What is a PR agency?

The beginning: what does PR mean?

PR means Public Relations, or public relations. Every organisation, company or community deals with different interest groups. All these interest groups have different opinions and desires. To consistently improve understanding between your organisation and the interest groups, use PR. In other words, Public Relations promotes mutual understanding between an organisation and its audience groups.

Why use PR as a company?

But why is PR important for your business? To create mutual understanding with your audience groups, you need to reach them first of all. Of course, this can be done through social media, advertisements or e-mail communication. Only here, some problems immediately emerge. Firstly, people need to actively follow you, so they will face your social posts or emails. Secondly, ads or advertised posts come across as commercial immediately, making readers take your message less seriously. This is why you use PR: to generate free publicity. You use PR to get free publicity for you or your company, especially by getting into the independent media. This is how you reach your target groups in a natural, non-commercial way.

How do you use PR successfully as an organisation?

So if you want to achieve PR success, you will need to regularly appear in the media for free. This is easier said than done - first of all, you need to have a good, newsworthy story. You need to put this story on paper with razor-sharp clarity, and then determine which media channels this story is relevant to. Then you need relations at those media outlets who are willing to take over your story for free. And if everything checks out, your company might be featured in a national newspaper or trade magazine that is very popular among your target audience. Because many companies are unfamiliar with the media landscape and the processes just described, they hire a PR agency.

OK, but what is a PR agency then?

A PR agency knows exactly which media closely match your industry and organisation. Moreover, this type of agency has built up a good network over the years, so that their efforts produce maximum results. In other words: with their efforts, they ensure maximum visibility and brand awareness among the target groups relevant to you. A PR agency is committed to your (company) image, making sure you get the necessary attention and that others start talking (positively) about you. And all this without advertisements, so that the communication comes across as genuine and authentic to your target group. This gives you thought leadership and makes you top of mind with your target group in your field.

In what ways do media outlets take your news for free?

For PR agencies, free publicity is the goal. Getting in the media is the means. In other words: through the media, you get free publicity. Below are some PR tools that agencies use to get into the media:

• Press release
• Opinion piece
• Event
• News jacking - delivering innovative insight into breaking news
• Inhaker - relevant response to current events, e.g. a public holiday

In conclusion, what exactly is a Public Relations agency?

Now you know what PR is, how it works and how you can use it successfully. In many cases, a PR agency can help you with this. This is because such an agency is an expert in Public Relations and uses multiple means to do so. All to generate free publicity for you or your organisation. This then contributes to your image, thought leadership and top-of-mind position with your target group. A PR agency takes a fresh and critical look at your company and presents your story as sharply and newsworthily as possible. Thanks to its good media relations, it knows exactly how to find the right medium (and the right editor) for your organisation. Wondering what we as a PR agency can do for you? Feel free to contact us. We will be happy to explain it to you.

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