Every company has a role to fulfill in society. We just tend to get so stuck in the daily grind that we forget why we started the job in the first place. Building a strong brand is about resonating with the audiences that matter most to you. Here's why remarkable brands and powerful PR begin with purpose.
This article is an excerpt from pr.co ’s book Purpose: First Principles of Effective PR. Download the entire book, for free, here.
Doing PR is more than just getting journalists to cover your company. It’s about making sure your company gets attention in a way that makes sense. It’s a crucial part of building a brand, which is a crucial part of building a business.
It’s your job to think of the best possible strategy to do so. And sometimes, in order to gain new insights, you have to go back to the basics. Sometimes you need to stop in your tracks, take a step back and rethink what you’re doing.
People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you careTheodore Roosevelt
Create value and seize opportunities
Even though going back to your purpose may feel like rehashing the obvious, new opportunities can arise from it. When you go through a door, you leave the hallway and place all your bets in a single place. And it’s a wonderland out there, so it’s easy to lose track of where you came from and what you were doing. Sometimes it’s good to haul your booty back into the hallway and check out what was behind door number 2 again. It helps you stay flexible and create effective and creative PR campaigns in a world that’s changing every single day.
The reason is simple: if you want to create effective PR campaigns, you need to stay on your toes and keep the creative juices flowing. Whether or not your message reaches your target audience nowadays depends heavily on many different factors. Your reader might be in the wrong location, the particular device they're using might not support your content well enough or it could be the wrong time of day for them. And if on top of that the quality and relevance of your content is subpar, your message will likely drown in the noise.
Gather your whole crew
To run a successful cross-channel campaign, you need the skill set of a superhero. Don’t try this on your own. Get your whole crew involved, bring in outside expertise, talk to experts, work together and create campaigns with impact. Outside expertise can truly help you to get a fresh perspective on things. And finding good people to help you won’t just make your life easier, it might even put the fun back in it.
If you're building your communications strategy with your team, we might be able to help. Download our communications strategy canvas to help you get started.
Now go out and nail it
Sjors Mahler is the Commercial Director at pr.co. He’s worked with PR and communications teams for 9 years and has organized dozens of meetups and events for the Amsterdam PR community. Sjors has an MSc in Persuasive Communications and specializes in branding, sales strategy, and inbound PR.. Connect on LinkedIn or send an email