A PR team has insights into the trends that face their company's brand, this is no more evident when faced with a crisis. Suddenly, the daily work of brand monitoring and social listening becomes indispensable.
Your PR team will spend much of its time on social media monitoring your image and brand name. The average business will spend 11% of their budget on social media marketing alone this year. The power of PR has the potential to completely reinvent your brand image.
It can help you win back unhappy customers and repair your company image when it’s in the doldrums. This guide is going to show you five of the reasons why you should be listening to your PR team.
Tip: Check out these massive PR trends you should be aware of in 2022!
Maintain the Reputation You Already Have
Making ill-timed remarks can back you into a corner, leaving you on the defense. Businesses are never going to feel comfortable in this position, and your PR strategies are not going to cater to it. The PR professional will help you to get out of this corner and stop you from being on the defensive.
You have to work with them if you’re going to get through a crisis relatively unscathed. They’ll also act to stop them from happening in the first place. The fewer controversies associated with your name the stronger your reputation is going to become going forward.
Getting Your Message to the Right People
Your public relations team will help you to eliminate any inconsistencies within your messaging. Once you say something your PR team is going to act to make sure your meaning isn’t obscured anywhere along the way. A misinterpreted comment can do a lot to deflate your company. Boost team morale by making sure your PR team is ensuring the right message is getting across.
The danger with the Internet these days is your words can be misinterpreted. Even perfectly innocuous comments can be taken the wrong way, whether unintentionally or maliciously. Getting your message across with the help of your PR team will stop this from happening.
Don’t Let Negative Momentum Wash You Away
Take a look at Donald Trump for a master class in how to stop negative momentum from washing you away. Negative press can build and build until the pressure becomes too much and your company’s reputation is left in tatters. Donald Trump might be able to get away with it, but it’s far from an ideal situation to be placed in to begin with.
A solid PR team can make sure the news coverage you’re getting is leaving the right impression on the audience. They’ll make sure your name is being built based on substance, as opposed to a PR stunt that left you with a few minutes of fame. PR specialists will hold you to a higher standard that will preserve your reputation in the long term. These are the best reputation management companies to help you with that.
Not All Attention Is Wanted Attention
The biggest misconception marketers have is that all press is good press. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Even the greatest marketer can’t spin absolutely everything into something positive. There are many figures in the business world that have said the wrong things at the wrong time and found themselves unable to cope.
Believe it or not, the best press is the inane press you find in the business pages. Controversy can work for you, but you never can tell which way it’s going to go until it actually happens.
Your PR team will stage manage exactly what you’re saying to make sure you’re not making any big mistake. They’ll allow you to present the vision and goals of your company without burning bridges.
Make Your Goals Clear
A lot of figures outline their views and get in the news all the time. Not all of this coverage is necessarily contusive to achieving an end goal. The fact is the press time you do get should be used to contribute to your long-term future. There’s little point in wasting your marketing content on something that isn’t going to lead to a better company in the long-term.
The goal of any PR team is to make sure your marketing material is consistent with your views. The last thing you want is to have lots of content that says entirely different things. Mixed messages are an easy way to confuse your customers, and it’s unlikely to lead to any sales.
Conclusion–Getting Marketing Right
Your PR team doesn’t have to be a huge team that eats up most of the company’s budget. A single PR specialist can help you to fine-tune your marketing strategy so you know you’re hitting the right people. Getting this right will ultimately be a boon for your company in the long-term.
A big part of managing your reputation is in the case of possible crisis management. Hopefully, you’ll never need it, but the time to prepare for crisis, is before it hits. To always be prepared, download our free ebook, Media Intelligence for Crisis Communications.
We originally published this post to our site on August 19, 2016. On Saturdays, we republish content, in case our readers missed them the first time around. This article was written by David Wither from Business2Community and was legally licensed through the NewsCred publisher network.
