it’s common for business to fall due to a lack of proper public relations. Public relations is a key piece of marketing and an essential tool for driving mutually beneficial relationships, which can lead to new business prospects, ultimately generating revenue for the company. Although many companies think it is costly and unnecessary to hire a PR firm, experts in public relations emphasise that companies of all sizes can benefit from PR services, as working with a public relations firm can dramatically increase the growth of your business and help you be the best in your industry. Justin Racheal, a business leadership coach in Kigali, notes that PR agencies that are professional, mandate themselves to act as ‘think tanks’ providing well thought experiential marketing and brand ideas. This enables organisations to attract targeted audiences in a more inclusive manner since the creative ideas from PR agencies help clients, or beneficiaries, to feel like part of the organisation. The upside here is the creation of a portfolio of loyal clients, she says. “The PR agencies have gained trust because they invest in research and market intelligence, plus recruitment of credible experts in different fields, for example, business strategists, market research analysis, strategic marketing, and branding, human resource management, corporate scandals, and business risk management, as well as corporate communication, among others. This has well placed them for engagement by especially large corporations,” Racheal states. She adds that as the saying goes, ‘two heads are better than one’ , PR agencies are a team of experts and can, therefore, collectively think or create for a given company more than a single individual in that company like PR officers and sales managers, product development managers, brand managers, among others. The business leadership coach also says that it is not every day that you find a single individual who can deliver as efficiently as a team of experts. Daniel Ganza, a PR consultant in Kigali, explains that any business without a good public relations strategy is as good as one with disabilities; that business is dumb, mute and blind and because of these disabilities, the company struggles to express itself and its relationship with the public is affected. To Ganza, the CEO or founder of this company wonders why they communicate about their company but no one seems to care or understand them, he or she wonders why they have similar static results, but it’s because they aren’t listening to the public, or see the necessary opportunities and changes they have to make to thrive in a very competitive market. Public relations shape an organisation’s image. They build the brand, spread the organisation’s message, and minimise the effect of negative publicity. Public relations activities involve generating positive attitudes of people towards the company. To make them think about and act with the company positively, public relations activities are performed keeping in view the different communities. Knowing how to interact and convince these people gives the company more value, impact, and profitability in its endeavours, Ganza notes. The PR consultant also adds that PR firms assist in attracting investors by showing that you are credible and produce strategies that target investors at the right time, and reduce the costs of having to use different tactics that businesses are required to do now in order to grow and bring in new clients. Ganza adds that hiring a PR firm is extremely beneficial since they use targeted media outlets. These media outlets use target media campaigns that can generate new clients and investors, hence helping you save time.
