In a recent PR Week article, Giles Fraser, the co-founder of Brands2Life, discusses how brand communications has entered a new era. In this piece, he shares his rationale behind why PR professionals should immediately begin to adopt a particular set of marketing skills.

Fraser says, “In a world where purchases are only a click away, people expect to have the option to try and/or buy something at the beginning or end of a brand content experience. In fact, some feel short-changed if they don’t. … For PR practitioners this can only be good news. A campaign can start with an issue or insight being called out and finish with an opportunity for customers to engage directly with the brand and/or product.”

What Fraser is saying is that there are now opportunities for PR campaigns at nearly every step of the customer journey. With this being the case, campaigns must build both brand awareness and business impact in order to satisfy both their clients’ and the consumers’ expectations. It is necessary now that PR agencies widen the scope of their programs and develop the skills needed in order to deliver on this demand.

However, this opportunity goes both ways, as other marketing disciplines are updating their skill sets-sets just as fast as PR professionals are expanding theirs. With this situation and the increasing competition, PR professionals must shift their mindset from strictly communications to a more marketing-encompassing set of offerings. Adapting the following marketing skills will help professionals drive brand awareness and action:

1. Consumer behavior. Studying consumer patterns and the larger trends in your client’s industry will enable you to anticipate purchasing needs, uncover pain points, and make service/product improvements that will exceed expectations. Incorporating consumer behavior strategies into your PR skill set will further differentiate your brand above the traditional PR scope of work, particularly enabling your client to release news and start a new conversation.
2. CRM. Customer relationship management includes the strategies and technologies companies use to track and manage data through the customer lifecycle. In addition to maintaining relationships with clients, PR agencies can incorporate CRM to track and maintain reporter relationships and the measure the impact of a campaign or announcement’s success.
3. Insights and data. Leveraging big data in the form of social media records and publically available sources can benefit the approach and strategy of relationship building. PR professionals would need to prioritize potential sources for data, determine the amount of data they will realistically be able to analyze, and then determine the strategy for leveraging the insights uncovered in order to effectively drive brand awareness and action for their clients.
4. Performance marketing. This term refers to marketing and advertising programs in which a reward is received when an action is achieved or a goal is met. Unlike traditional advertising, this allows for real-time measurement and a diversified revenue stream. Extending this strategy into PR practices can start by first determining the end goals and action items that would warrant the real-time payment.

If and how PR professionals decide to incorporate these skills is up to them. However, in doing so, not only will companies have a larger scope of services to offer, they will leave their competitors in the dust. Expanding skill sets takes investment in resources, but in the end will benefit both the company and the clients you represent.

Client expectations are rising – what will your company do to exceed them?