PR as communication tool

To live is to communicate. Communication is very important for existence of any human being. Communication is a process of sharing and expressing views, opinions, experiences and information. Not only personally, professionally also, communication is very important. Business organisations, corporates inform customers about their products/services/goods through the process of communication. 

With the increased competition among businesses, it becomes vital for organisation to effectively communicate with target customers. In order to so, big corporates have dedicated marketing communication departments which uses communication tools like advertising, Public Relations, direct Marketing, Personal Selling, Events to communicate with people. 

Advertising creatively and effectively communicates, aware and persuades audience to buy a particular product. Public Relations, on the other hand, has emerged as an effective communication tool for the companies which not only inform, but also helps in building the positive image of the company. 

It is a slow and continuous process. It helps in building trust and confidence among the customers about the company and product(s)/service(s) it offer. Effective PR campaigns not only produce results in good times, but a credible image of the company acts as its shield in bad times. 

PR managers give special attention to formulate, devise and implement PR campaigns. It identifies and dispels the causes and reasons of misunderstanding (if any) between organisation and its publics. People trust PR messages over advertising messages more because advertising is a paid medium, and PR media messages are perceived as directly coming from editor's desk.

It informs more in a modest way unlike getting superlative as advertising messages. With internet, now PR has transformed from being 2-way communication process to one-to-one communication process. PR process makes the audience to come to company for its product(s)/service(s) on its own. It leaves the audience on its own with complete information, for evaluation, and decide for themselves to come back to company or not. Thus, helping in building brand loyalty. 

PR is takes as an important communication tool because it helps in making the advertising credible and authentic. Thus, complementing advertising campaigns. 

PR is not only done for external public, but is done for internal public as well (employees). Internal PR helps in motivating and inspiring the company employees. It builds trust and inculcate the feeling of loyalty. It makes employees feel confident about the company, their pay scales (best in the market), work culture and job security. 

Internal PR also helps in cutting through the grapevine and giving more control in the hands of managers and top management. Thus, PR is an important and effective communication tool, because it is cost effective and give high return on investment on long term basis.

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