Four proven PR strategies to help your brand stand out from the competition
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Free Content Series: Four proven PR strategies to help your brand stand out from the competition
2020 has been challenging for many brands to achieve earned media cut-through. Click below to get exclusive access to ‘4 Proven PR Strategies to Kickstart Your Brand’ and discover effective strategies to get your brand noticed and ultimately attract new business. Get simple-to-follow videos, downloadable guides and case studies from successful campaigns to achieve brand visibility, leaving the competition far behind.
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It goes without saying that many brands have experienced challenges during these unprecedented times, with earned media proving to be difficult as news and social feeds continue to be inundated with pandemic-related content. Due to these factors, many brands have chosen to go silent.
A new financial year brings new opportunities, however, so it’s critical to kick-start your brand’s communication plans by implementing simple, yet effective PR strategies to keep one step ahead, gain momentum and drive your business further.
Multi award-winning PR agency, Agent99 was not immune to the effects of COVID-19. By pivoting in order to create visibility for clients, however, it has gained valuable insights and, more importantly, achieved success during a highly challenging time.
Through this experience, the agency has gained insights into four key strategies that have proven to achieve excellent results. These simple, yet effective strategies can help your brand stand out, particularly during periods of extreme difficulties:
1. Media relations
It’s important during a crisis to be aware of what’s going on in the media and what is specifically happening in your own sector. Brands need to look at how they can join the conversation, and judge sensibly when they can truly have a voice or whether it’s best to stay quieter as a brand. Not being tone deaf is absolutely critical to success.
But how do you join the conversation if your brand doesn’t have any news to share? By finding the right hooks that can deliver a place for the brand’s call to action. Here are some examples:
Market research is highly effective. Knowing how consumers behave or your sector thinks about different topical issues creates strong news platforms. You can achieve this quickly, turning vital market research around in a short period of time, giving you information to drip feed via many earned and owned/paid channels for months.
When offering media and their audiences content, always ask – what’s in it for them? Don’t make the mistake of simply thinking about a message that benefits the brand. Identify that piece of information that is going to add a lot of weight to media stories, ultimately serving as a platform to showcase expertise. Or allow the brand to deliver news, with a purpose.
While it may seem easy for many brands to keep a low profile, those that are choosing to communicate with value, are succeeding.
Read more about media relations here.
2. Content creation
Whether it’s videos, webinar series or eNewsletters, every brand is creating some form of content to engage their audience. What does vary greatly, however, is how effective and how strong the content really is.
No longer is there a need for every piece of content produced to be of top production level quality. Many brands invest a lot of time and money to get that ‘Hollywood’ feel for their content. But more and more, consumers are engaging with content that is relevant to them and is delivered in a timely manner. If it looks a little rough round the edges, this is far less important than the quality and authenticity of the content. People understand that you are probably working under unusual and constrained conditions. What is key is to focus on the genuine value being offered to your audience.
Time and energy are best spent investigating what that content should actually offer – whether it’s asking the audience what they are looking for or conducting research into what’s trending in the industry. That way, brands can ensure that they are putting effort into creating sought after content.
Read more about content creation here.
3. Influencers
During COVID-19 the usage of social media platforms increased by a huge 61 percent (statistic provided by Forbes). Based on these figures, working with influencers and content creators to get that message across about your brand is more important than ever. Instagram is the key social platform for influencers; however, TikTok and Snapchat are also really efficient when it comes to achieving cut-through, depending on the demographic you’re targeting.
Remember, that one important question to ask is: with whom are you trying to connect? It’s about having the right content, building the right (and well-researched) relationships to get your message across via the right platforms.
A big misconception about working with influencers is that they require a large budget to secure their engagement, but that’s not necessarily the case. Many micro influencers, some with over 200,000 followers, are accessible for reasonable fees, or via contra deals.
Whether it’s a product review, or to engage with your product, an influencer partnership can achieve brand visibility when traditional marketing strategies may not.
Read more about influencers here.
Would you like to view the remaining strategy, as well as corresponding case studies for each strategy? ‘4 Proven PR Strategies to Kickstart Your Brand’ walks you through proven tactics to get your brand noticed. Get access straightaway by simply registering below:
This article was sponsored by Agent99PR to let readers know about ‘Four Proven PR Strategies to Kick-start Your Brand’. The content series contains proven tactics used by a number of Agent99’s clients as well as the agency itself, to achieve successful results.
Image credit: Creative Commons Images on Pexels.
