Your four brands - why all are important in PR

So, what are your brands and how should you manage them to optimise the impact of your PR?

• Your SOCIAL brand
• Your MARKETING brand
• Your EMPLOYER brand
• Your FINANCIAL brand

Your SOCIAL brand is all about making sure that the other brands all align when you have your guard down. When we use our social streams perversely, we completely forget who might be looking at them, and yet that’s exactly where people from recruitment agencies to journalists look for the truth.  And not to worry you, but I bet the police have the occasional peep too!

In the PR context, the journalists call this crowd checking, and most will absolutely have a look to make sure that the press release, or comment that you have just put out is true and not fake.

So treat your Social brand as the same as your front facing marketing brand, and stay awake.

The MARKETING brand is the one that most people regard as their ‘brand’, and where they spend most of their time analysing the detail of how they are going to get clients to buy their product.  Working out what it is that their customers actually want, how to influence them to buy, and how to make sure it’s your product in their cupboard rather than a competitor one. This is where the tone of voice, the colour of the packaging, the strapline and the price points all have their place.

The PR around your MARKETING brand has to incorporate all these aspects, and tell a good story at the same time.  Never expect a journalist to give you a free advert.  It’s all a game of barter….you give them a decent story, and they may mention your brand.

The EMPLOYER brand is the first one that’s a surprise.  Who cares how you treat your staff and why should that impact your Marketing brand, and PR, in any way?  Well actually it’s pretty simple.  Your staff are your front office, and if their demeaner, tone, appearance is not service led, then you might as well be closed. 

Moreover though, they are the journalists’ moles. When they have had a look at your social streams they may well make contact, and start chatting casually with the person that you have just balled out of the team meeting for chewing gum!

Finally the FINANCIAL brand is of course of no interest whatsoever to anyone except the finance manager.  Think again.  Without finance, whether that’s the bank, the investors, or even the wallet of your customer, the business will be short lived.  So taking the same level of interest in the FINANCIAL brand as you do in the Marketing brand is really important.  It’s just a different mindset you are talking to, not a different message you are giving.

It’s all PR.

Check out the JournoLink PR Tips broadcast by ‘Isolate..Tet’ at.    XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX   for more tips on how to use your four brands to optimise your PR.