Public Relations

Abstract

Public relations is an extremely important and versatile marketing communications tool, and can be employed both within and outside the organisation. Most lay people think public relations is merely an external marketing tool, with the marketing firm attempting to communicate with a wide range of external ‘publics’ in order to cast the organisation in a favourable light in peoples’ minds. This way of thinking is very limited and fails to appreciate the great value of public relations as an internal marketing communications tool. Good internal marketing, that is achieving the right internal organisational culture and getting everyone ‘pulling’ in the same direction in terms of marketing effort, is a vital prerequisite to effective external marketing strategies, particularly those based on the concepts of long-term relationship marketing principles. Public relations has a vital role to play and contribution to make to the creation of an effective internal marketing culture within an organisation. In this sense public relations has seen a dramatic increase in its importance as a strategic internal marketing communication tool.