7 Enabling CMOs to leverage ERP moves, PR for marketing, marketing and advertising news, ET brand equity

In the world of marketing professionals, especially CMOs, the term PR or public relations connotes a range of emotions and associations. From a relevance perspective, this ranges from press releases and press conference activities, to news and headline management, event management, brand management, brand reputation management, and more. Unfortunately, the shares of the last two statements form smaller shares. Another interesting aspect that emerges is that his KRA and KPI framework for PR professionals reporting to the CMO and CEO is like chalk and cheese.

I'm sure deep down CMOs want PR organizations to support them with KRAs, but most of the KRAs they end up creating for their PR teams have a dependency on desk management. and reflects that it is tactical. As a matter of fact, PR offers great potential to support the CMO's actual marketing KRA.

However, this requires a dedicated and customized ERP (effort, resource, process) framework on the CMO side.

• Utilize PR to strengthen “BUY ME” and “WHY ME”

Sales and product trials depend not only on product visibility and appeal, but also on the recall and engagement associated with a company's brand. Today's consumers want more than just information about products. Their purchasing decisions now include research into the origins, values, and overall identity of a company brand. It’s important to strike the right balance between a compelling “BUY ME” and an informative “WHY ME.” PR has emerged as an ideal tool to align and strengthen both aspects. To achieve this, executives must look beyond traditional news delivery methods such as press releases, conferences, and interviews. When used strategically, PR can create recall and engagement, promote positive sentiment, and improve the overall reputation of both your product and company brand.

• Junk AVE/EAV – Redefine KRAs and KPIs

In the marketing world, EAV/AVE (Advertising Value Equivalent) continues to be used as a success measurement parameter. This needs to be junked! This is a cancer, not just for PR, but for the entire brand management and marketing industry. This division is about disruption of the brand management industry. It is a very unprofessional means of proving success…and a travesty! There are many quantitative and qualitative data parameters and measures to evaluate the PR success of an organization's marketing engine. These can be beautifully designed to bring tangible value to a CMO's marketing efforts.

• Involve your PR team from the beginning of the product cycle

It has been observed that the marketing team's recall and PR involvement typically occurs at the 11th hour after product ideation, design, development, launch, marketing and advertising planning is complete. For best results, involve your PR team at the very beginning, the product idea stage. You will see amazing benefits and results.

• Introduce PR interventions before and after every product launch campaign.

Carrying on from the above point, when it comes to launch campaigns, PR’s role is often limited to the “duration” or “launch” phase. Therefore, the PR team's involvement is limited to press releases, press conferences, and last-minute huddle activities to generate news coverage. For best results, ask PR to power his PRE, DURING, and POST phases of your launch campaign. You can see that the overall score for the campaign has been enhanced.

• Consider PR as an integral part of IMC

PR adds health to the definition of IMC (Integrated Marketing Communications). One is to add visibility touchpoints. It's often much cheaper than the traditional paid route. Second, it provides breadth and depth to brand awareness across geographies. And yes, one more thing: coordinate or combine PR and advertising pushes throughout the campaign period.

• Adopt the EXPOSURE-ENGAGEMENT-CONVERSION framework

PR has the power to be the backbone of the AIDA model. You can answer her CMO checklist across the EXPOSURE-ENGAGEMENT-CONVERSION framework. PR can achieve different quantity and quality parameters of brand exposure. This will improve your engagement score and ultimately help support your conversion numbers. With the increasing number of crisis cases regarding product news, PR can support the CMO in a similar way in BNAU (not business as usual) cases. With exceptions, the current trends in PR measurement reports out there are shocking the power that PR can actually bring. The industry confuses PR monitoring with measurement reporting. PR communications, like advertising and other communication tools, can and should be based on an exposure, engagement, and conversion framework. Therefore, PR measurement and data analysis can beautifully reflect this effort. Sound PR data analysis can prescribe the necessary PR ERP (efforts, resources, and processes) to an organization that needs to be deployed by the marketing corridor. This helps brand and marketing teams understand how PR can help with the nuances of touchpoint balance, sentiment, reach, frequency, and continuity. CMOs need to invest in a realistic PR measurement and data analysis framework. There are many benefits to be gained from these. These include: i) strengthening your brand score, ii) optimizing your budget, iii) strengthening your agency collaboration, iv) media intelligence, and v) improving your competitive understanding.

CMOs’ awareness and understanding of REAL PR is holding them back from making the most of their marketing role. In the coming days, we should see more examples of the PR team being involved throughout the product cycle and entering his CMO's boardroom alongside the advertising team.