PR has always been about raising awareness. Whether it’s a brand, business or a cause, the right PR strategy will always enable more people to hear more about who you are and what you do.

But particularly for SME’s looking to achieve aggressive growth, PR can add much more value than just reach. In this article we explore three ways PR can help to accelerate your business.

1. DEVELOPING A UNIQUE BRAND POSITIONING

The reality is, lots of businesses are selling the same product or service as you – but your story is what makes you different. Storytelling is crucial, and an effective PR strategy will help you tell that story with impact, to an external world. Carefully crafted key messages will ensure your brand feels unique and help you resonate with your key target audiences, to drive engagement and gain buy in from potential customers for the product or service you are selling. These key messages usually focus on: What’s your USP? How are you disrupting your industry? Why should customers choose you?

That story then needs to land in the right places to help position your brand as a leader in its category, and this is where PR comes in. PR professionals prudently targeting the right titles and journalists, to get the right exposure for your business, that will position you as an authoritative voice. For example, if sustainability is at the heart of what you do, you’ll need to feature in the right sustainability columns and titles, if it’s Fintech, being in the right tech and banking features to provide a unique positioning of your brand or business as the experts.

2. ATTRACTING INVESTMENT

A PR campaign can be an effective way to raise awareness of your growth plans and attracting both interest and investment from VCs.

Attracting investment is all about the perception of your business and the value you can bring to investors. Often you want to seem bigger than you are. Investors want to know that they will see a return on their investment. You need prominence in the most well-respected business press and national business pages to reach your target audience of key decision makers; this can be achieved through a combination of interviews, company news (such as new hires) and thought leadership opinion pieces to position you as a leading authority for the sector.

3. DRIVING DIGITAL VISIBILITY

Digital PR is a great tactic to drive positive impact– especially when growth is a key focus. The right customers need to be captured at the top of the marketing funnel through a brand awareness piece. As part of a wider digital strategy, we can track and nurture that customer down the marketing funnel, through to the action and purchase phase.

A successful digital PR campaign uses SEO, Paid and audience insights to be able to build a creative campaign message that is going to resonate with audiences, by positioning your brand as trusted and authoritative. The aim is to drive traffic and links back to your site, which in turn will improve your SEO and keyword landscape, boosting your site’s overall visibility. It’s a win, win.

More people then know of your brand because of that initial awareness piece, and they will come back to site, and further down the line, are more likely to convert.

If you’re interested in finding out more about how PR could support your business contact [email protected]