Today’s marketing landscape is fragmented and intertwined. It’s difficult to extrapolate impact each discipline has on sales to establish a bullet-proof marketing strategy. Within this marketing mix, Public Relations has a defined role, as the tool that helps the public form a positive perception of a business. Perception is multi-layered, built via a raft of rational and emotional factors. It is what a customer believes a brand stands for, not what a brand says it stands for.

Good PR will pull an audience towards a business and pique their interest. Where advertising should create desire, PR should drive meaning and encourage a customer to engage and want to learn more. Today’s digital landscape is the perfect environment for the PR discipline.

In many cases, PR is built from ‘third parties’ - trusted influencers, for example media, celebrities, other businesses referring their reader, fans, customers to the business. 

Back in 1996 when I started my career in PR, we used to explain the discipline with this very ‘PR’ adage:

A woman walks into a bar. A man approaches her and tells her how good he is and why she needs him. That’s advertising. Another man keeps interrupting this conversation buying drinks, being distracting, that’s direct marketing. Another woman walks over. She points to a man sitting alone at the bar and says – you need him. That’s the PR guy.

So what is Brand PR?

Brand PR is the strategic communications framework that will differentiate a brand within its market. What use is the value of media coverage if the ‘story’ is built just to pique media interest and makes no meaningful connection for the brand and its target audience? What use is a high-profile influencer endorsing a product if most of their followers are not actively in the right market to buy?

Brand PR makes strategic connections. It gives a brand a story and voice that will resonate with the target consumer to drive a sale. The value in Brand PR is that each communication at every touch point is building towards a differentiated equity and stronger brand value. 

Does your brand differentiate in your market? When a consumer is faced with your product, does it speak to them in a different way to all the many other brands they could choose from?

Recent research from Sprout Social tells us:

·        64% of consumers want brands to connect with them

·        57% will increase their spending with a brand when they feel connected to it

·        When 76% feel a connection to a brand, they will buy it over a competitor

We recently explained people build a bond with a brand and purchase using emotion – quoting Deloitte who found 62% of long-term customers feel they have a relationship with the brand.

What has your brand done to build a relationship with its customers? What emotional value has your brand delivered that is more than the product you have sold to them? 

Vista’s mission is to build value into a brand as an independent asset to its portfolio of products.

Our Three-step strategic process includes:

1. Take a deep dive into the market, competitor claims, product differentiators, price point, target audience and size of market potential.

2. Listen to its story and plans for growth. What can this brand ‘own’ to set it apart and make it memorable and attractive to consumers?

3. Develop a creative lens and brand message house by which all our communications can filter.

Our Three-step Brand PR delivery process includes:

1. Devising creative content campaigns that will elevate the brand messages to relate culturally and be highly relevant to the target consumer.
 
Why do brands need this?

These content campaigns create the glue for consistent messaging across all owned and earned platforms. The consistency builds a stronger, cohesive brand that keeps reminding the consumer each time they interact and is memorable next time they are ready to purchase.

2. Identify ‘influencers’ in media, business and culture that will appropriately amplify the creative content.
 
Why do brands need this?

Endorsement and trusted word of mouth recommendation continue to be the most powerful delivery of sales. And Google agrees. It refers to the ‘messy middle’ of search, where brands must stand out to divert attention towards them.  Google recommends endorsement from trusted experts as, ‘Authority bias.’ The Search engine also sees positive reviews from trusted sources as incredibly persuasive as they ‘Social proof’ a product, making it appear to be a popular choice.

3. Place the creative content through digital platforms to:

• Create noise around the brand that will be noticed by Google by feeding Google's EAT algorithm 'Expertise; Authority; Trustworthiness'. Think blogs that position you as an expert using relevant key word searches; active website; engaging social media channels; content that drives traffic towards a website
• Add value by providing meaningful ways for consumers to interact and respond to the brand. Interact and encourage conversation, this will deliver a solid grounding for a meaningful and long lasting relationship
• Drive sales using performance marketing digital techniques - combine PPC with top of funnel strategies for brand awareness and bottom of funnel strategies to drive sales - we wrote more about Meta's 60:40 strategy here

Vista injects energy into brand communications.  We identify the emotional need that a brand satisfies and we frame the brand with meaning.