Meet Milly, one our stellar Account Managers. We put her in the hot seat to find out what PR is to her and what she thinks of the results of our #prisnotwhatyouthinkitis campaign research.
I got into PR because…
Whilst studying Marketing and PR at university I found myself gravitating towards the PR industry. A few of my friends had already entered the world of PR and I was fascinated by their roles as PR professionals.
From a young age I’ve also been interested in how brands market to its key audiences through creative concepts and messaging. I love that PR can be both creative and psychological.
When people ask me what PR is, I usually say…
I almost always say it’s similar or like marketing, because everyone knows what marketing is and to be honest, I think we offer a lot of the same things as marketing agencies. It also saves having a long-winded conversation about media relations and what I do, to only be faced with the same confusion as when we started the conversation.
Furthermore, I think the meaning of PR has evolved, and you can no longer describe the profession in one sentence. Which is another reason why I love PR, the opportunities and ability to learn new skills are endless.
If I had to give a definition of PR, it would be…
PR is what others say about you.
The thing I love most about a career in PR is….
No day is the same, there is always an opportunity to learn something new and get the creative juices flowing.
When I reviewed the #prisnotwhatyouthinkitis survey findings, I was most surprised by….
Crisis communications and issues preparedness, media training, and strategy are the most common services Business Decision Makers expect from a PR agency. We were shocked to read that fewer expect content or marketing aspects, such as digital influencer campaigns, podcasts, SEO or SEM, rather they thought these were only offered from a digital agency.
This got us thinking… should we push our digital services to the front to really spell it for current and future clients? You could argue that this makes a lot of sense business-wise, as our day-to-day tasks consist of more social media, SEO, influencers and digital activities than media training and media releases. But our aim isn’t to change the name of PR. We want to change the way people think about PR, and for Business Decision Makers to truly consider the endless possibilities of a PR agency when they allocate their precious marketing budget.
When I reviewed the #prisnotwhatyouthinkitis survey findings, I was least surprised by….
Our recent research into the allocation of marketing budget found that digital marketing, SEO/SEM, and social media spend had significantly increased over the past few years. However, Public Relations spend has remained pretty much the same.
Why has our industry remained the same in the eyes of our potential clients?
This is a question we’re asking ourselves as PR professionals. Is it up to us to show we can do it all, or should we assume our clients can read between the lines?
Here, at LBPR we think it’s up to us to show we can do it all… and the #PRisnotwhatyouthinkitis initiative is solely focused on just that!
Our goal is to change the way businesses think about PR, which will ultimately lead to greater marketing spend on PR activities. According to our research, when Business Decision Makers were asked ‘what first comes to mind?’ when thinking about public relations, the top-of-mind words were media, community, business and relate…BORING.
I think PR is the most important part of the marketing mix because….
PR enables the brand to deliver an authentic message and builds trust with the audience.
I’d like to see the PR industry…
Evolve to more than just writing a media release, PR is so much more then that now! It’s important our industry understands that first, once it’s understood by all PR professionals then our future clients will understand value PR as more than just media.