Brands require customers. To build their customer base, the brand has to make itself known to the people and promote their image in order to build brand and customer loyalty. Public Relations essentially work to help brands achieve a positive image in the market and by communicating the brand to its consumers, thus building dependability and reliability. It also helps brands maintain its relationships with other brands or businesses and its people in order to ensure consistent engagement and sale. The PR department must conduct a variety of activities in order to build this brand image and protect it. 

Identify Target Audience

Society is heterogeneous. Thus, different groups of people have different needs and require different things. Brands need to engage with audience that require what they provide. PR builds up the brand’s reputation and communicates it to the audience the brand requires. For example, a company that specializes in manufacturing kits and tools for doctors will not promote itself to the entire society because the average person does not require what it provides. However, the brand’s PR team will promote the brand to its niche audience (aka doctors) and help maximize its engagement, reputation and awareness within the medical fraternity. 

Build Brand Identity 

Consumers make purchases and communicate with brands they trust. It is crucial for businesses to build this trust and project itself as a brand that is dependable and reliable. Higher emphasis must be laid on the key characteristics and selling point of the brand to establish its identity in the market as the consumer must be aware of what they acquire from the brand. The PR team highlights upon how that particular brand makes a difference in the society via what it provides and why it should be preferred upon other brands that provide similar things. Consumers choose brands based on price, reliability and usability and a brand providing that must be able to accentuate itself based off of consumer requirement. 

Brand Image is the customer’s perception of your brand based on their interactions. 


Storytelling

Every brand has a distinctive story to tell. Kids are told stories because it is entertaining. Children’s books use pictures and nowadays, there are videos to convey stories to the kids creatively and in an exciting format. Similarly, when a brand is informative in a creative manner while telling a story to its audience, the people get that story etched in their subconscious. PR helps the brand narrow its options down and concentrate its focus on to the audience it has targeted. Finding the right story to tell is key and it is advantageous for brands to have stories that resonate well with its audience. Thus, it is selling the story it is narrating. If the brand has not determined its target audience, the story it tells can be detrimental for the brand to know who it must promote itself to.

Tone

Every brand has a personality and a specific tone that separates it from other brands. PR helps brands decide what personality it has, how it can convey itself to the people who share that personality and how it can sell its persona to procure profits. This is done through the tone or the voice of the brand. The tone is a significant factor is establishing the brand image. With the help of PR, brands must use that tone to convey itself to its audience and explain why the people should choose it.

Build Consumer Trust

Consumers will always engage with brands that they trust. It is important for brands to build this trust and strengthen its relationship with the people. The primary purpose of PR is establishing this relationship between brands and consumers since it stands for public relations. Seeing certain brands mentioned under a positive light helps build this trust. Brands can achieve this by being mentioned in articles and websites written by respected journalists, collaborating with brands that have a loyal customer base, being promoted by influencers with a large follower base or by being recommended by respected media houses. It is essential for these brands to produce quality content in the first place because the positive reviews its PR team helps achieve it must not be seen as false advertisement because that could damage the brand image.

Select the Right Communication Channels 

PR helps brands find the right ways to reach its audience. Despite having narrowed down a target audience, if a brand is unable to reach them then everything is futile. Different audiences can be reached via different channels. Let’s assume the target audience of a brand is Gen-Z. The best and the most effective way to communicate with a Gen-Z audience is via social media or YouTube. The same network would apply to the millenials. However, if the brand requires the attention of the older people, it must be advertise itself through newspapers, television channels and magazines since those are the forms of entertainment consumed by the older generations. PR helps brand determine what its audience is reading, consuming and indulging with and promote itself accordingly. These teams are dedicated to providing in-depth knowledge regarding what is mentioned above in order to maximize brand output because even with social media, it is important to know which social media app must be used as a communication channel. For example, using Snapchat to promote shoes will not yield results the way it would have the shoes been promoted on Instagram. 

Greater Valuations

A good Return of Investment (ROI) is crucial for brands. Greater valuation with investors must be generated and Public Relations can help achieve that. Investors will be willing to finance and invest their money onto brands that are credible, trustworthy, promising and have a positive image. Brands must be able to project and demonstrate their statistics and track records to the investors in order to draw them and present itself as a reliable brand that can aid the ROI of the investors as well. PR helps them constantly engage with the investors who are interested and acquire potential investors as well. 

Public Relations and Branding go hand in hand. A significant portion of what a brand requires in order to be considered by the consumers and chosen over its competitors relies on its PR. Ergo, PR helps skyrocket brand image.