Some PR Tips

1) Talking about doing PR isn't as good as actually doing some PR.  Waiting for the best story to happen can take a while, it is always better to get something out there.

2) Have a steady stream of appropriate PR ready to send to editors seeking your content

3) Read the up-coming magazine Features list and try to put some PR relevant to the feature

4) Find a PR company that can make something special out of your product or service, that you might think is normal

5) Use pictures with your press releases to help Editors to visualise your uniqueness

6) 'The more you write the less gets read', and good PR companies have learnt to be brief and to the point

7) Recycle old PR with a fresh new and amended slant, in some fringe publications

8) Good PR agents will find a good story simply by interviewing your customers

9) Fully written-up testimonials with pictures are like gold dust, you can use them for PR and for sending to prospects in your marketing materials

10) Measure the success and ROI of your PR with clippings, but allow time for editors to start using your submissions

One technique used in PR is to identify all the specific target audiences, and then to tailor messages to appeal directly to those target audiences. The audience can be a local, nationwide or even a worldwide audience, and it is very often a segment of the entire population. Marketers regularly refer to "demographics" eg "black males 20-40". In PR an audience is very often more fluid, whoever an organisation wants to reach. For example, a recent political target included "soccer moms". There are also groupings based on fitness, dining preferences etc.

As well as target audiences, there are influential stakeholders, people who have a particular "stake" in an issue. All target audiences are potential stakeholders, but not all stakeholders are potential audiences. As an example, a reaearh charity takes on a PR agency to develop a campaign to bring in money to help reaearch potential cures for a specific disease. The research charity and the actual sufferers of the disease are the stakeholders, and the target audience is everyone and anyone who could donate money.

The Seven Ps of Marketing

As well as the traditional four Ps (Product, Pricing, Promotion and Placement), services marketing calls upon an extra three, making seven in total and they are known together as the extended marketing mix. These extra three are:

People: Any person coming into contact with customers will have an impact on overall satisfaction. Whether as part of a supporting service to a product or involved in a total service, people are very important because, in the customer's eyes, they are generally inseparable from the overall service . As a result of this, they must be appropriately trained, well motivated and the right type of person. Other customers are also sometimes referred to under 'people', as they too can affect the customer's service experience, (eg at a sporting event).

Process: This is the process involved in providing a service and the behaviour of the people involved, which can be crucial to customer satisfaction.

Physical evidence: Unlike a product, a service cannot be experienced before it is delivered, which makes it an intangible item. This, therefore, means that potential customers could perceive that there is a greater risk when deciding whether to use a service. To reduce this feeling of risk, and improving the chance for success, it is often vital to offer potential cnew ustomers the chance to see what a service would be like. This is done by offering and providing physical evidence, such as case studies, testimonials or demonstrations.