What PR means to your bottom line
Have you ever looked at one of your competitors, possibly with a little tinge of jealousy, and thought, “That brand is everywhere.”
When you turn on the news, splashed across your favorite website, in your industry’s leading publication, and even on all the cool kids’ social media feeds.
Their media presence really makes a difference.
Can you say the same about yours?
If you are looking to establish your brand as a leader in its industry, gain a loyal customer following, shorten your sales cycle, and retain a positive brand image in the public eye, then you need PR.
That’s right, PR can help boost your brand and bottom line.
While it’s often viewed as a luxury or a nice-to-have marketing perk, an effective PR strategy will have a positive influence on all facets of your business—including sales, thought leadership, reputation, employee morale, and client retention—which will ultimately impact your bottom line.
Still not convinced PR is for you?
Here are three reasons why PR should be at the top of your to-do list if you want to grow your brand’s bottom line.
PR shapes your image
Every brand has a story that showcases why it’s special.
Are you sharing yours?
Using PR, you can create key messages that defines who you are, what you do, and how you’re different from your competitors.
Having this messaging in place promotes consistency and prevents any confusion.
It also helps you to tell your story, on your own terms.
Not only does establishing your key messages determine how you want to be heard, it also takes into consideration how you want to be seen.
Your brand is more than just a combination of brand colors, a logo, your website design, which font style you prefer, and the like.
You also need to take into account how you want people to think, feel, speak, and act when they come in contact with your brand.
PR can help shape this in your favor.
When everyone at your brand is following the same script and understands the key messages that need to be conveyed, your entire presence comes across as more polished and professional.
PR builds awareness and credibility
With PR’s help, your thought leaders will become trusted experts on topics important to your clients and customers.
This can be done through media interviews, speaking opportunities, and social media posts to name a few.
Having a consistent content promotion strategy can help increase your SEO rankings and drive more traffic to your website.
Part of this strategy should include posting content on a regular basis to your own brand-specific blog, as well as including links to other related blogs posts, interviews, eBooks, and infographics.
PR protects and manages your reputation
While it may not as fun as creating your brand’s color palette, having a crisis communications plan prepared before a crisis occurs will give you peace of mind and one less thing to worry about when all the decision-makers are in a panic.
A crisis communications plan will enable you to respond quickly and control the story before you find yourself reacting and on the defensive.
For your crisis communications plan to be effective, you’ll have to think about possible scenarios that could spiral into a crisis. A few that come to mind include a high-level (or high-profile) executive leaving your business, any government or regulatory investigations, or even a scandal involving one of your customers.
The key is to be prepared. You’ll thank yourself later.
In this situation, the role of PR is to protect and manage your reputation while implementing stellar campaigns that keep your brand in a positive light.
And your customers waiting in line to buy from you.
PR shortens your sales cycle
Why go through all of the effort of building and maintaining a credible and helpful reputation through PR?
To shorten your sales cycle, of course.
Ask anyone about PR and what they hope to accomplish with their efforts, and most will say that their end goal with PR is being able to reach audience to whom they want to sell to.
PR is all about communicating the right message, to the right people in a way that supports a brand’s sales objectives to elicit a response that’s then seen in the sales cycle, after all.
This can be achieved through PR by:
Distributing news and announcements around your brand to build awareness of its mission and your relevance in the market.
Building credibility and expertise by speaking openly and being well-informed about industry topics and trends that impact your customer base.
Offering unique opinions that establish you (or your brand) as a thought leader helping to influence the industry and shape its landscape.
Nurturing relationships and driving conversions by involving both new and loyal customers in your brand’s community
PR is more than a tactical tool for creating brand awareness. Rather, it is a key strategy for nurturing relationships that matter in order to drive conversions and grow your brand’s bottom line.
