PR Trends that have Rocked the Industry in the Last Two Years

In just a few years, the Public Relations industry has gone through a massive transformation as a lot of people are moving from the offline world to being consistently online. Moreover, the evolution of digital media, constantly changing nature of traditional media and continued launching of a variety of social media networking sites, has opened up more and more opportunities for PR firms to reinvent their current strategies. Earlier PR pros were used to send pitches through fax and press kits through mails, today the digitization has allowed PR professionals to Whatsapp media kits and tweet pitches. In 2016 and 17, the creation of a large number of mobile apps and new software have provided an edge to PR pros.

Here are a couple of key trends that were the major turning points in the ever-changing world of PR.

Mobile Marketing

Google last year’s trend of more online searches took place on mobile devices as more and more people are switching to smartphones, the importance of mobile marketing increases very rapidly. With the speed of today’s media and communications, PR professionals need to adopt solid mobile strategies in order to respond promptly to the clients. There are several mobile apps that allow users to manage their communications strategies directly from their mobile service without any problem.

Integrating Content Marketing

This time again content marketing, in its several forms, is making a deep impact on public relations campaigns. Being able to tell a compelling and persuasive story on behalf of the customers and effectively selling that story to promote them has always been the key strengths of reliable public relations. Today, there is an even stronger need to embrace content marketing to relevant to their audiences. In order to outshine competitors, Public Relations firms require strategic marketing approach and need to focus more on quality than quantity.

Real-Time Marketing is Ubiquitous

With the constant increases in social media adoption, real-time marketing or flexible messaging based on current events is becoming an imperative strategy. Commenting on current events and interacting with the audience in real-time is an excellent way to increase brand awareness and engagement. One of the best ways of RRM is to incorporate immediate content pieces such as blog posts, memes or quick videos, which are relevant to the events or issues that are happening in the real-time, and crucial to your customers.

Visual Content is Gaining Popularity

Visual content has always been the crucial element of marketing, however, in the last two years, PR firms devoted even more of their time and budget in creating this type of content. Video content, infographics, presentations and digital brochures are ideal marketing tools for PR professionals to tell their brand’s story.

Paid Reach Campaigns

In order to drive more traffic to the website or to have your content seen by more eyeballs, marketers need to pay for it. It has nothing to do with the quality of content, just that in order to appeal the right audience, you need to invest a little amount so your posts stand out the crowd. Therefore, PR professionals need to create a well-planned campaign and focus on the right channels to cover the right audience.

Why PR industry needs to be more data focused?

Adapting data-focused approach would surely give the better outcomes and help in competing against other marketing disciplines. A focused approach is easy but to find relevant data that is accurate and support the brand is a complex goal. Procurement isn’t a tough job but finding the suitable one is indeed a challenge. Basically Data provide insight to brands in shaping the campaigns with right planning and strategies and explain that what’s actually working and what’s not.

Why Data-focused approach is important?

It is important for the PR agencies to adopt the data-focused approach so as to better connect with their target audience and deliver the right message at the right time. What if you could predict that your campaign would be successful or not even before it is actually launched? Basically, this is the benefit of acquiring this purposeful approach. Of course this is not the foolproof method, but yes, it can be helpful in yielding better results. Apart from this, you have much better chance of being right than your gut instincts alone do.

Time has changed and gone are the days when PR firms in Delhi are only good for building relationships. It is the time when being knowledgeable about data collection is as important as being creative and building strong relationships. Those who can excel at both will surely find success in their career, while others will be left this race. As said earlier, finding data is not a tough job but is all the data useful and overwhelming, this is a big question. The data collection should be done in such a way that it could prove beneficial and tells the point what the client actually wants.

The competition is at its extreme and thus the traditional PR management agencies will have to move forward in its ability to analyze and collecting the data. Such agencies will surely become more successful than the traditional one because it is the new market strategy of these public relations companies so as to hit the target. A PR strategy that makes data as the center of attraction can easily achieve the media attention.

Apart from everything, one important benefit of becoming more data focused is that now they can get attention without spending lots of dollars. Your accurate collection is enough to create media attention which you couldn’t even purchase. The beautiful part is that the key to everything - i.e., data is always under your nose and you can easily acquire the same. Needless to mention, that the efforts are worth doing.

How to Collect Right Data?

Collection of the data and filtering the same are two different approaches. Sorting data manually could be a nightmare for PR agency and luckily, there are technologies and tools that can do this work for you. Public relations agencies should understand this how important it is to find the data that fits the client’s need. With the right technology on your side, it becomes very easy to concentrate, pinpoint the areas for improvement and build the strong relationships.

PR for Small Businesses and Startups

Back in the 80’s and 90’s the term Public Relations (PR) representative’s job was limited to addressing the negative press and portraying a well-to-do and positive image of the employer at the right time and through the right media channels. Their strategies included mass- produced and delivered press releases to journalists in order to pitch stories. These stories included stuff exclusively focused on the benefits of clients and brands rather than talking about the needs of target audiences.

From Crisis Handling to Image Creation

The gamut of PR is vast as well as versatile and it incorporates a diverse range of marketing and branding activities; from crisis management to image development of brand/personal brand. The PR professionals in the past were putting on their best efforts on the tables, but still there remained a gap between the interest of brands and that of probable consumers and end readers. This further resulted in a strained relationship between the PR practices and what it is expected by the audiences today.

The Changing Paradigm

Trends in PR are evolving with time and have now developed into a field that best suits the needs of the tech-savvy and fast-paced digital age. It’s now becoming a practice in PR companies to deliver trustworthy and best possible stories in time. With the available digital tools, the PR companies have added a new dimension to the way of delivering a message of the brands to the media outlets. With the audio-visual and live reporting mediums, the message understandability and its delivery both have become a much easier task to achieve thus, providing time to the PR professionals to do the other more important things of the industry.

Innovations Unplugged

Technology, especially the digital technology is the reviving force for PR industry all over the world. The industry that was taking on a tough competition with the rich and glamorous advertising industry is now playing a pivotal role for brands in their growth and development. For startups businesses in cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Gurgaon, there are many professional PR agencies which are catering every small and big need of the companies pertaining to marketing, branding, social media and brand promotion. These PR agencies ensure 100 percent success and deliver customized solutions for maximum coverage in both traditional and digital media landscapes.   

Today, every reputed company is decreasing advertising budget and investing the same amount for the other profitable ventures. They understand the worth of PR and are satisfied with the results that once seem difficult with extraordinarily expensive advertising.

5 Important Trends in PR Measurement

Public Relations (PR) has indeed been one of the most important parts of the management functioning since its introduction, but the inadequate measurement has traditionally played a spoilsport in generating adequate recognition that the industry might have earned in the past decade. However, the wave of change has arrived in the industry with many PR agencies adopting the change at the earliest. More and more PR professionals are mastering the art of PR measurement and passing the same to the fresh blood entering the PR world. This adaptation of new and innovative PR tools and technologies is earning loads of applauds for successfully contributing in addition of value to the company.   

Here are some of the latest and much-improved PR measurement tips and tricks that will bring a positive change in the near future of the PR world. 

1.      Message consistency across the channels

Money is a great concern in every business and working environment and soon to come is the time that money will become the driving force determining the future of PR measurement. Money is now building up an integrated, customer-centric market. This invites for a single consistent message suiting the needs of every possible media channel.

2.      Emphasis laid on conversions 

The tech-savvy PR professionals are better aware of the importance of conversions in tracking views and prefer it much more often than the metrics. According to several digital media surveys and studies, client companies and PR agencies both are investing more in social media, SEO, email and web marketing channels in order to get track conversions.

3.      Podcast measurement will witness a rise 

The market is coming up with certain apps that will reveal when and what listeners like or dislike in individual episodes. This will create a better picture in the podcasters and media professionals mind regarding how the people are reacting to a particular podcast. This, in turn, will help the brands to appropriately gauge the effectiveness of podcasts they are flushing their money out on.  

4.      Micro-influencers will gain importance 

To get hold of the best possible influencers for their brands, PR and marketing teams will rely heavily on social media monitoring and measurements. Brands will realize that people love to hear the praise from a person’s account that they trust rather than the accounts that they are completely stranger to. Keeping this in mind, PR teams will get their client’s message communicated in the market with the help of micro-influencers. Micro-influencers are no celebrities but are rather the average ones with a considerable amount of followers.

5.      Measure in accordance with the context

In the present time, it’s often noticed that media placements are measured in isolation from the marketplace. This earns up only a tiny amount of benefits as compared to the efforts invested and offers a narrow and erroneous view of the real results. But, in the future, this will change and PR and marketing teams will emphasize more on metrics that offers a complete context of what’s happening with competitors and in the industry as a whole.

How to Start PR Career Effectively

Beginnings of a new journey can be either daunting or extremely blissful depending on the way we handle and deal with the situation approaching. This is especially true when one steps out of the classroom and is ready to face the industry and make their way into it. Yes, it’s the career choice, planning and then finally starting it that concerns most of the graduates and soon to be graduates. And, the problem becomes even more severe when they are left with no job placements or offers in hand. This is the time when the students get confused and are left with no option other than blindly walking on their career path deprived of any guidance.

To lead the pack with some value, it’s advised to start preparing in accordance with the market demands by following these simple steps:

Prep up with some homework

Before entering the market, it’s better to gain some knowledge about the same well in advance. For this, the students need to speak to the PR industry professionals from different managerial posts to discover what all qualities they demand in recent graduates and what all skills are must to have. One can also acquire knowledge about the challenges and work environment of the industry. All such pre-hand studies will help a graduate take job interview in any PR agency with utmost confidence.

Self-assessment will benefit brilliantly

Before heading for an interview, analyze your inner being, all the strengths and weaknesses need to be clearly defined. Some PR professionals gain expertise in writing and speaking while, others are good at dealing the digital world and strategic planning. The fresher’s should not just follow others blindly but instead they need to do efforts to pave a path to the genre that best defines their passion.

Get clear with what all needs to be achieved

Start off with defining the short to medium term goals, and analyze if they can really be achieved or are way too easy to achieve. It’s necessary to set on the goals for all that needs to be achieved in the next 3 years of journey as a PR professional. Every organization is looking for employees whose dreams and goals are well coordinated with that of the organization. So, it’s important to get clear with what is one demanding with his/her career.

Get linked to the professional bodies

This will help the students gain better links for their profession. Target should be placed on the professionals and institutions that can help achieve both the short and the long term objectives. The entry into the well-to do institutions will guarantee better networking skills that will ultimately weave your path to career development.

Increase the online presence

Social media, especially platforms like Facebook and LinkedIn are one of the most powerful networking tools in the PR world. They not only allow connecting with PR experts, but also keeps a person updated the industry trends, ups and downs. To gain an easy entry into the industry, it’s necessary for a fresher to start building their online PR community network on reputed sites with well to-do experts.  Caution- never post anything undesirable on such networks, otherwise it will completely ruin the career prospects.