The Public Relations Blog

2 ways to make sure you have products and experts available in large media cities

National media outlets are largely located in New York City, Los Angeles, and Atlanta, with other key markets including Chicago, Dallas, and Philadelphia. Each week, editors and editorial assistants receive hundreds of products and goods from companies hoping for a feature in their publications. For many companies, the ability to ship their products to New York City and Los Angeles for a review, feature, or brief results in coverage in major national outlets.

Your PR efforts keep working, even after your campaign ends

Some clients want to see results from a public relations campaign immediately or within a few short weeks. Or, they opt to invest in a short-term PR project instead of a full campaign. It’s important to understand that the value of PR is mostly long term. PR provides consistent benefits that are cumulative, resulting in the steady growth of your business far into the future.

Consumers relate more to earned media coverage than they do to advertising. When a media outlet includes your company or brand in a news story, that media coverage adds credibility from an independent source. And, earned coverage shows you as a thought-leader in the industry.

We know that seeing a return on investment via earned media coverage keeps you – our client – happy. It’s important to recognize that earned media coverage doesn’t happen overnight. There’s a process for earning media coverage for our clients, and we want to share five ways we do it.

Ensure external communications appeal to the media with copy editing.

As a public relations firm, we believe it’s important to provide you with a white-glove experience. One of the ways we do that is by offering comprehensive PR solutions and value-added services at no additional cost. One of those services is copy editing all content and documents we share with the media, post on a newswire, or otherwise submit on your company’s behalf.

Many companies search for themselves online to ensure they’re ranking well on search engines. In reviewing your company’s positioning in search engine results, you may find that you have an online reputation problem. If there is negative content about your company ranking relatively highly, you’re almost certainly losing business because of it.

Know the difference and get to work improving your online image.

Maintaining a positive online image for your company is critical for success. How consumers perceive your brand on the internet determines whether they will be your customers. A positive online image also cultivates mutually beneficial relationships with other companies.

Many people use the terms online reputation and online reviews interchangeably. The two terms actually differ in many ways. Find out if it’s your company’s online reputation or online reviews that are stifling your business growth. 

Tax, CPA and accounting firms benefit from earned media coverage

Although the official tax season doesn’t start until January, the tax season starts now for news media outlets, journalists and PR firms representing accounting, CPA and tax firms.

To keep the public informed, the number of PR opportunities for tax professionals starts increasing in January due to pending tax deadlines, esp. April 15.

From Rolls-Royce and Tesla to Fresh Market and Krispy Kreme, many of the best brands have proven they don't need advertising. Consumers buy from these corporations because of the experiences they offer and because of the quality of their products. Less successful companies think they need advertising to get customers, but the best brands use their products, reputations and stories to attract customers. That's called public relations.

We all aspire to succeed and to shine a positive light on our companies for the public to see. Far too often, though, businesses have unreasonable media coverage expectations.

As public relations professionals, we must help our clients define realistic goals concerning the media coverage they want. Here are six missteps that companies often make when setting their media coverage expectations:

8 reasons your award entries aren’t working

Entering and subsequently winning awards for your company is a definite morale booster for your employees, and there are many other benefits too. However, what if you are entering your company into various awards and you just aren’t winning?

There are a number of reasons your company may not be earning the recognition or awards you believe it deserves. We compiled a list of our top eight issues that may be impeding your company from winning awards.