Reimagining PR landscape in the post COVID world
The initial six months of the pandemic led lockdown was critical for businesses across sectors. It has presented the companies with unprecedented challenges, questioning their state of existence. Making businesses face huge losses, the lockdown phases have forced them to curb their expenses. The same has happened with the PR industry. During the lockdown phases, companies moved into a panic mode, keeping a hold on their PR and communication activities.
Since the present market scenario has impacted the product launches, press conferences, and briefings, the companies have withdrawn their participation from PR activities. However, PR is imperative to keep a strong connection with the masses. After creating a brand value, the companies cannot be completely reluctant in allocating a fraction of their marketing cost to continue with PR activities. Now, with the unlocking phases, companies are understanding how a positive brand image significantly impacts the customer’s trust and loyalty. They are reconsidering their marketing and communication strategies that will help them in gaining momentum post the pandemic.
Reassessment of communication strategies
The disruption that the pandemic has caused in the PR industry is set to accelerate its transformation process. Over the past two decades, the industry is undergoing constant evolution and with the onset of COVID-19, it is set to adopt new practices and approaches to get the brand’s message across to the target audience. Considering the pandemic’s catastrophic impact, the time to re-think communication strategies has come. Companies are navigating through multiple avenues to align their communication strategy with limited resources. Some of them require seizing of new opportunities across different geographies to tap new markets with redesigned positioning.
Driving brand value through content
Almost every business sector has invested in adopting virtual infrastructure to continue its business operations. With new channels coming into the market, companies have started realizing the need to communicate through different channels. Understanding the value of good content, PR professionals are shifting their focus from traditional channels to identifying new content distribution channels.
Thinking about the post COVID, the PR professionals are putting thoughts into creating engaging content that is more synced with digital media strategies. Additionally, they are working diligently to understand new traffic sources mainly the web channels. To capitalize on new media opportunities, the PR landscape is set to make a paradigm shift to podcasts, webinars, vlogs, and talk shows.
More sync with digital marketing activities
Every business requires to reposition its brand to survive in the post COVID world. To stay ahead in the competitive market, PR agencies are going to adopt digital formats in making the brands come back stronger. Since PR is all about earned coverage, it will give desired results when strategized to support search engine optimization efforts. The optimization of the links synced with the PR objective will ultimately deliver earned digital coverage.
Furthermore, brands are realizing the need to personally connect with customers through a strong digital and social media strategy. According to a recent report, there are close to 63% of consumers who trust what influencers say about a brand far more than brands advertising about themselves. Thereby, it brings the need for PR agencies to capitalize on influencer marketing.
Turning market uncertainty into opportunity
As markets are emerging from the pandemic slowdown, every sector is set to regrow at a fast pace, and PR is no exception. With digital channels taking over traditional media, it will be considered a standard means of communication. The PR campaigns will be redesigned in sync with social media strategy for precise targeting. Besides, the content will be the core of the campaigns to create impactful storytelling. This will make the PR campaigns more purpose-driven driving brand engagement and equity in the post COVID era.
About the author:
Sanya Bajaj, Founder & CEO, Column Inches