Public Relations can mean a lot of things to a lot of different people and to try find a succinct definition although possible tends to define the profession in a very narrow sense. So in order to keep this article short we will rather define what PR means to us.

Encompassing a multitude of disciplines, PR is in its essence is the process of building a brand and brand awareness by means of effective communication on the part of a PR professional between a company, individual or cause and its ‘public’. Public in this case needs to be touched on, as in order for PR to be effective, it needs to be communicating effectively with the right audience. In this case then a public can be considered as a company’s target market, general public, any industry influencers and basically any person or organisation that said company has dealings with.

In order to get the most impact from any campaign, PR professionals have to be able to strategically analysis not only their clients core business messages, unique selling points and value propositions, but also their key target markets. With this in mind effective PR agencies then have to communicate these core messages to the most relevant of media publications for each respective market segment. Effectively it is the process of getting the right message in front of the right people at the right time.

That’s right, PR is a profession of communication, but communication is a medium done between people and as such a PR professional has to be a people’s person at heart. They not only need to understand their clients target market and how to communicate effectively with them, but also how to foster and develop relationships with members of the press and media in order to get this message published.  What PR is then for us, is a mix of all these factors which culminates in the ability to

1. Understand your clients business and be able properly define its core business messages, value propositions and unique selling points.
2. Be able to effectively define your clients most relevant target markets
3. Build relationships with media and press that speak to this target market
4. Be able to write and communicate these messages effectively in a manner that not only portrays your client’s key messages but also in a way that adds value to whatever publication it is being pitched to.