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'Media & Communication:' Is Your Firm Ready for PR?
As a publicist, I often speak with law firms who are interested in implementing a public relations program. Often times, the firm has never engaged in public relations and is not familiar with what such a program entails. They do recognize that public relations has value but are not certain of its role as part of a business development and marketing program.
What Does PR Do?
Public relations is often confused with marketing, but they are not the same thing. However, the two areas are complementary — it is hard to have one without the other. Public relations is mostly concerned with how a company interacts with its audience and the public in general. While marketing focuses on selling, PR focuses on relationship building. A good PR strategy might involve working on content creation, managing social media accounts, interacting with clients online and offline, and talking to the press.
Public relations can serve as a distinctive tool for building and extending a firm's reputation, practice area differentiation and expert thought leadership. Public relations is all about relationship building, not just with the media but also with target audiences. Unlike advertising, public relations (specifically media outreach) is third-party endorsement of your firm and practice. A stranger making kind comments about you is much more powerful than you telling the world how wonderful you are.
Why Is PR Necessary?
You may believe that since business is good and you have no trouble attracting clients, that PR is unnecessary. However, this good fortune may not last forever. Many factors can impact your business negatively such as an economic downturn or new regulations affecting your industry (e.g. tort reform). In the last decade or so, many national law firms have opened offices in Texas. This has made the legal market extremely competitive in the state, especially in Dallas and Houston. In addition, these national firms are luring talented attorneys away from local firms.
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