Whatever business you’re in, press releases and PR campaigns can be a crucial factor in your success. Sure, your core business – customers, employees and profits – are the most important areas as far as maintaining a healthy business; yet if you overlook the PR angle, you may find that your company stagnates and you miss out on the potential for extra growth and profits. Making sure you have the right PR campaign, however, is even more important than not having one at all.

One of the things I always discuss with my clients is their demographic. With online business making the global marketplace ever smaller, it’s important that the right audience for your product is being approached. So, for example, if you run a skateboarding accessory store you’re probably wasting money if you try and get your latest news into Retirement Home Monthly.

The same goes for meat wholesalers – why would you try to attract the attention of media or news outlets specializing in the vegetarian industry? So, know your demographic and work with your PR agency at how to best get this market’s attention.

Using all the available tools can also make a big difference in how successful your press release and subsequent PR campaign is. Although you can still just rely on newspapers and TV/radio to get your news across, now there are so many other – and more effective – avenues for promotion.

Social media networks like Digg and Newsvine are excellent examples – get a PR campaign right on one of these and watch the interest in your news soar. Viral marketing on Facebook or MySpace is another excellent method of reaching a far wider audience than traditional PR methods might result in. Just look at how the Presidential candidates are using this medium as an example of how important it is.

One of the newer forms of promoting your business or even personal news is by video PR. Making a short film and uploading it to the likes of Youtube can offer you the potential of a truly worldwide audience. If you’re looking to attract a more local audience, then websites like PromoVideos and Jippidy let you target specific cities and areas, as well as letting you upload your business video advert for free.

Imagine if you own a seafood restaurant in New York and you use a specifically targeted PR video and press release campaign targeting seafood lovers in your area. They can look at your video and immediately see what you offer. This kind of “immediate PR” is invaluable and the way forward for both business promotion and PR.

If you really want to make the most of any PR campaign, I would advise you start making contacts within the PR industry before you actually need them. This way you can benefit from their advice prior to actually putting your campaign together. There’s nothing worse than thinking you have a great idea, only to find out that it won’t work due to a small demographical or audience-related point – the cost to rethink the campaign could be pretty expensive.

Having a PR agency on call to brainstorm ideas beforehand can mean the difference between a smooth campaign and one that needs constant adjustment. Having an early relationship with a PR agency will also allow them to get to know your business prior to any campaign, and again this will make for a seamless transition from idea to hard marketing and promotion.

I’d like to thank Manoj for allowing me to share my thoughts with you this week, and hopefully I’ve offered you some helpful insight into using PR alongside your ongoing online marketing strategies.

* For more PR news and opinion from Danny Brown please visit the Press Release PR blog.