You’ve got your business idea and you have invested a considerable amount of time, effort and money into the new venture. Now all that’s left to do is take it to market, Right?
Let’s got then!
For any type of startup, setting up your own business is no small feat. There are several things on your mind, from managing your funds to knowing what your customers need.
Marketing might not be at the forefront of what your business needs and you might not be considering Public Relations at all. However, if done in a right way, Public Relations can give your business the best result and only use a miniscule amount from your marketing budget.
So what is Public Relations (PR)?
The role public relations plays in your business is to shape the public view of your company and product or services. This can be done through client/customer interaction, social media outlets and earned media (newspapers, TV etc.) – news stories, interviews and features about your company, its products or services. In a nutshell, PR refers to the information conduit and connections made between your business and your public – your target audience.
You Must Determine Your Target Audience
One of the common PR landmines for startups is not predetermining a target audience. As much as you would love everyone to utilize your services, having a specific target audience in the beginning will prove much easier to market toward. Once a level of success is achieved with this audience, then you can expand. However, never forget your original target market – brand loyalty will take you further than you may think, use PR to build your BRAND!
1. It gives your brand a voice!
When first starting, remember very few customers will know about your company and services. To grow into a successful business this needs to change and getting your voice heard in the media can be a seriously effective way of doing this.
Public Relations provide different ways to communicate who your company is. In its simplest form it encourages others to do your advertising for you. As a startup, you’re likely to face challenges around communicating a new offering within busy markets, particularly if you’re trying to disrupt existing product ranges or ways of doing business. An active voice is therefore essential, tell a story about your brand, this will bring your audiences more closely to you. It will give your brand a voice and a well worked PR campaign provides a means for that voice to be heard. A great story will take you a long way!
2. Driving Awareness!
Your startup is only new once, and once you have introduced yourself and developed your brand’s voice, your aim should be to justify and highlight your market position. Making customers aware of what makes your business different and keeping them talking about it is a great way to do this, again be a story teller. PR provides a means to enter and engage in industry debates and develop conversations around what you’re doing, how you’re impacting the market and how your startup is benefiting consumers.
Public Relations allow organizations to continually demonstrate capabilities within key vertical media and get noticed. The more people that talk about your startup, the more aware they will become.
3. Enhancing credibility!
Markets are crowded. Once you’ve started generating awareness around your company, it’s important to use PR to build your reputation, because reputation is a biggest asset of any organization or business. Credibility can be enhanced by engaging in industry debates or having a controversial opinion on industry challenges.
Accessible content will position you as an expert within the field and generate exposure to make your business more attractive to potential customers.
It is difficult to introduce yourself as a new player, particularly within a market with other long established businesses. We’re well aware of the challenges here. Public Relations can be a highly valuable and important marketing tool in providing a vessel to quickly and effectively raise a company’s profile within an industry sector, presenting as thought leader in the field and ultimately make them stand out from the crowd.
The Media Troop- best PR agency in Pune helps you design your PR campaigns, strategies and execute them in every possible way.
