Launching a New Brand With Public Relations
I took a call yesterday from a young entrepreneur with a small budget and a big idea. After 30 minutes on the phone, I realized that I wasn’t talking in terms of anything spectacular or groundbreaking or overly complicated. Mostly, it was common sense — and while I might have been able to suggest a few tactics that would have otherwise earned InsertCopyHere and my colleagues a couple of big-buck jobs… I thought about what would truly be his BEST course of action for launching a new brand. Our conversation went a little like this…
You’ve got a new business. Let’s assume that you’ve got a brand that nobody knows about yet. You can look at this two ways: 1) nobody knows your brand, or 2) the people that MATTER don’t know your brand.
Go with the people that matter and forget about everyone else. But, before you talking to anyone, start laying some brand groundwork.
1. Create your brand story. Base your story on the truth - do this by asking yourself ‘why’ - why did I start this business, why am I here, why does my business really matter to people?
2. Be different. Make your brand different from your competition. No two brands are alike. Argue all you want, but great truly brands separate themselves from everyone else. Don’t get mad when another brand tries to copy you - that means you’re doing something right.
3. Establish expertise. Act like an expert, work like an expert. Think in terms of benefits, not features. The benefit you bring to people will help prove what expertise you and your brand have. The people that matter will buy from you because you’ve earned their trust, they like your story, they like that you’re different (you’re a better option than what they’re used to), and they see you as an expert in the marketplace.
4. Be honest. Make no excuses for being new to the market, embrace your small size, boldly communicate why you LOVE the business you’re in, appreciate criticism, never hide the facts and never forget to thank your constituents.
Still, at this point you’ve done a ton of work and you’ve got a lot of insight, but you’re still starring down your fledgling brand without any recognition, no accolades and virtually no public awareness. But, you’re on solid ground. Let there be NO DOUBT that it’s going to take some devilishly clever marketing to encourage people to choose your brand as you begin your launch.
After going through all that, I’m left with this piece of advice: Launch a new brand with PR. You’ve just established excellent brand groundwork, now leverage these assets and start to identify the people that matter to your brand. Don’t think “customers” — think: who will help me create demand? Communicate your brand story with a strong public relations effort. Don’t be afraid to start small. Even if you have small distributorship or small retail presence, launching with targeted PR to create demand will be more effective than advertising by mass means.
With thousands of new products that get launched each year, still I can’t definitively tell you why some become a raging success and some die a horrible death. There are some product marketing cases that can’t pinpoint what made success so grand or death so awful. But, more often that not, successful product launches are more concentrated on creating demand than by pushing supply. What do you think, do you agree?
