We’ll be the first to admit that thoughtfully activating PR is like sprinkling magical fairy dust on future-proofing your business. PR is vital for any brand for a heap of reasons.
Some that come to mind are:
- PR helps to manage reputation.
- PR assists with communicating and promoting the brand values that set your business apart from your competitors
- PR builds community, network and strengthens community around your business.
- PR builds trust and loyalty in your brand, assisting with brand recognition, building awareness and hype, which together support your sales strategy.
- PR improves your online presence and digital real-estate.
Really, we could be here for days listing the benefits of PR. For the purposes of this blog however, there are a heap of things that no matter how good your PR agency or PR consultant is, that PR just can’t fix.
Not getting these things in order first will not only limit the success of your PR investment but will also limit the strength, growth and ability of your business to secure a long and prosperous future.
Here are 8 things PR can’t fix:
01 For want of a better term, ugly branding. First impressions are everything in the competitive world of consumer goods. People decide if they’re going to buy or investigate more about your brand in less than a second.
02 An extension of our first point, bad packaging. This usually takes shape in the form of low-cost stock, imagery that is less than aspirational, over-crowded design assets and misaligned colour groupings. Nothing like a missed opportunity when a good product is in bad packaging.
03 Effective copy helps you to connect with your audience and stand-out as an authority. Good copy educates, enlightens, entertains, and engages your ideal customer often leading them to buy. Underwhelming copy will stop PR results in its tracks.
04 A poor customer experience. PR will do its job in generating and increasing inquiry for your business. But take-up or follow-through of purchase won’t happen if the user experience doesn’t live up to the hype. Make sure your team are briefed on what’s happening with PR. Months of PR efforts can be brought to its knees with an un-informed sales assistant.
05 Mismanaged allocations or product and service availability will bring great PR tumbling down never to be restored. Excuses like ‘it was Chinese New Year’ aren’t going to fly when a potential new shopper is exposed to incredible editorial generated by PR, which then leads them to a dead end in-store. Or a promise that can’t be fulfilled. Make sure that the timing of product availability and the ability to follow-through on the PR messaging is carefully considered in-line with the timing of your communications.
06 Not enough lead-time is the biggest and most common form of sabotage for any PR campaign. Educating audiences, building community and eliciting behaviour change takes time. PR done right is a process. PR with not enough lead-time is PR done wrong and just wont work. It’s better to hold-fire on an event launch, web launch, product launch or announcement, until it can be done effectively and to optimise the investment.
07 No budget to create news. Some businesses who seek out PR services just don’t have any news. And nothing noteworthy on the surface without the ability to unearth it. This might include things like competitor analysis, expert trend insights, customer behaviour research or the capacity to connect audiences through experience marketing, stunts and events. None of this can be some without budget.
08 A product or service people just aren’t interested in. Make sure you’ve done your category research and clearly defined a unique selling proposition before you dive in and start a business. A lot of start-ups don’t. And no amount of PR can save a business from a product or service that where there just isn’t market demand. Well, it probably could; but it would be short-lived.
Make sure you get these things right first, before you invest in PR. If you’re sure you’ve got everything above covered already; then it’s safe to say PR is your next best step.
Words by Jade Roberts
raraPR Founder and Director
raraPR is above all the sum of people who together help build brands and share stories. We are present in our determination to make a positive difference to the world by representing individuals and businesses that are doing good. We are an extension of the personal stories within us, those that we exist for and those within you that need to be heard.
