Do you want to start a public relations agency business? If yes find here a stepwise public relations business plan guide for beginners and learn about legal and operational requirements in starting and running this business.
Public relations agency is considered one of the most profitable B2B (business to business) opportunities. You can initiate this business as home-based and as your business grows, you can go with a full-scale organization setup. Public relations professionals work with print media, electronic media, and also with digital media.
The main focus area of a public relations agency is to communicate with the target audience directly and indirectly through media. The objective of a public relations agency is to create and maintain a positive image of their clients to their target audience and establish a long sustainable relationship.
What Does Public Relations Agency Do?
Public relation agency utilizes different forms of communication to establish efficient interaction between the company and the target audience. The public relations agency helps people and organizations to gain public acceptance by explaining the aims, objectives, and methods of their organization, and by building and maintaining a favorable image.
This is all about giving information for newspaper items, magazine articles, and news spots so that the public is made aware of that employer’s projects and accomplishments.
The public relations agency also works in arranging and conducting public contact campaigns which may include setting up speaking engagements, writing speeches, speaking for employers at community functions, planning company conferences, and managing fundraising drives.
Writing and distributing press releases, preparing media kits, crafting speeches, conducting market research, copywriting, and creating crisis public relations strategy is the major field of activity of public relations agencies.
Sales and other marketing-oriented programs and metrics such as lead generation are also an objective of public relations agencies. The vast majority of PR measurement efforts today fall within the Marketing category.
Public relation agency also contributes to building brands. Value contribution in this area is usually more anecdotal than measured.
Public Relations Agency Business Plan Guide for Beginners
If you are a newbie and don’t know much about public relations, it is advised to learn more about the activities as a PR professional.
1. Understand the Market
As with any other business, it is extremely important to understand the requirement and demand for public agency services in the local market. Conduct extensive market research and try to understand the gaps and scopes of the services in demand from potential job sources. Additionally, gather information regarding competitors and their services and plan your business accordingly.
2. Skills For Public Relations Agency Business
In starting a public relations agency business, you must have excellent writing and verbal communication skills. You also need to know to work under pressure and be able to answer a variety of questions including unpleasant ones.
Having a creative, imaginative, and persuasive mind and familiarity with publishing tools any individual can start this business with low or zero startup capital investment.
You must have organizing and management skills, possess leadership qualities, and have the ability to deal with different people. A degree or certificate in public relations is a plus but not an absolute necessity in this business.
3. Name Your Public Relations Agency Business
Selecting a proper relatable name is critical to success in the public relations agency business. Check this guide and learn the steps related to properly naming a business.
4. Create a Business Plan
Based on the information gathered through market research, write a business plan for your public relations agency. Write down, in brief, the objectives of starting this business, how you are going to run the business on a daily basis, and the financial and marketing plan. If you are looking for finance, it is advised to take help from professional plan writers.
Some of the chapters your PR agency business plan must include are as follows:
- Startup and recurring costs
- Target customers
- Services to offer
- Hiring plan
- Pricing modules
- How and where to sell your services
5. Get the Required Licenses
Talk to local competent authorities and get informed about the kind of licenses and permits required to start and run a public relations agency business in the desired locality. Accordingly, procure them.
6. Find Clients For Public Relation Agency
Any small and big businesses, professional individuals, celebrities, non-profit organizations, and even government agencies can be your client. Companies or businesses recruit public relation agency to promote their products or services. Furthermore, they are recruited to create a long sustainable relationship with their clients and to reach more potential customers.
Charity organizations, schools, and hospitals recruit public relation agency to promote fundraising events. Professional individuals and celebrities utilize public relation agency to communicate on their behalf with the media and their fans. Government entities often use public relation agency to communicate with the media about their plan of action and newly launched schemes for the public.
7. Set Pricing
As the PR activity is a customized service, fix pricing carefully. You can quote the service charge according to the assignment. You can fix the price by the individual project or go on a retainer rate.
8. Promoting Your Public Relations Agency
Identify your target audience first and communicate the right message. Research and study the motivations, concerns, likes, and dislikes of your prospective client. You must need to give customized solutions to every client. In today’s world, an online presence is a must.
a) Attendance at public events: As an owner of a public relations agency, you must take advantage of every public event and the opportunity to speak publicly.
b) Press releases: The press release is considered one of the most effective public relations tools.
c) Newsletters: Sending relevant information about the organization or/and its products/services – directly to the target audience is also a common method to create and maintain a strong relationship with the public.
d) Blogging: Blogging is considered the most powerful PR tool for digital media. In order to reach the online audience, using the digital forms of press releases and newsletters is the most effective tool and recently it evolves as micro-blogging.
e) Social media marketing: Social media networks are also utilized heavily by a public relations agency to establish direct communication with the public, consumers, investors, and other target groups.
If you are looking forward to starting a public relations agency, just to taste the water before jumping on a serious note, the investment is not nominal. To start a public relations agency from home, only a laptop with an internet connection and a smartphone is sufficient.
About the Author: 99businessideas.com led by Rupak Chakrabarty is committed to helping beginners, entrepreneurs, and small business owners in starting, managing, and growing their business. Our aim is to educate the entrepreneur on the various stages of entrepreneurship.