Public relations (PR) is the strategic management of communication between a business and the audiences that matter to it, helping to build awareness, credibility, trust and reputation.
From securing media coverage and sharing company news to positioning business leaders as industry experts, PR can help businesses build a stronger public profile and communicate what makes them worth paying attention to.
But effective public relations is about much more than sending press releases or trying to get a company name into the newspaper. It is about finding the right stories, understanding what audiences and journalists care about, and communicating those stories in a way that creates genuine value.
As an award-winning digital marketing agency, VerriBerri takes a connected approach to PR, considering how public relations can work alongside content, SEO, social media, branding and wider marketing activity.
In this guide, we explain what PR is, how it benefits businesses, what a PR agency does, how digital PR can support SEO, how businesses can generate media coverage and what to consider when choosing a PR agency.
In This Guide:
- What is PR?
- The benefits of PR
- What does a PR agency do?
- About Media Relations
- How can digital PR improve SEO?
- What makes a good PR story?
- PR campaigns
- Nofollow vs dofollow links
- Is PR the Same as Advertising?
- Measuring success in PR
- Choosing the right PR agency
- PR FAQs
What is PR?
PR, short for public relations, is the strategic management of communication and relationships between an organisation and its audiences. Those audiences can include customers, journalists, employees, investors, industry professionals, suppliers, local communities and the wider public. At its core, public relations is about managing reputation and creating positive, credible opportunities for a business to communicate with the people it wants to reach.
This can involve:
- Media relations and journalist outreach
- Press releases and company announcements
- Expert commentary
- Thought leadership
- Digital PR
- Reputation management
- PR campaigns
- Crisis communications
- Awards and business milestones
- Events and speaking opportunities
The most effective PR identifies why an audience should care and creates a story or message that gives them a reason to pay attention. For example, a business might have developed an innovative product, achieved significant growth, conducted original research or have specialist expertise that can help explain a topic currently making the news.
The role of PR is to identify those opportunities and communicate them strategically.
How Does PR Benefit a Business?
One of the most common questions businesses ask is: “How does PR benefit my business?”
Well, there are several ways that a consistent PR strategy can contribute to wider business and marketing objectives.
Build credibility and trust
People are naturally more likely to trust information when it comes from a source they perceive as independent or authoritative.
Being featured in a respected publication, providing expert commentary or having your business discussed by a relevant third party can reinforce your credibility in ways that your own marketing channels cannot always achieve.
Increase brand awareness
PR for businesses can introduce your organisation to audiences who may not have discovered you through your website, social media or advertising.
A relevant piece of media coverage can put your business in front of potential customers, industry peers, future employees or other important audiences.
Establish expertise
Businesses have knowledge that can be valuable beyond their own customer base. Thought leadership can turn that expertise into opinion pieces, interviews, expert commentary, contributed articles and other opportunities that position individuals within a business as knowledgeable voices in their sector.
Strengthen reputation
Reputation is built over time through what a business does and how it communicates. A consistent approach to public relations can help businesses communicate achievements, demonstrate expertise and build a recognisable public profile.
PR can also play an important role when a business faces difficult or unexpected circumstances, helping it communicate clearly and responsibly.
Support wider marketing activity
PR doesn’t have to operate in isolation. Media coverage can be shared across social media, incorporated into email marketing, added to a website’s press section, included in sales materials and potentially contribute to SEO and digital visibility.
How Does PR Benefit My Business?
What Does a PR Agency Do?
A PR agency provides strategic and practical support to help businesses manage their public profile, communicate effectively and generate relevant media opportunities.
Depending on the agency and the client’s objectives, public relations services can include:
- PR strategy and planning
- Media relations
- Press outreach
- Story development
- Press releases
- Expert commentary
- Thought leadership
- Digital PR
- Campaign development
- Reputation management
- Crisis communications
- Media monitoring and reporting
However, good PR isn’t simply a matter of sending out a press release and hoping someone publishes it. A PR professional needs to understand what makes a story interesting, which publications and journalists are relevant, what their audiences want to read and how the story should be positioned.
This is where an external perspective can be particularly valuable. Businesses can become so close to their own work that they don’t always recognise which aspects of their expertise or achievements are genuinely interesting to an outside audience.
A good PR agency can help uncover those stories and turn them into opportunities.
Find out more about VerriBerri and our award-winning PR Services here.
What is Media Relations?
Media relations is the process of building and maintaining relationships with journalists, editors, producers and other media professionals. It is an important part of effective PR because strong media relationships are built on relevance, trust and reliability.
Media relations might involve:
- Identifying relevant journalists
- Monitoring news and industry developments
- Responding to journalist requests
- Offering expert commentary
- Pitching relevant stories
- Providing spokespeople for interviews
- Supplying additional information or imagery
- Building long-term relationships with media contacts
Importantly, media relations isn’t about contacting every journalist with every piece of company news. A journalist covering property development, for example, is unlikely to be interested in an unrelated story about a consumer product. Understanding the publication, journalist and audience is essential.
This targeted approach can make press outreach considerably more effective than mass distribution.
Find out – How to Get Your Business Featured in the Press.
How Can Digital PR Improve SEO?
The relationship between digital PR and SEO is an increasingly important consideration for businesses.
Digital PR can help improve online visibility by generating coverage on relevant websites and publications. Where publishers include links back to a business’s website, this can also contribute to its wider SEO strategy.
For example:
Interesting story or expert insight → journalist outreach → online coverage → potential backlink and brand visibility
However, digital PR for SEO shouldn’t be reduced to simply trying to acquire as many backlinks as possible. The quality and relevance of the coverage matter. A relevant link from a credible publication can be considerably more valuable than a large number of low-quality or irrelevant links.
Digital PR can also contribute to wider brand visibility. Even where an article doesn’t include a link, being mentioned by reputable publications can help more people discover and recognise a business.
This is why digital PR works particularly well when considered as part of an integrated SEO strategy, rather than as a standalone link-building exercise.
What Makes a Good PR Story?
A common question businesses ask is: “How do I get my business featured in the press?”
It will always depend on your product or service, but a good story with a relevant spokesperson is preferable. Journalists need a reason to cover something, and businesses should understand that what is important internally isn’t automatically newsworthy externally. Potential PR angles can include:
- Original research or data
- New products or services
- Significant business growth
- Industry trends
- Expert opinions
- Reaction to current news
- Unusual or unexpected developments
- Human-interest stories
- Local community involvement
- Business milestones
- Customer or client stories
- Unique expertise
Timing can also make a significant difference. A business might have the same expertise all year round, but an emerging news story could suddenly create an opportunity for an expert to provide useful commentary.
This is one reason an ongoing PR strategy can be more effective than treating PR as something that only happens when a business has an announcement to make.
Let VerriBerri devise your marketing strategy.
How Does a PR Campaign Work?
An SEO agency helps businesses improve their organic search visibility through a combination of strategy, research, optimisation, content and ongoing Every campaign will be different, but a strong PR strategy generally follows a clear process.
1. Define the objective
What does the business want to achieve? This might be increased awareness, greater credibility, expert positioning, media coverage, support for a product launch or visibility within a particular industry.
2. Understand the audience
Who needs to see or hear the message? Understanding the intended audience helps determine which publications, journalists and platforms are most relevant.
3. Find the story
The next step is identifying the strongest angle.
This could come from business news, data, expertise, trends, customer stories or a broader issue the organisation has something useful to say about.
4. Develop the messaging
A good story still needs a clear message. The campaign should establish what the audience should understand, remember or do as a result of the coverage.
5. Identify media opportunities
The PR team can then identify relevant publications, journalists and current opportunities. This might involve proactive story pitching or reactive opportunities based on current news.
6. Conduct targeted outreach
The story is presented to relevant journalists in a way that explains why it is useful to their audience.
7. Monitor and measure
Once coverage is achieved, results should be assessed against the original objectives.
Nofollow vs Dofollow Links: What’s the Difference?
When digital PR generates online coverage, the resulting links aren’t necessarily all the same.
A dofollow link can generally pass authority signals from one website to another, while a nofollow link includes an attribute telling search engines not to follow the link in the same way.
For businesses using PR services to generate online coverage, understanding the distinction can be useful when considering the SEO value of digital PR activity.
However, businesses shouldn’t judge the success of a PR campaign purely by whether every link is dofollow. Relevant coverage, brand mentions, referral traffic, credibility and visibility can all have value. The wider context of the coverage matters just as much as the link itself.
Is PR the Same as Advertising?
No, it’s not. Although PR and advertising both help businesses communicate with their audiences, they work in fundamentally different ways. Advertising involves paying for media placement, giving the advertiser significant control over the message, placement and timing. PR focuses more heavily on earned attention, relationships and third-party editorial coverage.
Neither approach is automatically better. In fact, PR and advertising can complement each other particularly well as part of an integrated marketing strategy.
How Do You Measure PR Success?
Measuring PR success shouldn’t just come down to the number of articles published. The most useful metrics depend on what the campaign was designed to achieve. Businesses should consider:
Quality of coverage
Was the business featured in respected, relevant publications?
Audience relevance
Did the coverage reach the people the business actually wants to influence?
Key messages
Did the coverage communicate the key points the campaign was designed to reinforce?
Brand visibility
Has the business gained greater awareness within its target market?
Referral traffic
Did coverage encourage people to visit the business’s website?
Backlinks and online visibility
For digital PR campaigns, relevant backlinks and online mentions can contribute to wider digital marketing objectives.
Expert positioning
Is the business or its leadership team increasingly being approached for commentary and opportunities?
Business outcomes
Ultimately, PR should be considered in the context of wider business objectives.
A media feature might not generate an immediate enquiry, but it could contribute to awareness, credibility and consideration that influence a future customer decision.
Choosing the Right PR Agency
When choosing your PR Agency, you should consider a partner who understands the target industry, audience and objectives, as well as whether they can develop stories that genuinely have something to offer the media.
Choosing the right PR agency isn’t simply about finding the agency that promises the most coverage. A Public Realations team are an extension of your businesses, so it’s important that the messaging is right.
Key considerations include:
Relevant experience
Does the agency understand your industry and the types of media your audience engages with?
Strategic thinking
Does the agency focus on your wider business objectives rather than simply counting press releases and coverage?
Media relationships
Does the agency understand the relevant journalists and publications and know what types of stories they cover?
Quality of ideas
Can the agency identify interesting angles within your expertise, even when you don’t have obvious company news?
Measurement
Can the agency explain how it will measure success and connect PR activity to meaningful outcomes?
Wider marketing expertise
PR can be particularly powerful when it works alongside SEO, content, social media and branding.
An agency with wider digital expertise can help ensure that the coverage generated by PR contributes to the bigger marketing picture.
At VerriBerri, our award winning marketing agency is a full-turn key service, with a skilled team that work together in house, under one roof. To our knowledge, VerriBerri are the only UK Marketing and PR agency that guarantees a lead quota.
Frequently Asked Questions about PR
What does PR stand for?
PR stands for Public Relations. It is the strategic management of communication and relationships between an organisation and its audiences, with a focus on areas such as reputation, awareness, credibility and trust.
What does a PR agency do?
A PR agency helps businesses develop stories, build media relationships, secure relevant coverage and manage their public reputation. Services can include media relations, digital PR, thought leadership, press outreach and strategic planning.
How does PR benefit a business?
PR benefits businesses by helping to increase awareness, build credibility, establish expertise, strengthen reputation and reach relevant audiences through earned media and other forms of communication.
How Does PR Benefit My Business?
How do I get my business featured in the press?
Start by identifying a story that is genuinely relevant to the audience of the publication or journalist you want to reach. This could involve original data, expert commentary, a business development, an interesting trend or a strong human-interest angle.
How to Get Your Business Featured in the Press
Is digital PR good for SEO?
Yes. Digital PR for SEO can help businesses increase online visibility and potentially earn relevant backlinks from media coverage. However, effective digital PR shouldn’t focus solely on acquiring links; relevance, credibility, brand visibility and the quality of the coverage are also important.
Is PR worth it for a small business?
It is! PR for small businesses can help build awareness and credibility without requiring the large advertising budgets associated with some paid campaigns. The key is finding relevant stories and opportunities that align with the business’s audience and objectives.
How much do PR services cost?
The cost of PR services varies depending on the level of strategic support, the scope of activity, the type of campaign and how much ongoing work is required. Businesses should consider the objectives they want PR to achieve rather than comparing agencies solely on the number of press releases or media pitches included.
Ready to Raise Your Business’s Profile?
Effective public relations starts with understanding what makes your business interesting, identifying the audiences you want to reach and finding the stories that give people a reason to pay attention.
Whether you’re looking to build brand awareness, establish your team as industry experts, generate media coverage or strengthen your reputation, a strategic approach to PR can help you build visibility and credibility over time.
Get in touch with the VerriBerri PR team today:
- Fill out our contact form
- Email us – hello@verriberri.co.uk
- Call us on 01376 386850