Using PR To Build Your Brand
Public relation holds a strong place in building a brand, even among the continuing influence of social media which is a critical part of today’s successful media campaigns. For forthcoming brands, pubby sourcing and cultivating their relationshiplic relations assists in building a strong industry presence and for established businesses, it helps to expand their reach and set predefined goals when launching a new product or service.
A strong public relations strategy sets the groundwork for the marketing campaigns that come on later stages, sending sales messages through paid media, email marketing, or other promotional activities. In turn, paid media can magnify the intended third-party advertisement that PR gains through product reviews, influencer marketing and featuring the stories about the brand in articles and magazines.
To put it briefly, great PR takes part in each and every part of building a brand and maintaining its reputation throughout its existence.
Read the article below to know the benefits rendered by public relations in detail.
Selects The Right Communication Channels
PR helps brands identify their target audience and make use of the right communication channels to reach them. They gather information about your target audience by analyzing the topics they are interested in and what influences them. They use this information to devise content marketing strategies that make your brand a part of their interests.
As your brand takes part in their list of interests, it generates conversations which in turn can transform the target audience into a potential customer. So choosing the right communication channel to reach the target group needs quite a lot of industry expertise and that is exactly where PR excels.
Tells Your Brand Story
Public relations is the best way to tell the story of any business. Customers and potential investors always look forward to hearing a good story from the brand they are interested to invest in, and the better the story, the better the chance for you to engage your audience. Public relations does the same thing for your brand by telling the best-selling story about your brand, making your audience to turn their heads towards your business. PR can generate large returns when done correctly.
In the current era, customers are more educated than ever, with immense informational sources at their fingertips. Possessing a smartphone is more than enough to access expert opinion, reviews, analyst reports or social media discussions about a brand or product. In such a situation, all your brand needs are the support of PR that could best tell your stories through long-form content or described in a narrative form of a business or consumer magazine feature.
In short, public relations helps a company generate earned media coverage, aiding in creating an identity for your brand. Importantly, this increases industry presence of your brand and shows a steady increase in the sales chart.
Generates Credibility For Your Brand Message
When audiences are demanding authenticity, public relations serves as the most effective and credible way to communicate the message of your brand. Earned media coverage, such as the stories and interviews produced by PR, is always relevant and offers the kind of credibility that can never be compared to paid media like ads or owned content like blog posts or social media stories and interviews produced by PR.
Even though marketers allocate a larger sum of the budget to create own branded content, third-party endorsement gained from earned media coverage is found to be the most effective way to create credibility. It is even more powerful when earned coverage entails specific details or proof points, such as the behind-the-scenes feature on product development or a customer testimonial, establishing a strong brand identity. This makes the customers and potential investors trust the brand and think of starting a new relationship or continuing the present relationship with the brand.
Builds Customer Interest
Generating customer interest is the first thing to be considered by a brand when setting its foot into the market. Public relations can help your brand by devising strategies that generate customer interest. It creates awareness, and when executed rightly, the strategy drives sales to your business. Especially for new and emerging brands, a public relations campaign helps to set the narrative, creates the buzz needed right enough to create an interest among the target group. This often results in producing a solid customer following for the brand.
PR professionals can do this by sourcing and cultivating their relationships with journalists to obtain earned media coverage while using social media and digital marketing channels to contact customers directly. They produce content that makes the leaders of B2B and B2C brands picture as respected thought leaders in their industry. They make use of a column on the company’s blog, executive bylines in management journals or credible content on social media to keep customers up to date with the latest news and trends in the company.
Generates Investor Interest
Organic media coverage plays a vital role in the decision-making of many investors and capital firms. They see it as an important factor to consider as part of their commitment to proffering the brand with capital, making it an important tool for brands to have in their reputation building list.
PR professionals can build this much-needed reputation for B2B and B2C companies by closely working with industry journalists to place stories in prominent and valued publications. This provides investors with a portfolio of company-related updates, assisting them to take decisions. The company’s drive for having great PR shows the capability of the brand to invest in its professional image, a clear picture of the market and a commitment to long-term growth. These are all clear indicators that a company is on the right track and investors look for such things before investing in any brand.
Establishes A Personality To The Brand
PR helps to develop a personality for your brand by involving people related to your organization. It can be customer testimonials, employee motivation or community impact. Leave the worries of developing a read-worthy story to your PR agency or department and let them come up with a story that could make your target group get connected to you.
PR professionals understand that employees are both a rich source of stories and a powerful channel through which the stories can be very well communicated to the customers. It adds credibility to the reputation of the employer. This, in turn, increases the visibility of your brand and creates an impact on your audience.
Adds Value To The Brand
Public relations play a crucial role in driving greater valuations to a brand. To get a good return on investment, investors look forward to investing their money in brands that are reliable and expansive and possess a positive brand image. For companies, it is essential to regularly engage with the investor, expressing the core values and goals of their company and foresight for better performance in the future.
Positive mentions and continuous exposure in press releases helps in determining the brand image of a company. The capability to prove an influential track record, industry interest, successful product placement and trust from consumers can play a vital role in determining valuation at the stages of investment and sales.
Statistics That Explain The Need For PR
We have come up with statistics that help you better understand the need for PR in building your brand. This will give you an insight why you should opt for PR without giving it a second thought.
Stat 1. B2B companies that post blogs on their website continuously generate 67% more leads per month on average than non-blogging ones.
This justifies the importance of producing content on a regular basis. Be it through thought leadership, case studies, opinion pieces, round-ups of panels or press releases, having a constant flow of original content can help brands profit tremendously.
Stat 2. Millennials are 247% more likely to get influenced by blogs or social networking sites.
Like it or not, millennials are going to be a huge audience in the coming days. They are the demographic that excels with technology, challenging the way society operates. This generation depends on social media or blog content for news, information or recommendations. As the millennials begin to take over, which means that the brands should become more social media friendly and more tech-savvy. Public relations industry will adapt to their likes, dislikes and trends, helping you stay on top of the trend.
Stat 3. 96% of B2B customers look forward to read content with more input from industry thought leaders.
Customers want to hear from you. From opinions on current events, industry trends to market changes, there are many thought-pieces that adds an element of trust to the brand. They recognize your expertise and bring leads to your brand.
Stat 4. 70% of customers wish to know a company via articles rather than ads.
Customers wish to know the people behind the brand, their thoughts and opinions on the industry they’re operating. Customers prefer such kind of thought leadership over the ad experience.
Stat 5. 68% of consumers are more likely to spend their time reading content from a brand they are interested in.
Many think that writing a thought-piece on their industry is a waste of time, but 68% of customers wish to read this content from brands they prefer.
Stat 6. 60% of customers are more likely to be on the lookout for products when looking at content marketing.
It’s not just that customers like reading content from your brand, but they also take part in the buying cycle, watching for potential products while reading your articles.
Stat 7. SEO leads have a 14.6% close rate.
While outbound leads like direct mail or print advertising have a 1.7% close rate, leads gained through SEO has closer rates more than that. Those users who are redirected to your website from a PR piece have a high chance of closing, compared to other outbound marketing tactics. They are found to be better-qualified leads to your website.
Stat 8. True rumours are confirmed within around 2 hours, but it takes over 14 hours for the average false rumour to be debunked.
A company of any size doesn’t want a bad rumour going around out there. A PR team can assist in debunking any false information faster rather than handling the issue internally.
Conclusion
Good PR can aid in developing valuable consumer relationships. Customers prefer business with brands they trust, and personalized PR is one other technique to capture the attention of a potential customer. PR professionals create and communicate what your business is about and it’s persona to reach the public or you might say a consumer. Getting to know a brand from a positive story published about the brand in the media or recommended by a reputed reporter or expert in the industry are a priceless piece of PR. This builds brand recognition, credibility and trusted customer relationships, resulting in a rise in sales.
Companies should commit to excel in everything they do as part of their brand building strategy. PR hells in spotlighting the difference the brand is making, how their work has transformed the lives of their customers and how they can follow the same approach for the new customers.
Some companies opt for in-house PR department, while some hire a public relations agency. But before going for a PR agency or setting up a new department in your organization, ensure that you’re clear about the story and message that your brand should communicate to your audience. Have a clear understanding of your Unique Selling Point (USP). This prevents you from getting stuck in the midway as you start the PR campaign.
In short, PR is an effective way to build a brand, interact with the target market and bring in further investment. You can either invest in an in-house team or partner with a great PR agency to help you on your path to building your brand.
