Why is PR a Necessity For 2023?
For businesses wanting to increase their brand awareness, take part in expert-led conversations, and drive leads to their website, PR is the secret ingredient. Why? As 2023 is now well underway, we wanted to discuss why PR is key for brands to invest in this year, as the perfect public relations strategy can tackle an oversaturated market to ensure your company is getting heard above the background noise.
The Importance of Brand Image
Whilst establishing credibility within your business industry, a consistently strong brand image fuels loyalty, trust and connection between an organisation and its clients/customers. Having the best product or service is a top priority for a business. But without a recognisable brand image, a company risks falling into the background of its competitors.
Reaching the Right Audience
Understanding your market is key to success. Putting a brand out there is all well and good, but if it isn’t reaching the right audience, the marketing and PR efforts are put at risk.
As mentioned above, a calculated brand image will allow a company to ensure it is reaching the right audience. An effective PR strategy will identify an accurate target market and focus on appealing and selling to that particular audience. This can be done in several ways;
- Targeting industry-specific publications to entice their readers,
- Hashtags on social media
- Engaging in the relevant conversations through social posts.
Reaching the right audience also allows a brand to evaluate their engagement to see how they are performing within the industry to keep up with consumer perceptions, demands and expectations.
Appearing as an Expert
A significant part of the trust a target audience has in a brand lies in their perception that the organisation is an expert in their field. Whilst it might seem obvious and expected that a company would have knowledge of the industry they are in, by actively seeing them engage with key trends and topics, it will help to communicate to an audience that the company is an expert in their field.
Additionally, by creating frequent thought leadership articles on industry-led discussions, or social media posts interacting with other experts on critical topics, businesses can express their industry knowledge and be involved in conversations in real-time.
Getting Heard Above the Noise
As the world becomes increasingly digital, it has become more complex for brands to stand out amongst the crowd. Gone are the days of only having to interact with a select few publications to get your message across, as online media continues to grow beyond anyone’s expectations.
While online users are constantly bombarded with content from numerous companies, including competitors, it is fundamental to understand your audience and what they want in order to create content that resonates with them. Evaluating trends and recognising what topics your audience is engaging with is a useful tool to help guide your own content. Ask yourself:
- What topics are the most relevant at present?
- How can you provide a different angle to stand out?
Contributing to existing conversations and remaining consistent can also help with building a presence that is recognisable to your audience.
An effective PR strategy that makes use of the techniques above will allow you to tell your brand’s story, connect with your target audience, and build brand awareness that is catered to how you want your business to be perceived. Now, we might be biassed, but we definitely believe that PR is a necessity for 2023. If you are interested in making sure that your brand stands out this new year, get in touch with the team at prworks@neopr.co.uk
