as you respond to these queries, you also boost your link-building profile and foster stronger relationships with journalists. HARO is a cost-effective way to gain media exposure and establish thought leadership. It's also an excellent tool for journalists to access a pool of experts and reliable sources for their publications. 

4. Prezly

Prezly is an all-in-one PR platform in 2023 that empowers you with features to manage campaigns and engage target audiences effectively. It focuses on streamlining communication and enhancing relationships with journalists, bloggers, and influencers. This unique media relations software provides many features like media database management, press release distribution, story pitching, and contact management. For instance, you can use the multimedia newsroom as a central hub for all your press releases, images, videos, and contact information. This feature lets you create visually stunning and interactive newsrooms showcasing your brand's story. 

In addition, you can use email distribution tools to create, track engagement metrics, and schedule follow-up emails. Prezly also provides analytics to measure the reach and impact of your PR campaigns, helping you refine your strategies in real-time and stay one step ahead of the competition.

5. Mention

Mention is an exceptional tool that revolutionizes how businesses monitor their online presence and manage their brand reputation. It allows companies to track brand mentions, competitors, and industry news across various online platforms. This PR platform provides real-time alerts, sentiment analysis, and social media listening capabilities to stay on top of online reputation. Mention also helps you to identify PR opportunities and respond to customer feedback promptly. 

Furthermore, it allows you to share mentions with your team members, assign tasks, and track progress within the platform. This facilitates effective collaboration, ensuring that all mentions are addressed adequately, leading to better customer engagement. 

Grow Your Business with Professional PR Services

An effective PR strategy integrates human expertise, tools, relationships, and creativity. As a forward-thinking business, you must integrate analytics and effective content distribution into your approach to guarantee better campaign performance. Thanks to technological advancements, PR platforms like Mention, Cision, Meltwater, and HARO now offer reputation management, brand mention tracking, and campaign measurement features. This allows you to get real-time insights, track industry trends, and respond to crises faster. 

However, handling all these PR platforms on your own can be overwhelming, expensive, and time-consuming. That’s why you need to partner with an experienced and result-driven PR agency to get the best result on your PR effort. At RPR Firm, we help brands to maximize their PR campaigns that drive trackable results. Ready to optimize the ROI of your PR campaign? Schedule a free consultation to get a personalized PR strategy.

by R Public Relations Firm

How PR Improves Investor Relations

Whether you're an early-stage start-up hungry for that first round of funding or a business navigating choppy waters, PR is your secret weapon. Sure, a slick pitch deck can dazzle, but does it really tell your brand's story? Does it solidify your company's credibility? With a tailored PR strategy, you're not just selling—you're sharing a portfolio of your brand's value, weaving your narrative, and showcasing your industry expertise to those potential investors. So, let's dive into the five powerful ways PR can ramp up your investor relations, reel in that funding, and strengthen existing partnerships when the going gets tough. 

1. Building Credibility and Trust

Investors tend to associate with brands with good reputations. According to a report, 82% of investors agree that familiarity with a brand's name significantly influences investment decisions. This is critical if you want to attract new investors and retain the existing ones. A well-defined PR strategy focuses on fostering open and transparent communication patterns within a company. For example, the PR team is in charge of publishing press releases with company financials, conveying the progress of specific projects, and informing the public of business dealings. When there's open communication at all stages, the investors will trust your brand to deliver on promises and utilize investment well. However, without PR fostering this clear line of communication and interaction, you leave room for speculation, which can jeopardize your company's long-term growth. 

2. Managing the Company's Image

Perception isn't only important when building sales and marketing strategies; it's also vital in attracting new investors to partner with your business. Public relations can create a positive image representing your brand's true identity in the media space. PR tactics like press releases, guest blogging, corporate social responsibility projects, and more can showcase your company values. PR also serves as an engine to distribute a company's achievements and control the narrative if there are negative speculations about your brand. These activities help to shape positive perceptions amongst investors, increasing the possibility that they will invest in your company.

3. Improving Market Perception and Valuation

Market perception and brand valuation are vital factors influencing investors' decisions to commit financially to your company. If your business is perceived as market risk or without prospects, your chances of attracting financing will be reduced. However, implementing an effective PR strategy can build market perception, which impacts brand valuation. For example, PR strategies like expert interviews, guest blogging, and thought leadership initiatives can help showcase your field expertise. In addition, it serves as a medium to explain your business's unique value, the science behind your innovation, and how it benefits the public. Regularly discussing your company will help investors understand the possible growth curve and investment opportunities.

4. Effective Crisis Management

In times of crisis, everyone is on edge. Shareholders worry about stock collapses, employees fear layoffs, and consumers may boycott your business if issues aren't addressed properly. It's even worse if you are in talks with investors, as many will withdraw from the deal. An effective PR strategy will have a crisis management plan that communicates your brand's narrative and de-escalates any issues before they get out of hand. Also, the PR team will create and distribute internal communication documents amongst shareholders to explain the company's problem-solving approach. With an effective crisis management plan, you can quickly dispel any speculation in the mind of your shareholders. This proactive approach reassures investors of the company's commitment.

5. Facilitate Effective Investor Education

Investors often conduct a background check before investing in a company, including possible conflicts of interest, business reputation, financial reports, and initiatives you support. Online information about your company, which is not in your pitch deck, could be the deciding factor in sealing the deal. Implementing effective PR strategies can serve as a tool to educate investors about your company's activities. Publishing product press releases, brand stories, case studies, quarterly financial reports, and project updates will help build a credible online portfolio. This information will be easily accessible to investors and help them understand your business beyond a pitch deck. Subsequently, they can make informed decisions about investing in your business.

Get Started Improving Investors Relations with Effective PR

Every business needs a continual investment inflow to maintain a sustainable growth curve. Although an innovative business idea might attract investors, it takes more than a visually-appealing pitch deck to get investment. Your company's market perception, ability to manage crises, and reputation also play vital roles in attracting and retaining investors. In summary: 

• Implementing effective PR strategies can help you build these additional requirements and support investor relations. 
• You can use expert interview features to position yourself as a thought leader and build hype around your innovative solutions. 
• A well-implemented crisis management plan can also help you to manage investors' speculation and any public reputation damage in times of crisis. 

Achieving these results isn't magical but a gradual process requiring a professional team and strategies. At RPR Firm, we help brands create effective public relations strategies that boost brand awareness, revenue growth, and investor relations. Book a free consultation to experience how our PR services can help you win investors.

by R Public Relations Firm

4 Top PR Ideas for the Fast Food Industry with Practical Examples

The food industry is dominated by brands that can excite customers' taste buds, from McDonald's and Burger King to Subway and Taco Bell. However, with the growing number of food businesses with an estimated CAGR growth of 10.76% from 2022 to 2029, serving tantalizing food alone won't keep you in the game. Besides the growing competition and consumers' craving for exceptional customer services, you also have to deal with the crisis in the food business. Harnessing the power of public relations to create memorable experiences for your customers, forge strong connections, and deftly navigate any crisis that comes your way can help you do just that. Check out our list of the best PR ideas for the food business with examples of how successful brands have used them to drive quality results. 

1. Build Hype with an Experiential Marketing Strategy

Experiential marketing, also called engagement marketing, is a strategy that aims to build lasting connections with consumers by forging practical and immersive experiences. This strategy allows you to deliver how consumers would love to experience their favorite meals, snacks, etc. 

Imagine participating in preparing your favorite meal, living in a doughnut-themed city, or getting a personalized chocolate bar. These are all possible PR campaign activities that can help you build hype for a new product or relaunch your restaurant. Taco Bell's Hotel "The Bell" launch is an example of experiential marketing at its best. The PR campaign combined the Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) and the brand's impressive fanbase to create buzz and give customers an exclusive experience. The hotel has a Taco Bell-themed setup, like sauce packet-shaped pillows, and salons with taco-themed manicures and pedicures. The campaign sparked media buzz and quickly built hype for the hotel's launch. Unsurprisingly, all rooms sold out within 30 minutes of opening for bookings!

2. Engage New Audiences with Influencer Partnership

Have you bought a drink or visited a restaurant because your favorite celebrity mentioned it in a video? If you answered yes, you have experienced the power of influencer marketing first-hand. Although cooking great meals and delivering unique experiences is impressive, it drives little results without a massive distribution medium. Leveraging influencer partnerships can turbocharge your reach, effortlessly breaking down barriers and getting your message out there.

Unlike advertising to an unknown audience, partnering with an influencer gives you an automatic vote of confidence. People are more likely to engage, visit your food business, and trust you when their favorite celebrity endorses or associates with it. For example, in September 2020, McDonald's partnered with Travis Scott to create a memorable meal as part of a PR campaign. The partnership succeeded, leading to 5% YOY growth in McDonald's Q3 sales. It also created buzz on social media, thanks to the contribution of the rapper's artwork, merchandise, and social media content.

3. Build a Connection with Social Activism

Adopting a social activism strategy that aligns with your brand's core values and audience challenges helps to build a connection. Furthermore, research has shown that 34% of consumers say standing for a cause that affects them boosts a brand's credibility. It shows the consumers that you identify as part of their community and are committed to improving it. Social activism events like fundraisers, tours, and many more can also serve as a channel to build awareness for new products or your brand. 

You can also adopt collaboration to reach a wider audience like Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream brand. The brand partnered with Tesla Motors, a clean energy vehicle producer, to launch a climate change tour called "Save Our Swirled." The partnership had many activities, including ice cream delivery made with Tesla-branded vehicles to customers in California. This method is successful as it allows you to humanize your brand, deliver on your promises, and show that you are reliable. 

4. Combine Technology with Food to Deliver a Unique Experience

The technology industry has grown exponentially lately, with AR/VR and AI taking center stage. This growth also opens unique opportunities for the food industry to create memorable experiences. AR dishes, virtual culinary journeys, virtual menus, and dining have been part of a campaign aimed at giving consumers more than a tasty meal. The Le Petit Chef 3D Animated Culinary Journey is an excellent example of how technology and food can combine as a PR strategy. 

Furthermore, the culinary journey hosted in Thailand by Park Hyatt featured a tiny virtual chef that traveled the world at a table in front of guests. The dining experience showed the chef muttering to himself as he traveled from France to China and back, creating a menu from the dishes he found along the way. This method gives the consumers an entertaining experience allowing them to explore new locations, menus, and cultures while enjoying their meals.

Hire a Professional PR Agency to Create Effective Campaigns

In today's fast-paced environment, creating an effective PR campaign depends on the connection it builds with your audience. One of the best ways to strengthen this connection is by creating a food experience that triggers an emotional reaction. However, if your campaign doesn't capture your target customer's attention and fails to show you care or offer them something to talk about, you will most likely get poor results. Strategies that adopt experiential marketing, technology, and social activism will help you build this connection, and you can customize the approach to your brand's unique needs. Book your personalized consultation today, and let us help you make your mark in the food industry!

by R Public Relations Firm

How to Stand Out Through PR in 2023: 5 Effective Tips

In the fast-paced public relations (PR) world, capturing attention has become an art—a delicate dance of creativity and connection. Consumers are more suspicious of information online due to the widespread fake news, and authenticity is now an essential element of good PR. Therefore, to stand out in 2023 and navigate the ever-evolving PR landscape, you will need more than fancy press releases or well-advertised corporate social responsibility projects. Subsequently, today's PR landscape is shifting away from broad PR activities to implementing personalized PR, embracing digital tools, and adopting collaboration strategies. This article explores some PR tactics that will help you stand out in 2023. 

1. Integrate Storytelling into PR Activities

Storytelling in PR is a vital strategy that helps you build authentic connections with customers and media. Unlike bland press releases with product terminologies and features, storytelling engages the audience's imagination. Research has also shown that storytelling lights up certain parts of the brain that other types of information cannot. So not only does it allow the consumer to see themselves experiencing the transformation your products deliver, but it also builds a connection. 

Therefore, instead of creating traditional press releases and product campaigns, you can infuse storytelling to take your audience and the media through the product creation journey. Incorporating storytelling allows you to share personal insights, convey emotions, and show the real motivation to make the product. Top-rated brands like Apple and Skype have mastered the PR storytelling approach, which has given them a strong brand reputation both online and offline. 

For example, Skye's Stay Together campaign used storytelling to show the media how their platform facilitates connectivity and maintains human relationships even when they are miles apart. The PR campaign shared how a Ugandan man stayed connected with the family he left behind when the war forced him to relocate to America to start a new life. This approach created an emphatic narrative that gave the brand good PR while showing the extreme possibilities that consumers can achieve with the tool.

2. Embrace Influencer Partnerships

Influencer partnerships have been a significant driver in successful PR marketing strategies. Collaboration allows you to reach a wider audience and build a strong brand reputation. Influencers have built a loyal following that trusts their recommendations. Thus, partnering with them serves as a vote of confidence, boosting brand awareness and increasing sales conversion. 

Working together with influencers also enables you to integrate unique and creative elements into your PR campaigns. This approach highlights the influencer's genuine persona while ensuring it aligns with your brand's principles. Although influencer marketing has long been a marketing strategy for big brands, the advent of social media platforms like TikTok makes it easy for brands of all sizes to benefit from its impact. 

There are various categories of influencers in which you can partner. However, you must ensure they reach your target audience and demonstrate high online engagement. An example of influencer marketing is Dunkin Donuts' partnership with Tiktok influencer Charli D'Amelio which generated a 57% spike in app downloads and tons of sales. You can use a tool like Modash to find influencers in your niche and get information about their activity before contacting them for collaboration. 

3. Monitor and Respond to Trends

It's clear that the media landscape is continuously evolving. The advent of new tools and platforms has made it startlingly easy for the spread of fake news and disinformation or even launch of campaigns aimed at tarnishing your business's reputation. All it could take is a single Instagram post.

Monitoring the industry trends, information, and brand mentions across all channels helps you stay one step ahead of a crisis. Also, creating a crisis response plan is essential so you are prepared for anything. This approach allows you to take advantage of trends that align with your business goals before they lose their traffic relevance. You can use tools like Google Alerts to monitor mentions of specific keywords or brand names and respond to any queries attached to them fast before it escalates. 

4. Adopt AI in PR to Streamline Your PR Processes

The AI revolution has been leading change and business growth across different industries. In PR, the possibilities for AI are unlimited as it has been implemented across all stages of the strategy process. For example, you can use AI tools to streamline PR processes, collate data, and set up analytics for better decision-making and influencer discovery. Moreover, AI algorithms can analyze vast amounts of data and identify audience engagement patterns. Subsequently, you can use these insights to create better campaigns, anticipate emerging trends, and enhance PR strategies.

5. Partner with Professional Firm for PR 2023

Collaboration in PR isn't restricted to influencers; your PR team needs to be at their best at all times. Even if you have an in-house team, you can partner with PR experts in 2023 to deliver specific strategy implementations that your team might not be skilled in producing. Partnering with a PR firm also gives you access to industry insight from years of experience working with different clients. This support will give you an advantage over the competition as you have a wider pool of knowledge and creativity. For example, a PR firm usually has wider industry contacts or specific expertise in crisis management.

Standout Through PR in 2023 with Personalized Services 

PR is a unique field that requires a unique approach. You must be attentive to the needs of your audience, the media, and your industry to stay one step ahead. While it's possible to get results by implementing more traditional methods, it might not be sustainable in 2023. Adopting a storytelling approach, implementing influencer marketing strategies, investing in AI tools, monitoring PR, and partnering with experts will help you stand out in 2023. Are you ready to implement an effective PR strategy that gives you a competitive advantage? Schedule a call with our professional PR consultants for personalized service.

by R Public Relations Firm

4 Effective Ways to Improve Your PR Team’s Productivity

The fast-paced nature of public relations, coupled with multiple variables to consider, often leads to stress and reduced employee productivity. Besides the everyday demands of the PR role, other factors like inefficient processes, employee dissatisfaction, and poor communication can lower a PR team's productivity. Ultimately, this results in poor PR campaign performance and revenue loss. 

Having built a PR agency with over a decade of deploying effective campaigns, a vital place to start building a productive team is setting clear goals. However, that's just a tiny part of the process. This article will explore four practical tips to help improve your PR team's productivity, why it's important, and the elements of a productive PR team.

Why Productive PR Teams Are Essential for Growth

PR teams play a crucial role in the growth process of any business. They are at the forefront of building a good reputation and awareness for your brand using different creative assets. The role of PR teams requires creativity and focus at all times. However, if a team is unproductive, it's unlikely to deliver fully innovative solutions consistently, thus limiting the potential impact of public relations on your business. 

Building a productive PR team contributes to happy employees who are proud of their achievements and eager to deliver fast results. In the long run, you will experience better PR campaign performance, save costs on fixing avoidable mistakes, and improve your internal company culture. 

What Are the Critical Elements of Productive PR Teams?

Improving your PR team's productivity is a function of multiple elements. Some key features businesses with a productive PR team may have in common include:

• Clear goals and objectives
• Clearly defined roles and responsibilities
• Effective communication processes
• Ability to track results
• Healthy collaboration practices
• Adopting technology to automate routine tasks
• A healthy work culture

What Are Four Effective Ways to Improve Your PR Team’s Productivity?

Low team productivity usually results from different factors that activate stressors in team members. If you are building a PR team from scratch, starting on the right note is essential. On the other hand, if your team has lost its steam, it's time to reevaluate your processes. Here is a list of four practical steps to improve your PR team's productivity. 

1. Set SMART Goals and Objectives

The low productivity in PR teams often results from a lack of focus and direction. When your PR team works on everything and nothing simultaneously without clear milestones, it can lead to burnout. Setting SMART goals helps to direct focus on the right PR activities. It will also help your PR team members to identify where their skills will be most helpful in contributing creative ideas. Subsequently, this will improve team collaboration, foster better engagement, and boost PR productivity. 

2. Streamline Workflow Processes with Clearly Defined Roles and Responsibilities

According to a Gallup article, unclear roles are one of the leading causes of employee burnout, resulting in low productivity. When your PR team doesn't have clearly defined roles, you miss out on a chance to maximize the full potential of each employee. It also affects project delivery efficiency, resulting in longer revision periods and disorganized workflows. To create clear roles, you must first understand the strengths and weaknesses of each PR team member. Then based on your PR activities, you can identify where they will best fit before assigning specific tasks to each member. This process will allow PR teams to focus on completing assigned tasks, identifying support tools they need, and improving their creativity rather than juggling unrelated tasks.

3. Leverage Technology for Automation

Technology and automation have come a long way, with PR tools reaping the benefits of these innovations. Often, routine tasks that could be automated end up consuming time and causing low productivity. With PR tools like Cision, BuzzSumo, and Google Analytics, PR teams can streamline analytics, report generation, and other tasks. You can save up to 40% of time lost to task switching when you automate repeat tasks and adopt technology for other complex activities. 

4. Implement a Rewards and Incentives Program

For a PR team to be productive, you must have good levels of employee engagement. Unfortunately, recent studies have shown that employee engagement has declined, with only 32% of part- and full-time employees actively engaged in their organizations. This results from poor team recognition and achievement rewards, amongst others. Adopting a rewards and incentives system will allow you to recognize your PR team's achievements. With the possibility of increasing productivity by 14%, adopting an incentive program for the PR team is a win-win. 

Getting Started with Building PR Productivity

Productivity is one of the cornerstones of successful teams and business growth. A PR team’s critical role in improving brand awareness, maintaining reputation, and supporting marketing performance makes it an important element to prioritize. If your team isn't performing at high capacity, it might be a case of burnout or poor employee engagement. 

Boosting your PR team's productivity isn't just about improving performance—it's about fostering a workplace culture that values creativity, efficiency, and dedication. Start transforming your PR team today and see the difference it makes to your brand's reputation and growth. Need expert advice? Schedule a call with our professional PR consultants, and let's transform your PR productivity together.

by R Public Relations Firm

Boost Audience Engagement & Sales with Effective PR

Audience engagement is essential for the success of your business, and one of the ways you can boost engagement is through PR. In this article, we discuss what audience engagement means and some PR tips to increase it regardless of your industry.

What is Audience Engagement?

In PR, audience engagement means getting your existing and prospective customers to interact positively with your brand, as engaged audiences are likely to drive sales and increase your revenue. It refers to the degree of customer involvement and loyalty to your brand. Note that engagement is often a result of the cognitive and emotional experiences people have with your brand. 

Audience engagement is often measured through activities such as social media shares, comments, and likes. You can also track your website's engagement through organic traffic, retention rate, and number of clicks. 

7 Tips to Drive Audience Engagement Through PR Campaigns

If you are working on a PR campaign, driving engagement should be one of your primary goals. Here are some PR tips for driving audience engagement.

1. Develop a Memorable and Consistent Brand Voice

Your brand voice can influence how your audience interacts with you, so it’s essential to develop a voice that people will find memorable. Also, the right brand voice will humanize your brand and compel your audience to engage more with you. It may take time to nail a strong brand voice, but creating audience personas can help you determine what’s most relevant to them. Unlike tone of voice, your brand voice must be consistent, and customers must be able to identify you through it. 

2. Create Positive, Educational, and Engaging Content

Content is helpful for many reasons, and if implemented effectively, it could drive up to 55% more traffic to your website. Also, PR campaigns and content that people find relatable will get more engagement and spark more conversation. Therefore, ensure that your content educates your audience, provides solutions to their problems, and positions you as a thought leader. 

What’s more, a study by Berger and Milkman found that articles are more likely to go viral if they evoke a positive emotion. So, make sure to consider this in your PR strategy when creating content to help increase engagement.

3. Incorporate Visuals to Increase Shares and Engagement

Content with visuals, such as pictures, videos, and infographics, is more engaging than campaigns with text alone. For example, visual content like infographics usually gets 40x more shares than other forms of content, while marketers employing video content experience a 49% faster revenue growth than those who don't. Also, be very creative with the content you share on social media. For instance, you can leverage engaging features, including stories, polls, stickers, live videos, polls, reels, and questions and answers to boost audience engagement. 

4. Collaborate with Influencers and Brand Ambassadors

Many influencers have a large following on social media, and one of the ways to boost your audience engagement through PR is by getting them to say positive things about your brand. In fact, 92% of marketers believe that influencer marketing is effective. You can partner with an influencer in multiple ways, including promoting your social media page, reviewing your product, or recommending your brand. Your audience will be excited to engage with your brand if they see that you are associated with an influencer they like. 

5. Initiate and Maintain Conversations with Your Audience

If you want your audience to engage, you must create content that asks them to do so. Also, ensure you don't confuse readers by using multiple call-to-actions (CTAs). According to a report, emails with a single CTA increased clicks by 371% and sales by 1617%. When you upload videos and pictures on social media, ask your audience open-ended questions to elicit responses. Also, engage your customers by holding games, contests, and quizzes. Moreover, it’s recommended to chat and reply to your customers when they drop comments or engage with you. Use PR tactics like social listening to keep track of when customers mention your brand so you can respond. 

6. Encourage and Share User-Generated Content (UGC)

Word-of-mouth marketing, on average, contributes to $6 trillion in global spending annually and accounts for 13% of total sales. User-generated content (UGC) is a form of word-of-mouth marketing that involves resharing content your audience created about your brand. This will increase the number of people that engage with your content and encourage other customers to share images featuring your brand. You can increase the UGC you receive by telling customers to share pictures with your products or creating a branded hashtag they can use when they upload images featuring your brand. 

7. Monitor and Optimize Engagement Metrics

The basic engagement metrics on social media are likes, shares, comments, and views. Your website's engagement metrics include unique visitors, average visit duration, and bounce rate. Always monitor these metrics to understand your engagement level better and identify PR strategies you can implement to improve. However, be mindful of vanity metrics; only prioritize metrics that align with your PR campaign objectives. 

Get Help Increasing Audience Engagement Through PR

Running PR campaigns requires a lot of effort, and it may be difficult to handle if you do not have much experience. We at RPR firm have the experience, expertise, and strategies to drive PR campaigns that will boost audience engagement and sales. 

Looking to drive audience engagement, increase brand awareness, or boost your reputation? Then schedule a consultation with us today and let our experts at RPR handle your PR campaigns for you. 

by R Public Relations Firm

7 Ways to Increase Press Coverage

Think of managing a business like writing a book: you could create a masterpiece, but without publishing it, all you have is missed potential. Spreading the word and making your brand visible are similar. Just as publishing is crucial for sharing a book's content, obtaining press coverage is equally vital for raising awareness about your brand and its offerings. However, launching a PR campaign is one thing; ensuring it gets sufficient press coverage is quite another. This article provides seven tips to increase your press release coverage without breaking the bank. 

Importance of Increasing Press Coverage

Securing press coverage from top-tier publishers is more challenging than ever. According to recent data, 43% of top-rated publishers receive between five and 50 pitches per week, while 57% receive between 50 and 500 pitches weekly. With such a high volume of pitches vying for attention, it's crucial to develop a well-crafted and targeted message that stands out from the crowd to get press coverage. By understanding the competitive landscape, you can refine your PR strategy and increase your chances of success when reaching out to influential publishers.

Tips to Increase Press Coverage for Your Brand

Getting press coverage sounds easy on paper, but in reality, getting the attention of a third party is hard work. So here are some tips on how to do so more effectively.

1. Leverage Social Media

To get free publicity from the media, you need to get their attention first. There is no better way than social media since 92% of marketers use it. This proactive strategy involves developing engaging content, investing in brand identity, and creating buzz around your business to get on the radar of journalists. 

2. Pitch Yourself to a Third Party

In addition to making it easier for a journalist or influencer to discover you on social media, you can also be proactive in reaching out. Media outlets can’t cover what they don’t know, so it’s imperative to go out of your way to spark an interest. Send relevant press releases, message influencers to partner with them, and pitch your stories to a media outlet. 

Start by researching influencers, bloggers, and journalists in your industry. Next, identify those who will be a good fit for your brand and pitch your brand or stories to them. Reaching out to these third parties can increase your exposure and is more effective than waiting for them to find you. 

Also, note that media coverage doesn’t have to be a press release or story. You can send your product to influencers or bloggers in exchange for an honest review on their platforms. 

3. Don’t Be Reluctant to Follow Up

You might not always receive a response after pitching to a journalist or influencer, but that doesn’t mean you should give up on the lead. On the contrary, to increase the chances of your pitch being noticed and securing a collaboration, we recommend following up on your pitch. A friendly reminder of the relevance and timeliness of your pitch to that journalist and/or their publication can make a significant difference in getting a response and moving forward with your PR efforts.

4. Use Services like ‘Help a Reporter Out’ (HARO)

Another way to get press coverage is by using services like Help a Reporter Out (HARO), where journalists can find leads for good stories. Brands can leverage this platform by answering relevant queries from journalists and pitching their press releases/stories to them. If a journalist likes your answer, your company will get a mention/backlink, thus increasing your brand awareness. 

5. Bring Value to Your Community

One of the best ways to get publicity is by piggybacking on strategies likely to catch people’s attention. An excellent approach is to bring value to your community by supporting charitable causes and spreading awareness about relevant social causes. When you connect to a cause larger than your brand, you can find a better story angle for your press coverage.

6. Focus on Building Relationships

Spending massively on campaigns isn’t necessarily the best way to increase press coverage; instead, it’s building solid relationships with people. So be sure to foster strong relationships with your customers, employees, and journalists. You’ll have more success pitching stories to journalists with whom you've already established a rapport. Instead of waiting until you need press coverage, start forming strategic relationships with journalists early on. Engage with brands of interest on social media, appreciate their work, and leave insightful comments on their posts. Likes and shares are good, but meaningful comments get better attention. Again it all works together to increase brand awareness which makes you more newsworthy.

7. Hire PR Professionals

Brands can decide to devote a large chunk of their time to getting press coverage or work with a PR agency to do the work for them. We recommend the latter because agencies usually have leads and connections with popular media houses. This makes it easier for them to help your brand obtain favorable press coverage. 

Work With a PR Expert to Increase Press Coverage

Press coverage is crucial for every organization, especially small businesses without the budget to launch grand campaigns. At RPR firm, we specialize in helping small businesses increase their press coverage by boosting brand awareness and improving their reputation. Want to know how our PR specialists can help you increase your press coverage? Then, schedule a free consultation with us today! 

by R Public Relations Firm

5 Best Ways to Improve Your Brand's PR

Navigating the world of public relations can be daunting, especially when balancing empathy, marketing, and brand values. In this in-depth guide, we share our top five strategies for enhancing your brand's PR and must-have components for an effective PR strategy drawing from our extensive experience working with diverse brands.

Elements of a Good PR Strategy

As a professional PR agency with over a decade of experience working with more than 50 brands in different industries, we have studied and created successful public relations campaigns extensively. If you are planning your next PR strategy, here are some elements to prioritize:

1. Show Empathy but Uphold Brand Values

You want to ensure that you communicate messages relevant to your audience's needs and identify with their struggle but maintain authenticity at all times. There must be a message of truth, which builds connection more than fancy press releases or positioning statements.

2. Have a Long-Term Strategy and Measurable Goals

The fastest way to fail in PR is to dive in without clear goals or a plan. A clearly defined PR goal specifies what to focus on, while your brand PR strategy breaks down the steps to achieve the goals and measure results. When you balance realistic goals and actionable strategy, you’re much more likely to succeed.

3. Find a Balance between Providing Value and Selling a Solution

A core goal of public relations strategy is brand awareness. However, it's also a good tool for generating sales. But if your PR campaign over-prioritizes sales, you could lose the target audience's attention. On the other hand, if it focuses more on value, you will build connections but might get fewer sales conversions. Therefore, it’s important to strike a balance between the two in PR activities. 

Ways to Improve Your Brand's PR

Are your PR activities performing as well as they could be? Do you need to boost the results with new ideas and strategies? Here are some good PR strategies you can adopt to improve your brand's PR.

1. Listen to Your Customers

PR helps you connect with your target audience, and you must listen to what they are saying. Communication is a two-way activity, and listening will help you identify gaps in your strategy. You can find out what you are doing correctly, the areas to adjust, service challenges, product update requests, critical issues that affect your target audience, and many more. 

Sometimes, your poor performance in PR activities isn't an internal issue, such as a lack of expertise or tools. Rather, it's an external issue like a lack of effective communication with the target audience. By creating a PR survey, poll, or customer interview, you can listen better to your target audience and get direct answers.

2. Adopt an Omnichannel PR Strategy

Public relations isn't one-size-fits-all. While it might be easier to manage one channel, it might prevent you from reaching a larger audience. An omnichannel strategy is more effective as it considers all possible platforms your target audience visits for information. 

For example, a company might have consumers who use Twitter only, Instagram and Twitter, Facebook only, email and forums, or traditional media like TV and magazines. Creating a PR plan that provides content and a distribution plan for each channel will help you meet your target audience where they are, thereby improving your probability for success. 

3. Invest in Effective Customer Experience

Creating a press release to announce your product launch will help create awareness for your business but might not be as effective as the buzz from word-of-mouth marketing. How can you trigger word-of-mouth advertising without paying influencers? The answer is simple: deliver a quality customer experience. 

Wowing the customer in each brand experience will result in positive reviews, increased word-of-mouth recommendations, and help you generate customer success stories quickly. All of these assets will help boost your brand strategy at a lower cost than when you first convince the target audience of your credibility before connecting with them.

4. Invest in Data-Driven Public Relations Strategy

As mentioned earlier, measurable goals and realistic plans are essential for good PR performance. However, you won’t drive real impact if you don't track these PR goals. Fortunately, there are many PR tools that you can use to measure performance which will guide the launch of future PR campaigns. For example, you can use Google Analytics to track audience behavior across multiple platforms and BuzzSumo for brand mentions and identifying trending topics for your PR campaign. Data, combined with human expertise, will give you a competitive edge and help you make better PR strategy decisions.

5. Hire PR Professionals

Public relations involves many moving parts that require careful implementation, and hiring  PR professionals, whether in-house or agency, gives you the confidence to deploy effective strategies. You cannot gamble with expertise if you want to get better results. Although hiring a result-driven PR professional might be expensive, the long-term benefits outweigh the budget strain and should always be a top priority.

Next Steps to Improve Your Brand's PR

Public perception of a brand goes a long way to determining business success. Therefore, you need a combination of tools, expertise, data, and strategies to get to maintain a positive perception. You must also ensure that your PR focuses on the target audience, maintains your brand values, and creates a balance between value and sales. You must include all of these elements to build a connection with your audience. 

At RPR, we engage in detailed customer research to identify critical issues, understand customer behavior and create effective PR strategies that integrate crisis management and brand growth. 

Are you ready to improve your brand's PR? Schedule a free consultation with us today. 

by R Public Relations Firm