How to increase your brand visibility through strong PR

You can easily raise the profile of your products and services high above those of your competitors, simply and without huge cost, by promoting your brand, or suite of brands, in a well crafted Press Release.

Typically a Press Release is a compact public relations announcement which tells a compelling story about a product, service, event or company information, and is written in an easy journalistic style.  It is only useful if it gets you media coverage – so it has to provide newsworthy information or a newsworthy story.

You can use well-crafted Press Releases as an integral part of your marketing and sales strategy aimed at enhancing the image, profile and credibility of your business and its products and services; and increasing sales.  One of the great benefits of Press Releases is that they allow you to choose to expose this information to the masses, or to a highly targeted market.  

You can match the big players at their game by developing your Press Release to focus on creating and maintaining a compelling brand profile. Communicate who you are, what you do, why you do it, and how your brand will make a difference; and convey this message strongly and often to clients, potential customers, consumers, suppliers and the media.

Don’t be afraid to be creative and innovative when telling your story, and don’t be afraid to tell it often. Those companies who have highly successful brands have worked hard at searing the image and memory of their brands into the eyes and mind of the consumer. 

You don’t need huge marketing budgets like some of the major players. Your Press Release can establish strong brand recall too, if you let your audience know how much you believe in your brand and consistently communicate the distinctions and benefits of your branded from those of your competition.

Consider using a Press Release when you want to: 

·        Introduce a new product

·        Create marketplace excitement

·         Bring new products to market quickly

·         Promote mature products and repositioning

·         Win consumer trust

·         Celebrate special occasions

·         Maintain market leadership

·         Build corporate brand through event marketing

·         Keep the brand top of mind amongst consumers and customers

·         Arouse consumer interest and curiosity

  Tips to help get your brand and company remembered 

Create a strong point of difference to your competitor. This helps you stand out from the crowd.

Make your message strong, compelling and timely. Tell the audience that the information is intended for them and why they should continue to read it.

Be creative and innovative with how you tell your message – create a compelling story, use a case study, or highlight dramatic statistics that affect the audience.

Ensure your communications are highly visible and tell your story often – visibility creates the presumption of quality and acceptance. 

Convey your messages in a constant, consistent and congruent way. 

Write the information with a strong news angle and contain it to an A4 page. 

Use a journalistic style, rather than a marketing one and write for the intended target audience. 

Focus your story on the creator, rather than the product or service.  

Inform rather than sell and concentrate on facts. 

Use a human-interest story or a hint of controversy where possible to help create interest. 

Aim for clarity and avoid too many adjectives or adverbs.  

Use bullet points where appropriate.  

Use the headline and the first paragraph to summarize and sell the story.  

Make the headline 20 words or less and ensure it answers the questions, “So what?” and “Why now?” 

Ensure that the introduction can stand on its own in telling the story.  

Accentuate what is new, unusual, different and extreme. 

Provide as much Contact information as possible

By Charisse Gray
Business Writer

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