Introduction
Public Relations (PR) refers to the process of ensuring proper communication between a person, a business or a nonprofit making organization and the public to maintain a good image. A public relation consultant is the person concerned with the above task and ensures that his clients and his company have a positive image towards the public.
Most of the companies and organizations have a public relation consultant who deals mostly with the public. Some of the duties of a public relation consultant include dealing with press conferences, works on any information to be publicized on media houses, introducing new products to the public, advertising the company’s product, preparing speeches and representing the company in the community projects[1].
The major concern of a public relation consultant is to portray a positive image of his company to the public. The following essay will explore the field of public relation consultant as per the advantages and disadvantages, the Cost of Element of a public relation firm, how to meet the cost element of a PR firm and the qualification of a PR practitioner.
Advantages of a public relation consultant
A public relation consultant enables the company to reach as many people as possible without incurring much expense in advertisement. Unlike advertising bodies that only portray the positive image of a company by praising it, PR consultant analyzes a company objectively and critically, enabling the clients to understand the company well without bias or exaggeration.
People from different fields of specialization consult public relations firms, thus enabling them to get diversified experience. This makes it easier for the PR firms to fit well in the competitive job market. In addition, people working in fields such as health, business, mass communication, education may consult public relation specialist thus giving them experience in their field of specialization. For instance, they may be acquainted with knowledge on the condition of the market, budgeting, media, among others[2].
Public relations consultants equip its clients with a good reputation and improve their level of competency in the market. Through their advice, they will help their clients to be outstanding and differentiate one business from the other.
If the client is not contented with the services of a consulting firm, he can terminate the contract with due notice. This is an advantage to the clients since he/she can be able to get the best consulting services possible.
Through PR services, the public tend to trust one firm’s services and to have confidence in its business. This means that Public Relations improves credibility a great deal.
Since one of the PR areas of specialization is in the matters of press, their publication concerning the business gives it the image of a star. Most people like to associate with celebrities; thus, they will flock in the business due to the image portrayed by PR.
When a business puts long-term investments to PR, there is a gradual improvement in the profit margins. This is because of the continued public awareness concerning your business, thus increases in sales and therefore benefits of the economies of scale (Hunter, 2009).
Disadvantages of public relation consultant
A public relations firm may be having insufficient information concerning a client’s field of specialization, thus making a minor impact to the well-being of his business. A public relation consultant may be targeting to taint the image of a company he is working for thus leading to its downfall.
Over time, the public image of PR consultants has been tarnished, making the public have a negative attitude towards them. Actually, the media has been in the front line trying to convince the public on the dishonesty of the PR consultants. This has in turn led to most companies shying away from private investors in this field or having their own within their companies.
The cost element of a Public Relations Consulting Firm
The value of public relation consultancy is not defined but it varies according to the type of business. The biggest challenge in valuing public relations comes from the definition of value, which refers to the monetary worth or material return according to commerce or relative worth. When relative worth comes, it means it is in comparison with something and will differ depending on the region since perceived value differs geographically.
Therefore, a PR can be compared to the following elements in order to achieve its value; “Initial need of the buyer, initial need if the seller, perceived desire of the buyer, perceived desire of the seller, perceived value of the service, perceived value of the service relative to other service, perceived value of the service delivery person, perceived value of the client” [3]. In most cases, PR deals with service delivery, which takes different time lengths for preparation.
Ways of paying the cost element of a PR firm
When meeting the cost of a PR firm, it is recommendable to pay for performance in order to ensure accountability from the PR consultants. The image of PR has been tainted for a long time because, for a long time, the clients have been paying for the workload and not the quality of the services.
For instance, most of them have been demanding large amounts of retainers for them to continue with their service to the clients. They have been used to long endless meetings of which the client has to pay for the sitting allowances depending on the length of time spent, and regardless of the quality of their press release, fees had to be paid for it[4].
To save the situation, most clients are now insisting on paying for performance rather than the workload or time. This is a great challenge to the traditional form of PR since clients used to pay lump sums without a guarantee that the PR consultants will meet their aim. The notion that was there traditionally that the service provided had to be paid for anyway made the PR consultants lack accountability.
Paying for performance model is closely related to ROI (Return on Investment), which is a performance measure that examines the efficiency of different kinds of investment.
To get the value of ROI, you divide the difference between gain of an investment and the cost of the investment by the cost of investment. In this case, the cost of investment should be lower than the gain from the investment. When PR services are paid according to performance, it becomes easier to value its cost with confidence that both the consultant and the client are contented[5].
Qualification of a PR practitioner
Basing our essay Britain Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR), a public relations consultant must be a holder of the following qualifications. To be a member of CIPR, a person must have either a CIPR diploma in public relations, or 4 years experience in PR and ratified CIPR qualifications, or 6 years experience in PR and provide a Certificate of Professional/ Personal Development 1year after joining, or 10 years experience in PR. To be an associate of CIPR, one must be a holder of an advanced certificate in PR or ratified CIPR qualifications or 3years experience in PR[6] (ABE, 2006, pg 446)
Apart from the professional qualification, a PR ought to have excellent writing skills since most of their work is based in writing press release. He has to be inquisitive and skeptical in order to be able to understand the concept behind each organization. This is because PR consultants explain to others about a certain business or organization thus he should have a broad knowledge in each field e is dealing in. He should be intellectually curious on doing PR in new ways and being expectant[7].
A PR ought to be enthusiastic and passionate in carrying out his duties by examining each part of his work optimistically. He should be dedicated in his work due to the stiff competition in the market and should be updated.
He should ensure that he works with integrity and practice transparency in all his articles to avoid tainting his image and that of his clients. He should be humble since dealing with public may at times be humiliating and should share his discoveries generously. Moreover, he should be flexible such that he able to embrace change with little challenges and ready to learn new technology[8].
Conclusion
Public relations department plays a major role in every organization because it determines its public image and the welfare of the company. Either it can be part of an organization or it can be employed privately. This kind of job has its pros and cons, thus needs to be handled with care.
In the world we are living in today, it is important to gauge the efficiency of the PR performance since if not carried out diligently; it can be hard for a company to shine in the competitive job market. The PR personnel should acquire the necessary attributes through training before practicing consultancy.
Bibliography
Binkley, Sheena. PR job duties, 2010. Web.
Horton, James. What does it cost? The value of PR services, 2002. Web.
Konanykhin, Alexander. When It Comes To PR, Pay For Performance, Not Time, 2010. Web.
Michelle, Sullivan. Top 10 qualities of a PR practitioner in the digital age, 2009. Web.
Page, Kogan. British Qualification: A Complete Guide to Professional, Vocational and Academic Qualifications in the UK. London, Kogan Page Limited, 2006. Web.
Reddi, Narasimha. Effective public relations and media strategy. New Delhi, Asoke K. Ghosh, 2009. Web.
Footnotes
- Sheena Binkley, PR job duties, 2010.
- Narasimha Reddi, Effective public relations and media strategy, (New Delhi, Asoke K. Ghosh 2009) , pg 119.
- James L. Horton, What does it cost? The value of PR services, 2002.
- Alexander Konanykhin, When It Comes To PR, Pay For Performance, Not Time, 2010.
- Alexander Konanykhin, ibid.
- Kogan Page, British Qualification, (London, Kogan Page Limited, 2006), pg 446.
- Michelle Sullivan, Top 10 qualities of a PR practitioner in the digital age 2009.
- Michelle Sullivan, ibid