What comes to mind when you think of public relations? Most people would envision a meticulously planned campaign that involves pushing out a templated press release with lots of fancy-sounding words and endlessly tracking vanity numbers like ‘reach’ and ‘impressions’.
What if I told you that this cookie-cutter approach is often ineffective, and fails to add value to your brand equity in the long-run? As PR partners, the kind of outreach that we drive for our clients needs to be a lot more nuanced. The pandemic has also forced companies around the world to rethink their marketing dollars, which means it’s more important for us to ensure we’re delivering the best bang for every buck.
Public relations is a diverse practice that has the potential to do wonders for your business and brand goals—when used effectively. Here are some examples of how different types of businesses can focus their PR strategy to deliver maximum impact for their profile and goals:
A tech start-up that’s trying to get more investors
Having worked with at least a dozen different startups in Southeast Asia, there are three things I believe will certainly help put you on the map—numbers, numbers and more numbers.
A good start would be to talk about how fast your business or team is expanding, how many customers you’re engaging, or the size of the market you’re looking to capture. Quantify these (as much as possible) to give potential investors a clear picture of your potential for growth and the impact your business is already driving.
On the tactical side, focus on pitching to specific industry-focused media, or Tier-1 names in the technology & start-up space. This will help you gain more visibility among relevant investor audiences.
A B2B company that wants to win more clients
Now this one is trickier—B2B companies often have to work a lot harder to be visible, valued and understood, as opposed to everyday consumer brands.
If your goal is to get the attention of (and eventually convert) potential clients, start by highlighting the unique strengths of your product or service, and prove how it drives results for your customers. An excellent way to do this is through case-studies featuring real, existing clients, that help build authenticity and trust among business audiences.
Another great approach is to leverage unique assets like data-driven reports and gated content. Not only will this position you as an experienced and original thought-leader in the industry, but it’s also a proven lead-generation method that brings in more qualified leads.
For an integrated approach, you can also optimise your SEO and social strategy to feature and push content that is most relevant to your potential clients.
A big corporation that’s trying to boost reputation
Big corporations can sometimes find that their audiences have started to disconnect. This usually happens when the brand has an old and outdated narrative that younger generations don’t relate with. A comprehensive strategy to tackle this would be to refresh your messaging and ensure it is relevant for newer audiences and their cultural context.
That being said, companies may not always have the means or motivation to undertake a change of this scale. But the desired impact can still be achieved by leveraging your people. Positioning top executives as authority figures (through media opportunities and organic content) can help establish your industry expertise, or even putting a spotlight on employees to humanise your brand can make it seem more approachable.
Long story short, PR is most effective when personalised—and your brand needs an agency partner that understands this. At Mutant, we make it a practice to sit down with every single client and understand the brand’s profile and business goals, which is used to meticulously tailor strategies for success.
From determining what messages to highlight, to identifying the right media outlet for every audience type, we’ve done it all. Email [email protected] to find out how!