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What Does a PR Agency Do?

Louise-Findlay-Wilson-scaled

Date

Sep 11, 2023

Read Time

min read

Date

Sep 11, 2023

Read Time

min read

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What is PR? What sort of things does a PR agency do? What does PR deliver?

There’s a chunky old answer to this question so let’s break it down a bit. We’ll need to look at what PR is, how PR agencies do it, and what it delivers.

What is PR?

Going to be a bit formal here for a minute. PR – public relations – is the development, management and protection of the relationship an individual, brand or organisation has with its public. In a word – reputation. A business’ reputation is everything. Without a good one, no one will work there or buy from that business. That would make it impossible to grow.

The deliberate and proactive creation of a reputation over time will shape how stakeholders think and feel about an organisation, and therefore how they behave towards it. PR done well will deliver tangible business benefits. These benefits are vast. The means of achieving them are varied.

It’s worth pointing out the major difference between advertising and PR. Advertising is when an organisation pays for people to hear great things about it – which it tells you itself, directly or indirectly. PR is when an audience hears great things about an organisation from other trusted sources, without that source being paid to share the message.

What sort of things does a PR agency do?

PR agencies will help you build, develop and manage the relationship with your stakeholders through proactive, positive storytelling, or it can help limit reputational damage when facing crises or issues. And there are loads of different tactics and techniques to do these things.

Building reputations through positive storytelling requires a trusted source to share that story. Often this is the role of the media. This involves the PR agency sharing news that an organisation might have, or by creating news that will communicate the right messages to the audience to shape how the organisation wants to be perceived. You’ll hear this called ‘media relations’.

Other trusted sources include people who influence decisions. These are broader and more varied than just social media influencers. For example, a pet owner would trust a vet as a source of information. So, PR activity that increased positive relationships between a pet insurance company and vets would make it more likely for vets to recommend that insurance company to its clients. This could be done with research-based activity, events, awards, or thought leadership, to name but a few.

A PR agency will also help an organisation be clear on what it wants its messages to its stakeholders to be, and how to deliver them. This includes making sure that everyone across the organisation is saying the same thing. Specialising in this is also known as internal communications.

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What does PR deliver?

There’s a long list of techniques that can be deployed but what a PR agency does is dictated by what an organisation is trying to achieve. PR can make the sales process easier by ensuring prospective buyers have a good understanding and opinion of what they’re buying before they get to the point of purchase. PR can make it easier to attract and retain staff by developing and communicating a strong employer brand. PR can change what a business is known for, who knows about it and where it is talked about. It can increase your market share of voice, make a business ‘punch above its weight’, defend against the competition, lobby for industry change, engage new suppliers, and raise brand awareness ahead of investment. Plus more. Impressive, right?

If you’d like to find out how PR could help your brand, get in touch at louise@energypr.co.uk.

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  • Increased our prospect engagement while significantly reducing CPA

    Since working alongside Energy, PR has become a key part of our marketing mix. As a smaller player in broadband, it’s important for us to build familiarity, credibility & trust with potential customers, so increasing our presence in the media has played a vital role in helping achieve that. Aligned with strategic work across our other channels, we’ve increased prospect engagement whilst significantly reducing our CPA, with postcode searches on our website (a key metric for us) via organic and direct channels up 96% & 193% respectively.

    - Lee Probert | Marketing Director

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  • I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend their services

    Energy PR is a brilliant agency to work with. Mike and the team are proactive and knowledgeable, with good contacts and expertise across the media and PR landscape. They’ve taken the time to get to know us, and our purpose and priorities.

    They’re like an extension of our team. They provide us with reinforcements when needed, with fresh and impartial perspective. The team are responsive, passionate and meticulous about their work and I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend their services.

    - Alan Cowie | PR, Partnership and Communications Lead

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  • Our website has seen its biggest growth to date

    Our domain rating, backlinks and organic traffic volume have all increased significantly. This is such an incredible win for us and so a huge thank you to the Energy team for all of your work to date, it’s fantastic to see this pay off in growing both our SEO and brand footprint. Our Leadership Team is super impressed, and we’re really excited for what else is to come.

    - Hannah Wiltshire | Head of Marketing

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  • By far the best thing we’ve done

    It’s taken our practice in the sector to a whole other level and prompted concrete business opportunities. So many people I speak to have seen the report. We’re now automatically recognised and come to as specialists in this area – which is fantastic.

    - Liz Sparrow | Partner, Science and Tech Lead

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  • Energy PR have already increased our traffic, in a very competitive market, by 20%

    We turned to Energy PR as we wanted to broaden our brand awareness and organic traffic so that we’d lessen our dependency on Google ads for our web traffic. To say they’ve delivered is an understatement. Just one year on and Energy PR have already increased our traffic, in a very competitive market, by 20%. It’s a fantastic result.

    - Ellen Dean | Head of Marketing

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  • My Nametags has worked with Energy PR for years, and they keep delivering excellent PR work for us

    They do a great job in coming up with good ideas and executing them. My Nametags is trying to reach parents and consumers, and we have had articles and coverage on BBC, ITV, Sky, BBC Radio, Sun, Express and Mirror to mention some.

    - Lars B Andersen | CEO

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  • I have been blown away

    Since Energy PR has been managing our socials, the level of interaction, from quality leads, has been unbelievable. Being able to build my personal presence online, whilst also generating new business leads has been eye opening. I am more excited than ever to see what magic Team Energy can sprinkle over my account, and the Crossflow company account, as we move forward.

    - Rebecca White | Commercial Director

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