Advertising is an important aspect of building a brand and a brand image. It keeps the brand name before the public and allows the advertiser to define the brand, define the image that it wants to associate with its product or service. But to help ensure that this image is accepted by consumers requires public relations efforts.

Companies must build credibility for their brands through third-party endorsements, which may take the form of coverage by the news media, editorial comment, consumer commentary, industry advice, celebrity endorsement, or simply "buzz" about the brand.

This credibility-building applies not only to consumers, but also to your employees, shareholders, regulators, industry analysts and other opinion-makers. Modern public relations marshals these forces to help companies meet their business goals.

You don't need a multi-million-dollar budget to begin using public relations, however. Here are ten simple ways you can employ PR to help you preserve and extend your brand and achieve your business goals.

1. Understand the media and how to work with them.
Develop a simplified way to tell your company's story. Use colorful quotes and real-life anecdotes to illustrate it. Look for timely "hooks"—trends, reports, political or cultural developments—to attach to your story to attract the media's attention. And go into media interviews with the headline you want to see on the story firmly in mind. Make sure you bring that headline to the forefront in your conversations with the reporter.

2. Find newsworthy stories in your advertising campaign.
Advertising and public relations should work hand-in-hand. Does your ad present a phrase or tag line that's likely to become highly popular and could become the subject of a news story? Think of such lines as, "Got Milk?" or "Just Do It." The success of those themes offers news value.

Can you find a way to play off your ad theme with public relations efforts? If the theme for the advertising campaign of your motel chain is, "We'll leave the light on for you," you could sponsor a lights-on-to-fight-crime night regionally or nationally. Or you could distribute night lights to children or flashlights to motorists, each emblazoned with your logo and theme.

Are you setting a new trend in your ad with its physical appearance, texture, style or content? The media love trends—let them know about what you are doing in your advertising that is unusual.

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4. Speak before community and business groups.
Offer your own success stories, insights on trends and predictions and ways that your product or service can help that particular audience. Publicize not only the fact that you will be speaking, but also what you said, after the fact. Consider transforming your speech into a bylined article that may be printed in publications read by your prospective customers or clients. (This article, in fact, initially was a speech.)

5. Use your own Web site to position you and your company as industry leaders.
Provide news and advice on your site. Publish your speeches and articles there. Make it easier for the media to report on your successes by creating an online newsroom with news releases, photos, fact sheets, backgrounders and bios.

6. Create a strong communications program with your customers.
Use printed newsletters that offer tips and product/service announcements. Consider an "opt-in" e-mail newsletter, one which prospects indicate they want to receive. Include brief, to-the-point items and links to your Web site. Use response mechanisms on your Web site, including surveys, forms and e-mail links. And find ways to elicit direct input from customers, such as focus groups or customer rating surveys.

7. Develop a strong employee communications program.
Be certain your employee communications offers feedback opportunities so that employees feel they are "in the loop." Use publications, meetings, social and sporting events, weekly internal e-mail reports, and even an employee-run newsletter to reinforce your successes and to prune the company grapevine before it gets out of hand.

8. Publish an annual report, in either print or electronic form, describing your successes.
You don't need to be a public company—and you don't even need to include financial information—to publish a valuable annual report. Report on ways your company has supported the community and charitable organizations, new developments in your industry in which you've played a role, successes and progress you are making toward your goals.

Steve Friedman is Chief Executive Trainer for Franco Public Relations Group. For more information on Franco, contact us at info@franco.com or by phone at 313.567.2300 in Detroit or 702.450.9903 in Las Vegas.

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