Harnessing The Power of Public Relations. by Obinna Inogbo.

At the highest business level, Public Relations (PR) is the difference between successful companies and timeless companies.  Lower down the business scale, it’s the difference between a new company and a company that survives its third birthday.

For public figures, PR is the difference between the B-list and the A-list.

At the government level, be it local, state or federal, PR is the difference between an angry or indifferent citizenry and a satisfied citizenry.

On a product brand level, it’s the difference between the brands people forget and the brands that people remember all the time.

Having deduced these common sense nuggets you’d think all the businesses, public figures, governments and product brands in the world would adopt PR, right? Wrong!

Unwillingness to spend money is the main reason why people don’t want to move from success to timelessness, or from anonymity to at least local awareness.

Why hide your light under a bushel? To be able to help others you must help yourself first.  PR is a management function that looks at a client internally and externally to see what affects them positively and negatively with the aim of making that client fulfil their highest potential. 

If you choose to operate without PR you may be successful but you will not fulfil your potential.

What does fulfilling potential mean? It goes beyond having a healthy bank balance because you can have that but your staff resign regularly, your local community idly stand by if your office building catches fire, your family are embarrassed about you, comments on your social media platforms refer to you as arrogant or out-of-touch, and you offer the same function as another product brand but people choose that brand regularly over yours…see what I mean?

Let’s address the internal regarding a client: internal stakeholders are very closely related to a client and know their inner workings.

For a company, a major internal stakeholder is their staff.  PR is the all-seeing eye that trains the client’s staff on soft skills and self-development to make them feel valued beyond payment of their salaries.  There are companies in Nigeria where staff haven’t been trained in years; companies where some self-motivated staff go outside the company to pay for soft skills and self-development trainings.  What do you think will happen when the self-motivated amongst these staff find another company that prioritizes staff training? Resignations galore! 

Staff are not the only internal stakeholders a client should be trying to please non-financially: the board of directors aren’t left out.  As a PR manager in charge of a client’s corporate communications, you should regularly look out for awards and honours which your client is eligible for.  Almost every industry has these and it’s a source of pride for the board of directors if the company they’re affiliated with is nominated for or wins awards in categories such as corporate social responsibility, employee engagement, employee satisfaction, best in their industry, best place to work and best CEO, just to name a few.  Many companies excel in these categories but the world doesn’t know because they either don’t have a PR manager or they have an unaware PR manager. 

The public figures’ internal stakeholders are their families; a government’s are their civil servants and principals, and product brands’ are their board of directors.

Moving on to the external stakeholders, these are just as important to please as the internal, but don’t have knowledge of the inner workings of the client.  I’ll examine some.

The media is an important external stakeholder for any client because they communicate the clients’ messages, good and bad, to as many people as possible: TV, Radio and the Internet reach millions so a PR manager must use the mass media to enhance their clients’ reputations via opinion editorials, CEO interviews, regular social media posts, hashtags, viral challenges, press releases, corporate advertising and press conferences.

A client’s operating environment is an external stakeholder that cannot be ignored by the client.  A client who shares an office building with other companies would gain so much goodwill by doing nice neighbourly things for their co-tenants such as giving them free snacks once a month or allowing them use of their Wi-Fi.  Those co-tenants would never let anything bad happen to that generous client! 

No client will fulfil their potential if they ignore the government of the country where they operate: a good PR manager will remind a client that their taxes need to be paid; that in our country Nigeria, national character must be reflected in staff hiring (gender, religion and tribe must be balanced); and also, that Nigerian culture must be respected as far as possible.  All these keeps the client on the right side of the law.

An industry regulator is an external stakeholder.  A client who becomes a member of their industry regulator is one that is interested in being timeless.  For the Nigerian musician and actor that means joining the Performing Musicians Association of Nigeria and Actors Guild of Nigeria, respectively; for Nigerian product brands that means contacting and fulfilling the needs of the Standards Organization of Nigeria.  Being a member of an industry regulator strengthens that industry, finances it through membership fees, improves the self-esteem of its members, creates familial connection amongst members and improves members’ knowledge, just to name some advantages.

Investing in PR is a must to be the absolute best company, government, public figure and product brand.  Whether new, a few years in or established, there is PR that suits your budget.  Obviously, the more established you get, the more you should invest in PR.  Results start to show after the first 3 months of engagement.

Because what we do as PR professionals doesn’t manifest immediately, I encourage my colleagues to add client acquisition to their list of services to justify their seats at their clients’ tables.  It’s a sure way to eradicate the “What have you done for me lately?” question which we often face from our clients.

• Obinna Inogbo is the Principal PR Executive at Worktainment Limited