As you begin to establish your business, it is vital to understand the importance of also building a brand and being able to maximize its potential. When you think of the word “brand”, the first thing that may come to your mind is the specific name given to a particular product, service or business. This allows customers to easily identify you, or what you’re selling, and utilize that as they search for your product, service or business in general. As the term has evolved, much of the common understanding in the PR world is that a brand is what customers, clients or prospects automatically think of when they hear or read your brand’s name. It could be components such as your brand’s image, logo, reputation, product and/or service.
It is important to cultivate a brand and dedicate time to building it up because it truly encompasses your identity, image and reputation as a company. Without a solid brand foundation, a company can’t truly be successful due to the fact that target audiences won’t understand who you are or what you’re offering.
In the PR world, there are two different components of a brand: internal and external. The internal component covers the identity and core values of a company, as well as the company’s culture. The external aspect covers your company’s image and reputation. PR plays a vital role in both components, but especially in regards to the external aspect. PR experts build and maintain a brand’s image through their knowledge and expertise of brand protection. Through rapport and education, PR experts can reach out to credible third party outlets to publish content on your behalf, thus relaying to the public that your brand is also credible and reputable. Not only does this particular aspect of PR help to build and maintain the trustworthiness of your brand to the public, but also helps to simultaneously gain brand exposure.
Both internal and external components unite in order to form a strong brand identity. This is important for any brand of any size, both within the company as well as the target audience outside of the company, because it creates brand cohesiveness. This cohesion allows for everyone involved to be on the same page about who you are, what you have to offer and how you’re differentiated from your competitors.
In respect to maximizing the full potential of your brand, the external component is the one to master. A brand’s image and reputation is one of the most vital areas of a business, as it provides consumers with a lot of necessary information before they purchase from you. With a poor brand image, there is a lot of room for customers to shift towards your competitors if they feel as though your business isn’t trustworthy, well-known or reputable, and so on and so forth. A comprehensive marketing and PR approach to building your brand could ensure the maximization of your brand’s potential and invite customers to trust you and subsequently, purchase from you.
A traditional marketing approach helps to curate and execute strategies in order to entice audiences to engage with your brand and as a result, participate in the growth of your brand. You can purchase particular marketing packages that encompass an extensive, wide-range of options that can help you reach specific brand goals. Many of these tactics of digital marketing can include SEO, SEM and content marketing. These aspects allow for your business to pop up more easily when a potential customer searches for your business, product and/or service on the internet.
The PR approach encompasses outreach to key top-tier media outlets, as well as the content creation on your behalf, which allows your company to gain exposure and become more widely known to the public. A PR expert does this through previously cultivated relationships and rapport with reporters, which highly benefits your brand as those reporters begin to write about you and your business.
The blend of both marketing and PR will aid your company in dispersing key brand messages and developing a solid, long-lasting relationship with both your target audience as well as reporters. This dynamic approach can truly help in building a robust brand name and image, and assist in brand growth along the way.