In the ever-competitive digital marketing battleground, it’s not enough to bombard people with heterogeneous ads across marketing channels—everyone does this, with smaller companies (read: smaller budgets) consistently losing to bigger players.
But there’s a way for smaller businesses to cut through the noise: identity-focused PR and marketing, where every promotional thread is woven into a tapestry of a well-recognized story that glues potential customers to the screen.
And the best thing is that creating a coherent brand image—values and ideas you want them to associate you with—doesn’t require money. Creativity, ingenuity, and data-driven online reputation management—this is what you need to build a brand that people trust and resonate with.
But enough small talk. Let’s get to the nitty-gritty of the complexities at the intersection of brand identity, PR, and marketing.
Complexity #1 – Inconsistent Brand Messaging
There are no universal guidelines on what writing style, design, colors, and timing to stick to when reaching out to your audience, but you should be consistent so customers instantly associate your content or message with your brand.
- For example, if you’re a fitness company building your identity around luxury fitness experiences, you should follow this narrative throughout your acquisition channels. If, however, your website positions itself as a “Home to state-of-the-art fitness facilities,” whereas your social media posts use language like “Ready to sweat and chill with us? #FitnessVibes,” this spells inconsistency and damages omnichannel experiences.
Of course, there’s more to messaging consistency than uniform wording. A consistent posting schedule, recognizable fonts and colors, and reasonable tweaks depending on where the content is posted are also necessary to position yourself as a recognizable market player.
The most important thing is to promote the same ideas and values across all channels so you can associate your brand with certain emotions and then – when you need it – trigger the desired response from your customers.
Here are some great identity-building messaging examples:
Complexity #2 – Overcomplicating the Brand Identity
A great marketing or PR message is always a story that speaks to the innermost values of your customers—and it shouldn’t be overly complex. Simplicity is key, and there’s no use in trying to appeal to everyone—instead, focus on your core audience.
As good as personalization is, you need an overarching digital marketing strategy that conveys simple, understandable concepts like marketing automation, affordability, or transparency.
- For example, Phonexa, a cloud-based software company, positions itself as an all-encompassing performance marketing automation software suite, with its USP built around combining all useful marketing automation tools under one roof.
The same goes for your visual identity—use a reasonable number of elements and colors so your visuals are easy to perceive, recognize, and recreate in the customer’s mind.
Complexity #3 – Wrong Targeting, even if the Brand Identity is Consistent
Targeting is the underlying core of any marketing or PR campaign, yet it’s often suboptimal because of its growing complexity. You should know who your customers are, where they come from, and how they interact across touchpoints until they convert or bounce.
The good news is that with modern software, you can take customer insights to the granular level, dissecting the customer journey strategically and on the fly. Then, you can use these insights to adjust the focus of your PR and marketing strategies, picking the most promising opportunities.
Here’s some of the data you need to ensure accurate targeting:
- Demographics: location, age, gender, income, family status, etc.
- Psychographics: ideas, values, motivations, pain points, propensities, etc.
- History of interactions: whether the customer is new or returning and their full history of interactions (purchases, sign-ups, installations, downloads, etc.) and generated value.
Remember, every element of your marketing campaigns, including how you support brand identity within these campaigns, depends on the target audience on the other end. No matter how well-aligned your PR endeavors are, they must hit the right customer in the first place.
One way to minimize risks is to simulate future outcomes with predictive modeling software. This way, you can predict the hypothetical results for digital and offline marketing and PR campaigns that use different variables—any number of variables. Then you can choose the winners to focus on.
Complexity #4 – Sacrificing Brand Identity for Immediate Profits
One of the biggest temptations for smaller companies is an opportunity to promote on popular but identity-incompatible marketing channels. In practice, this mostly boils down to promoting with Instagram and TikTok influencers who have nothing to do with the brand and—even worse—whose reputation and values don’t align with your company.
However, even if the immediate impact of such promotions is substantial, it’s usually not worth damaging your business reputation for the sake of quick profits—not to mention your competitors might turn such campaigns against you, causing significant reputation damage.
Complexity #5 – Lacking the Power to Change the Brand Identity When Needed
As the market circumstances change, you might need to reinvent your brand or at least change your vision significantly. In some situations, this necessity is so urgent that it’s a matter of life and death for the company.
Remember Kodak? The digital photography pioneer had been a household name for decades, but they paid full price for their reluctance to fully embrace digital technologies, outpaced by Canon, Sony, and Nikon.
But then again, every change should be backed by the necessity of this change, which may be a new product line, international expansion, change in the company’s vision, or anything that is truly noticeable and envisions rebranding.
Otherwise, you might repeat the fate of the companies that made bold yet unfounded identity switches and had to repeat them quickly or face the consequences.
Take, for example, Gap. The world-known clothing brand attempted to modernize their logo without any visible premise—and had to return the old logo in less than a week.
Source: The Branding Journal
Brand Identity: Where Science and Art Merge
Now that you know what it takes to cultivate and preserve your brand identity, you also know that you need a data-driven yet creative approach to devising your marketing and PR strategies. From audience research to smaller things like social media analytics, you have to understand what stories your buyers embrace and craft your narrative accordingly.
Remember, purchases are made on emotions and then justified on a logical level. And if you’re able to evoke a strong emotional response whenever your brand is shown or mentioned, you’re half there: their attention is captured, and it’s now up to your nurturing and sales skills to drive them home.
