Build Your Reputation Before the Headlines Do

So, it’s time to launch your brand, introduce a new widget or maybe start over with an entirely new marketing direction. Or your company dropped the PR ball after a third-party data breach. Maybe you’re just tired of reacting instead of controlling the brand’s destiny and it’s time to hit restart.

Whatever stage you find your brand in, creating and managing your reputation is one of the best ways to control success. A strong public relations strategy built on common sense principals is key to safeguarding whatever development and marketing efforts you’re undertaking.

Good Reputations Matter, Start Somewhere

Where to start? Chances are your business is already functioning at a high level. Stopping and starting over isn’t realistic. What’s important is to begin to take a proactive approach to reputation management. Don’t worry, the process is circular and although it may take some time, by following some basic steps you’ll eventually complete the cycle and start to propel your brand:

Align messaging with company values. This sounds simplistic and may seem easy to accomplish but ensuring your internal and external comms match the brand’s values is essential. Consumers notice when employee comments on Glassdoor or LinkedIn don’t match the company’s messaging or mission statement. The same is true for employees – they are probably the audience that pays the most attention to your external comms. The best way to avoid a disconnect is to make sure all messaging is true to the brand’s values. A strong content strategy always starts with the company’s value pillars and filters out to all audience touchpoints.

Get your crisis response ready before one happens. We’re generally shocked at how many businesses have not considered how to react when the inevitable crisis occurs. Whether it’s a service outage, a faulty product or bad social reviews, a formalized, structured, detailed response plan is like good business insurance. It should outline clearly who does and says what to whom. Don’t forget to familiarize your teams with their roles. For new businesses or products, we cannot stress how crucial a tight response plan is.

Own the narrative. This one simple piece of advice might be one of the most important tips a brand can get. Think about it, why let someone else control what others hear about your company? By building a narrative that aligns with brand values (see above), leaders have a disproportionate amount of sway in determining how audiences perceive a company or product. Owning the narrative is not just telling the same story, it also involves building strong media relationships so that when you do tell your story, your contacts will listen. Owned content is a marketer’s dream! Don’t forget that silence is also a very effective way to reinforce what your brand is all about.

The fine art of listening. Concurrent with controlling the narrative is active listening. Are your products being mentioned in reviews or by influencers? What do your online reviews say about the quality of services? Are key journalists or online sites even mentioning you at all? By listening with a critical ear, you’ll soon learn where the gaps and opportunities for your narrative lie (see what we did here?).

Own your wins and your mistakes. Back in PR school, one of the first things we learned was to shout about the wins and be ready to own up to the mistakes. Transparency (or lack thereof) can be a life-or-death factor for any brand, product or company. It’s a textbook example for a reason, but Tylenol’s mid-80s response to criminal product tampering saved the brand and reinforced the trust that Johnson & Johnson had long established with consumers.

Leadership leads. Everyone loves to hear about how businesses are built and who built them. Putting leadership front-and-center as an authority on, say, widget optimization builds instant credibility for the brand. Executives must be careful though; the world’s scandal sheets are full of stories of leaders who lost their way with some dalliance or other. In order to talk the talk, leadership must walk the walk.

Reputation Management is a Continuum

Regardless of where a company or brand is in their lifecycle, it’s never a bad time to boost public perception. Whether it’s establishing a reputation or rehabilitating one, marketers and executives must start somewhere then play the long game for sustained results. Once your cadence is determined, reputation management becomes part of the marketing continuum.

At Paquin PR, one of the sweet spots in our skillset is crisis management. In fact, we’ve managed high-stakes comms all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. Most importantly, we’ve learned that the best way to build and maintain a stellar reputation is to avoid crises altogether.

Whether you’re in a bind or see nothing but blue skies, give us a shout, we’d love to help you look even better.