The Next Big Thing in PR

The buzz word today across all industries is Big Data Analytics and PR in many ways being interconnected with businesses, will have to leverage data and data analytics in a big way going forward. Data based decision making not only on the tangibles but the intangibles today is making a lot of difference to brands and their journey in a big way.

Collating customer sentiments, mapping buying behaviours, social listening has all become very important for a brand(s) to understand its customers better and formulate strategies to build loyal customers and engage even more with newer customers. Through the Paid, Earned, Owned and Shared Media, brands are today well connected with end-users, but the main returns on investment(s) of these engagements essentially influence the customer and end-user to invest or buy the brand. Buying the product will be the final stage where there is a definite tangible investment which leads to booking value/volume revenues for any brand. However, investing in a brand emotionally and influencing others to pay attention and notice the brand is assuming an even bigger role today.

Thus influencers are playing a meatier part in making heads turn and getting brands noticed by putting more focus on the intangibles of the brands – including aspirational value attached to it, the social status it brings to the customer, an engagement with the brand that benefits both the brand as well as the influencer.

These are the trends that need mapping. I remember taking my Econ101 in school, where we learnt about Regression Analysis – how the past behaviour of prices predict future movement in prices. But can this be force-fitted to today’s consumer psyche and buying behaviour? With hordes of brands trying to make an impact with the customer, it’s only the relevant ones that end up staying with the customer, and increasing their brand recall, so much so that s/he remembers them all along and associates them with the products – take the case in point of noodles – we only know them as Maggi! Or Chocolate – we only know it as Cadbury! And even in today’s millennial thought process, how then can brands make that difference and sustain this high level of engagement?

Enter the role of Social Media. Given the changing buying patterns and influencers – both humans and bots (data/analytics) it is pertinent for any brand to consistently remain relevant and more real-time. According to an industry study, people today spend more time browsing than reading and even when they do read online, only 28% of the words are likely to be read; thus making it even more important for the content to be condensed and relevant. Given this change in dynamics, visual content becomes the key and the big question today really is, “Is my content sharable?” – the number of re-tweets, likes, re-posts, comments will improve the brand visibility after-all. According to Facebook, users spend on an average 3X more time on watching Facebook live videos than reading about the product/service.

Keeping all of this in mind, Analytics does play a very important role in decision making and if used wisely can be a very important tool in.  

1)Analysing consumer behaviour patterns – when, how, what time does your customer end up making a purchase of your product; from how many times does s/he browse your website/social media account, read product reviews, engage with influencers till s/he actually purchases the product.. a lot of time is spent not only from the consumer’s perspective but also from the brand’s

2   2) SEO Mapping - Similarly, SEO mapping throws up data with respect to the region where your TG operates out of, the age and sex cohort – this helps in mapping them to the relevant on-line ads and influencers

3  3) Influencers - In today’s day and age, Influencers are playing a very important role in engaging actively with the brands and the potential as well as loyal customers. They help in creating a specific aura on your brand – be it with respect to explaining technical aspects/USPs of the brands in simple language to making your brand seem more real and approachable. Many times having a no-celeb influencer helps a brand even more as that makes it more credible. A growing sea of millennial find it more appealing when someone like them endorses a brand, making the benefits seem real.

Thus all in all, data analytics definitely help a brand understand its TG better and place its PR, Media and marketing campaigns better. But these analytics too need to evolve with time and remain relevant. Thus PR needs to be always aligned with its business and industry it is working for and be relevant to the client’s vision and strategies.