Defining Your Box to Think Out of The Box in PR Gone are the days when PRs used to reach out to the journalists with the press kit containing the news materials, here are the new ways of doing the same
By Rishu Singh
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A brand needs to tell its story, what they want to present and what their idea defines, needs a spectacle. A good PR Strategy is a way forward to all of this. The demand for PR to promote a brand name has been there since ages. If you are a new company or a startup, a good PR practice will help you to build an industry presence, a known name among its target consumers and thereby, help them to expand their business. If you are an established business, it will help you to further your reach, reformulate the aims and targets of a new product or service and create a word of mouth for you among your target consumers.
But, is the Traditional PR tactics enough?
Thanks to the digitization, the landscape has changed, the human behaviour towards the market has shifted and the tactics have evolved. With the growth of the company and adopt the changes in the industry the PR approach of the company also need to improvise accordingly. Therefore, it is time to think out of the box, which is only possible when you can actually define the box you are currently working in.
First and the foremost requirement to upgrade your firm is to do away with just the usage of traditional tactics and adapt the updated version of working. To begin with, let's start with the basics, the press release. Definitely, a press release is the primary source to spread new announcements from your company, but is it the only way today? Every media house has their own target audience, and have their own style of writing or presenting any news. It is the job of a PR to make sure when you reach out to any journalist; your story is not moved to trash even without being read. The best way ensure this is by crafting multiple pitches, keeping in mind the target audience of the media house you are reaching out to. For example, a financial newspaper would only like to read the entire pitch if it talks about how the brand is doing in the market, along with the digits involved. Then there are supplements in the newspapers that cover feature angle of the story, the journalists writing on them would like to read pitches describing how the audience is adapting your brands.
The Contemporary Ways
Gone are the days when PRs used to reach out to the journalists with the press kit containing the news materials, i.e. Press release, company profile etc. Today that step has been simplified with the electronic press kit, to act as your digital collateral package. It could be in the form of an email, with attached all the required information about your company. Now, the journalist might not have enough time to read each and every attachment that you have shared to understand your company details and the story you want to sell. There is a better and enhanced way to that as well. A visual description and a video to support all the written materials shared. This not only helps the journalist to get hold of what the story is about but also a better chance for companies to explain themselves and their work.
Increased Usefulness
With all the progress in the PR Tactics, it has now become more useful to the brands to promote themselves. In spite of this, a large number of Startups and new companies fail to leverage such benefits, considering the lack of budget and planning. For PR companies to be extraordinary in their approach, does not just depend on the new tactics, but also in a way how they are strategizing their plan differently in order to promote such startups without bringing loss to either the brand or the firm. Customization is the keyword for this strategy. A PR firm should customize their PR Plan depending on the company size and preferences, so as to benefit all sector of business be it SME or a large enterprise. Customization does not only mean in the terms of the PR package shared with the startups or SMEs, but also to the PR approach in the media. The solution provided for one company will never be similar to the other one, be it a big brand and a startup or one sector to another.
Done successfully, a good PR can help a company assist in constructing brand identity and industry equity. PR will continue to evolve, and so will you with your firm if only you upgrade yourself with the changes in the market. It is very important to identify when your approach is outdated in the market and when it is time to pivot with the new trends.