Is your CMO driven by numbers? They may run out of steam too soon!

Seven strategies to elevate your brand, and pitfalls to avoid.

The key factors to a company’s sustainable success, are - amongst others - its perceived level of trustworthiness, a deep and meaningful relationship with its audience, and an excellent rating of its products by the relevant target group. However, establishing such qualitative factors requires a significant amount of time, and the results are not easily measurable (especially in the short-term). But they are indeed essential in developing a strong PR strategy and ultimately can lead to exponential and sustainable growth; particularly in a B2B environment.

Yet, under the premise of ‘what gets measured, gets done’, marketing has turned into a performance measurement exercise; often overshadowing the primary objective of elevating a brand in the long-term. One common example is the tracking of the activities’ success through the increase in sales figures, or a website’s average number of visits, clicks, conversions or bounce rates. Additionally, with the rise of social media, the number of interactions, such as likes, views, comments, and conversions are being monitored. These key performance indicators (KPIs) certainly are good parameters for specific quantifiable actions. On the other hand, they are not always applicable to the external perception of the core values that contribute to the sustainable growth of a business. Particularly when it comes to new technology and digital solutions, consumers' confidence only grows over time with consistent as well as positive coverage of the brand in the media as it’s generated through solid and strategic PR work.

Here are seven tips to elevate your brand through PR that your company may be missing:

Think it through: Don’t use a hammer when a screwdriver is needed

A commonly made mistake is to think in the short-term, especially when one is under pressure to report on quick results and the return of investment (ROI). But this may result in a waste of time and effort if it is not combined with long-term goals.

So which tool is the right one? Marketing is not PR. PR is not marketing. However, they do work in tandem, and there are many synergies to be exploited. If the efforts are only focused on quantitative results to justify the original investment or the lack of concrete results does not allow a department to justify or increase its budget, then it is likely to end up choosing the wrong tool from the toolbox. Think of marketing as a tool that can provide measurable results in the short-term, and PR as the medium and long-term solution that will make your capital stretch further to increase the ROI.

Think depth not breadth: Help your audience understand who you are

Creating a brand that people trust, recognize, and stay loyal to, centers around the efforts to communicate your vision, mission, and strategy. But what also matters is the way you tell that story.

It is not just a question of being catchy but also a real commitment to the whole story. To achieve this, transparency is the key. Many businesses tend to adapt their “reason to be” according to the latest trends; a short-term strategy that may look appealing at first. But this has made it difficult for them to identify who their target group actually is. At the same time, this makes it hard for the audience to identify with the respective brand and product, and to properly commit to it permanently. Companies whose success has been sustainable in the long-term, have stuck to their “why”. And with PR, they have found their best ally to tell their stories, reaching all of their interest groups: from stakeholders and investors to the customer, both in the mid and long term.

Think wider: Find the right channels and platforms

Once a company has identified its true purpose, it will be easier to imagine who their target audience is and where to engage with it. Think demographically: how old would that audience be? Where do they live? Where do they work and what is their social status? Answering these kinds of questions contributes to the optimization of the usage of the different existing channels.

If a company develops solutions for other businesses, and its target group is “experienced professionals”, for example, through LinkedIn this company could reach more than 467 million professionals online. Yet, if its focus was on a younger demographic, perhaps other channels with a different tone and style, such as Snapchat, would be more successful in reaching their target group than a serious professional channel.

Have you done your research? Which is the best platform for you?

There are many more platforms today than there were ten years ago, and that number is likely to double again in the near future. Thanks to these developments, PR has widened its reach and also optimized its way to communicate to different audiences according to the type of message and the overall goals of a company.

Think long-term: Prepare for the future

Businesses often only focus on the development and improvement of their core product or service. The value of their product is what will open the doors to the market and what they will rely on to generate the respective revenue. But isn’t it also true that if you had more capital the product could be developed faster and further, thus increasing its quality considerably? If it is not through the increase of sales, companies could only hope for more capital through investments. And it is equally important for both - customers and investors alike - to know what a company’s true positioning is.

With the availability of different channels such as social media and remote access to diverse sources via the Internet, the speed with which information is distributed has vastly increased, contributing to a quicker conception and perception of a brand’s identity. Either positive or negative, more and more customers can quickly assess if values and principles align with their own or not. Also for the same reason, competitors are only one click away, increasing the threat of losing a customer. Here is where the long-term relations prove their impact on the ROI.

Think about connections: Every touch point counts

Knowing that business to business models require on average five to seven contact points to win the audience trust, from either a customer or a journalist, the implementation of mid to long-term strategies is crucial in optimizing the sales funnel. This is where PR plays a central role, not just for the sales cycle, but in reinforcing and communicating the brand value to other qualitative potential clients. Through the identification of the right channels, the perceived value will only continue to increase.

Think bigger: How can you use social media if it doesn’t seem to match your target group?

Individual online influencers have already figured out the value of personal branding and public relations, consistently putting their story out there. They have become reference points and have gained audience trust for sharing their expertise. Use corporate and presentation videos on LinkedIn, as it is the prevalent business platform, but also share them on YouTube to extend your reach to other potential customers. Yet not all content that can be shared on YouTube is appropriate for LinkedIn.

Because social media penetrates all levels and all ages more so than any other channel, it is essential to understand how to select the right one. Increasingly, concentrate on generating the desired interaction rather than using a one-way message tool to achieve better leverage.

Think in terms of relevance: why, who, what, where, and when matters

Every business and employee needs a level of introspection in order to further develop and improve. For this reason, it is important to establish parameters to evaluate the impact of the current efforts and to optimize what is not generating positive results. It is equally important not to confuse quantity with quality, and not to underestimate the value of what can not be measured.

Despite all the efforts that have been put into developing measuring parameters for PR, the number of clippings keeps on being a central reference for success for many. Yet it is not the same to present a report with only 5 clippings of the top 10 newspapers and magazines globally, nationwide and regionally, than 10 articles on the yellow press and 20 mentions on unknown magazines. Because who gets to read about the story in which context and the message they take away is what matters.

Innovative companies have a lot of stories to share, all they need is timing, a consistent strategy and a long term view to be able to see the desired sustainable growth of their brand.

About the author:

Tilo Bonow is founder and CEO of PIABO,  Germany’s leading PR partner for the digital economy based in Berlin. He established PIABO with the mission to support globally ambitious tech entrepreneurs with launching  their business ideas and actively recognizing potentials, achieving growth targets and ultimately owning the market.

Tilo and his teams have chronicled a successful track record of exponential growth scenarios for tech heavyweights such as WeWork, Stripe, Silicon Valley Bank, GitHub, Lime, Google, Asana, Evernote and Tinder.

As a value adding investor at Cavalry Ventures, 500 Startups, Cocoon Capital, Infinity Ventures, Nest.vc and Capital300, he accelerates the growth of upcoming business stars with his experience and  network. Tilo is a keynote speaker at international tech conferences such as NOAH, DLD and MWC as well as  a passionate and active supporter of the digital ecosystem as a mentor at  Plug & Play and Microsoft Ventures among others.