Here’s the searing, painful truth: sometimes a businessman’s intuition doesn’t solve everything.
If you consider yourself an established brand, yet your tried and tested PR and marketing stunts aren’t giving the results you’re hoping for this quarter, maybe it’s a good idea to consider a fresh perspective and ask for help from experts, too.
Need help in turning a new leaf? Here are 5 searing signs to look out for before considering a new PR strategy – and maybe even a new PR agency.
1. Decreased or Stagnant Growth, so Every Crisis Stresses You Out
If your business is stable enough to withstand hard times, consider yourself lucky. But if you’ve reached a point where you’re constantly worried about your business’s reputation at every small crisis, consider partnering with a new PR agency that can help you spot your pain points.
It’s normal (and even expected) for businesses to have downtime. Brands that stand the test of time do so because they’ve valued their highs and held on through their lows.
But if you’re not careful, uncertain times will cause your business to take a huge hit. Sometimes, you just need a pair of fresh eyes behind the scenes before moving forward.
2. No One’s Talking About Your Brand
Are your brand’s socials just…quieter? Does it take a while for people to recall what it is that you do or sell?
Does it feel like you fell off the face of the earth?
Take a long, honest look at your online brand presence. Do you have:
- Less followers?
- More people unfollowing you?
- Less engagement (comments, likes, reposts, shares, etc.)?
If it feels like you’re broadcasting your brand without much return, maybe it’s time for new marketing strategies, and a new PR agency to help you be relevant again.
3. You Can’t Seem to Attract the Right Talent
Can’t seem to find the talent you’re looking for? Maybe it’s because they can’t find your brand – or they looked the other way when they saw your brand’s Facebook page.
Remember that before people become talent for your brand, they’re typically customers first. If you can’t seem to find the right people to help your brand grow and flourish, maybe you need a makeover from the inside out (or outside in).
And that starts with a good PR agency that can give you honest feedback about what you need to hear. Better still, find a PR and IMC (Integrated Marketing Communications) agency so that everything about your brand – traditional or digital – is coherent and connected.
4. Your Audience and Customers have Shifted
Onto the broader point of talent being customers first, maybe your customer base has changed. Maybe you’re a brand for high school students, and your loyal customers are young adults now.
Teenagers rarely love the same thing every decade.
If you’re an established brand wondering why you have fewer customers, or if you’re a brand struggling to get noticed, you probably need to refresh your lens. What are you missing?
5. Your Story No Longer Stands Out, but Your Competitor’s Does
Are you like every travel service, consultancy, restaurant, and mall booth promising to “offer the best, and nothing but the best in the industry?”
Meanwhile, your competitors are getting busier and busier than you are. Their PR and marketing team is on top of everything, and they’re what’s new.
What about you?
A PR and IMC agency can help you scope out the ways to tell, share, and connect your story to your audiences better.
Aside From A New Perspective, How Else Can A PR and IMC Agency Help Me?
Aside from the fresh perspective you need in tending brand wounds, here are other critical ways a PR and IMC agency can help you.
1. Grow Brand Awareness
With the right integrated strategies (such as message mapping, omnichannel marketing, and competitor analysis, among others), a good PR and IMC agency will make your brand well-known to the public.
Or if you’re already established and need more customers again, they can position your brand in a new and refreshing light.
2. Garner Positive Media Coverage
Perfect for an established brand that hit a reputation crisis, a good PR and IMC agency will use their vast experiences and wide network to your brand’s advantage.
They can get you to reputable networks and established press, or work with your brand pitch if you feel like networking on your own. But if you don’t want that route, a PR and IMC agency can also use traditional marketing methods (billboards, events, etc.) and digital marketing techniques (viral videos, online forums, etc.) to add to your brand’s positive media coverage.
3. Increase Website Traffic and Social Media Engagement
A good PR and IMC agency would also be up-to-date with what makes a brand’s online presence stand out. If you’re an established brand with no website (a rare feat in this day and age!), an agency can help you build a good website that attracts more people to your brand.
They’re also perfect for brands with dormant or dead social media pages. Be it through more likes, genuine comments, or just making viral videos, a good PR and IMC agency can guarantee organic growth in your brand’s social media presence.
4. Increased Sales
This is ultimately the goal, right? More sales and more attention to your brand. This doesn’t need any more explanation: with the right PR and IMC agency, your ROI will increase, and your brand will continue to stick with people.
Case Study: Victory Liner
Victory Liner, an established heritage brand of local buses, partnered with PR and IMC agency NGP IMC. The brand realized that it couldn’t relate to a younger audience that was still raring to travel. So they partnered with NGP IMC to establish a TikTok presence.
The results?
- Almost 3 million views in their reels and videos,
- 1.1M likes, and
- 1.3M followers
This was only for one campaign. NGP IMC has worked with Victory Liner for years, across multiple campaigns and projects (like this one, and this one, and this one) – all with positive results.
Okay, I Need a PR and IMC Agency. Now What?
That depends. What does your brand need at the moment? An online refresh? A traditional refresh? Or everything in between?
Either way, NGP IMC has the portfolio that proves that they can refresh any brand’s PR strategy. Big brand or small.
Want to get a PR refresh, but don’t know where to start? Or are you ready to take the first steps? Book an appointment here, or contact them directly here to start your journey!
Kriztin Cruz is a recruitment and digital marketing professional, freelance writer, hobbyist painter, and frustrated sociologist–with too many things to want and too little time to spare. She graduated with a Psychology degree in 2019 at De La Salle – College of Saint Benilde Antipolo. When she’s not drafting a corporate letter or working on anything digital marketing, you can find her doing the following, but not in this order: reading a good book, scavenging for a good book, sketching, painting, journaling, junk journaling, obsessing over an obscure Czechoslovakian surrealist film (or anything by Miyazaki or Del Toro), cooking, finding a cafe to relax in, and creating new things while a nice documentary plays in the background.