5 Secrets of a Successful, Brand-Building PR & Communications Approach, from Allison (Sitch) O’Connor

5 secrets of?a successful, brand-building PR & Comms approach, courtesy of PR & comms legend Allison (Sitch) O’Connor *:

#1. Strive to build brand awareness and deepen brand love.

#2. Communicate in real time.

#3 Make sure your PR efforts align with your overall business needs.

#4. Be transparent with your community.

#5. Be prepared to deal with things that make you uncomfortable.

?* Allison (Sitch) O’Connor is a VP and Comms legend, currently VP, Member Experience and Reputation, Frontdoor, Inc. (and, emeritus, VP Public Relations 万豪酒店 The Americas and Vice President?of?Global Public Relations for?@The 丽思卡尔顿 )

Now let's take these one at a time.

#1.?Strive to build brand awareness and deepen brand love.?For your business, is the public relations challenge awareness, or is it love? Or both? For The Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, the awareness challenge is done and done in the U.S. due to that astonishing 98% awareness penetration. So at this point, it’s all about deepening the love rather than spreading the word about Ritz-Carlton to the five or six adults in America who haven’t heard of Sitch’s brand.

Overseas in some areas–China for example–both goals are important: there is still room to build brand awareness as well as striving to build greater love for the brand.?For your brand, even without 98% penetration, you may be more interested in the “deepening the love” part of the equation, especially if your goal (due to the nature of your product or service) isn’t to become a household name, but rather to appeal to a very specific segment. Which is another reason that just sending out press releases is hardly a complete publicity solution.

#2 Communicate in real time. O'Connor: “This is the new reality of our age; even five years ago this wasn’t essential the way it is now.” Real-time PR means, in part, “recognizing what your media contacts are up to and interested in immediately, not once a month when you pull up a report and dutifully go down a thank-you list.” Beyond that, what Sitch is also talking about here is real-time contact with the broader community. “Now we have 13 social media channels and 6,000,000 fans and followers on those channels, all over the world and in all possible time zones, so caring for and responding to them is a 24/7 endeavor.”

#3. Make sure your PR efforts align with your overall business needs.?Unfortunately, it’s possible to put a lot of work into your PR operation yet end up having a negative or irrelevant effect on your overall business success. Sitch: “It is essential that your PR team members understand why customers buy your services. They need to develop a deep knowledge of your business and its customers, and the ability to build a PR strategy that not only highlights the value of what you offer as a business but also reinforces a foundational reputation that can drive revenue in the long term.” In other words, reputation matters a lot more than temporary spikes from “limited time offers” and the like.

#4. Be transparent with your community.?By “transparent,” Sitch is talking about the importance of “giving the broader community access to your brand,” and “avoiding the temptation to massage the resulting words and images and videos that the community then offers.” It’s always true, says Sitch, that “if you get it in?their?words and?their?pictures, you get the best stories.”

#5. Be prepared to deal with things that make you uncomfortable.?“When you work in a human-dependent business,” says Sitch, “even if most of the things taking place are fabulous, some things happen that give you pause.?It’s a delicate dance to reassure customers that you’ll get to the bottom of something while simultaneously reassuring employees that you have their back. Most important,?in situations like these—when your brand, your business come under attack–it is absolutely essential to stay calm.”