In today’s fast paced market dynamics, the existence of any company or its brand is determined by the answer to the following questions: “Are you and your products visible? Are you one in the many or do you stand out from the crowd?” Many companies over a period of time have gone into oblivion, due to the lack of an inherent interest in the top management to garner the right visibility for themselves and their brands. In this context, when it comes to achieving optimum visibility, the small business organizations are at a disadvantage, as compared to their bigger brothers. Neither do they have the right financial back-up to invest in large-scale advertising nor do they have a huge marketing division. In this article, we would evaluate how an effective Public Relation campaign can infuse a new lease of life to such companies, with limited resources.

It has been observed and discussed in various industry forums, how PR can be the secret of success for many business establishments, as it ensures a cost effective way to get a business the publicity, visibility, and ‘buzz’ it deserves. Public Relation as a successful tool of market development and improvisation can be best understood by the following benefits it offers:

 

1. Public Relation is the most effective way to form a favorable public opinion. What advertisement or other promotional activities of a company fails to deliver, PR achieves it with ease. But how is this attained? PR uses an implied endorsement of non-biased industry authorities (the press and trade analysts). Simply stated, PR helps the business organization to reach out to the right target audience through an effective ‘editorial’ intervention in the media. As against advertisement, Public Relation successfully close the gap between the company and its target as a high degree of credibility is attached to the editorial content that appears in a Times of India or telecasted in an Aaj Tak. This is rightly justified as the reader gets an impression that the information shared in the media is impartial as it is generated by a totally different group of people, which falls outside the corporate entity. An advertisement is generated by the company itself, and hence the information provided, can at times also be blown out of proportion. As an example, if we see a TV company’s ad, which tries to compare the features of its product with its competitors, it would surely try to highlight all those features which would be unique to its product only…and very cleverly, the ad would end with some message, which would mean something like: “You are the right judge…do you want to stay happy with an inferior product?” Compare this to an industry analysis done by a business editor, where he tries to compare and contrast the features, the advantages and the drawbacks of the various Television models. This gives a more clear and genuine picture of the products available.
2. Public Relation costs much less than other types of promotional campaigns. Wherein a monthly advertisement budget for a company can run up to many lacs of rupees (at times a single day’s ad cost can be in lacs and that too you are exposed to a selected few media – forget different editions, different supplements or different time slots for electronic media), a high-end public relation campaign involving systematic media coverage (without any limit to the number of editorial exposures) would cost the company anywhere between a quarter to one-eighth the ad-expenditure. Guess what? Here you need not bargain till your last breath with the marketing division of your desired publication, for the cost of space…PR is a purely non-paid form of media publicity. No money goes to the media. You need not pay for the size of the article or press release. It is achieved simply through your PR agency’s relationship with the key contact personnel in the media. More importantly, the hit-ratio or the number of people reading the news also goes up as your release gets an optimum coverage in various publications with different languages. Other forms of promotions like outdoor displays, mailers, catalogues, etc. can vary in their costs at par the quantities ordered…without much help in terms of the visibility index (VI: the extent to which something is visible).
3. Public Relation can assist in recruitment and retention of quality employees. A small business organization can flourish only when it has a well dedicated force of employees, who are hard-working, determined to succeed, believes in the employer and share the vision of the top management. Public Relation can create the right environment for such an ideal situation. There are various approaches and justifications given by various PR professionals. In one of the methods, the PR consultants can assist the company in developing and generating a monthly internal newsletter – exclusively for the employees. These newsletters can talk about the achievements of the company, success stories of individuals and various other things that can motivate the employees, thereby enhancing the confidence of the employees on the top management. At the same point of time, if the company gets optimum visibility in the media on a regular basis, it can create a sense of good-will amongst the employees, thereby pushing their motivational levels much higher. Regular media visibility can also help an organization to attract quality staffs (as discussed above).

In addition to the above, effective public relations can weather a company through many a storm. When a crisis occurs, a business that has the support of its community (something that cannot be bought through display ads or direct mail campaigns) has a much better chance of surviving with its image — and its company — intact.

 

Businesses that fail to create and capitalize on public relations opportunities are missing a big piece of the picture. So, the next time, you need to be seen or be heard, go for Public Relations.

 

Prof. Jaydip Dutta Gupta

Dept. of Mass Communication and Public Relations

(Under Graduate Programme in Planning and Management, IIPM)

He is also an Image Management Consultant with ICPAR (Indian Centre for Public Affairs and Relations), a Planman Business Unit.

NB: The entire text is strictly for IIPM internal circulation. No part of the text can be copied or changed without the consent of the author.