Do your PR partners know how your company makes money?

Make sure the people creating your company’s public relations have background information to inform their strategies

Public relations plans influence a company’s success. Integrating public relations plans into your company’s strategic planning is essential. However, do the people handling your public relations know how your company makes money?

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It sounds like a weird question, but it’s very important that these employees are informed about profitability, which will help your public relations campaign be successful. If your PR department or the firm you hired do not know how your company makes money, PR campaigns can be out of sync with the rest of the company and fail to achieve desired results.

Before your PR department or firm starts to plan your company’s public relations, here are some questions you can ask to ensure they understand your company and its viability:

• What exactly are we selling?
• Who are we selling our product or service to?
• What makes our product stand out from the rest of the market?
• What current issues is the industry working to solve?
•  What issues might the industry face in the future (changing regulations, etc.)?

These might seem like simple questions with obvious answers, but it’s important that your PR department or firm has a solid understanding of how the company makes money before setting out on a public relations campaign. Even simple misunderstandings can cause problems for your PR campaign down the line, so it’s best to clarify everything, even if you or the group thinks they already know it.

If the PR department or firm you’re working with doesn’t exactly know how your company makes money, the question becomes how quickly it can learn.

Since PR is a cornerstone of business management, it’s important that the employees responsible for a company's PR strategy understand the business and make informed decisions when strategizing.

Hiring a PR firm, rather than handling PR internally, might be a good idea for your company. PR firms work across several industries and have many existing connections that give them an overall sense of the larger business world, which helps them create strong public relations plans.

Clients love Jacob’s speed. Jacob is an inbound marketing-certified webmaster. He earned an integrated communications degree from Florida State College at Jacksonville. Jacob joined Axia PR as an intern in August 2015 and earned his way into a critical role at our PR agency.