Tag: Brand awareness

In this blog, we discuss:

  • the visibility challenges digital infrastructure brands face
  • why traditional PR often falls short in this sector
  • how a performance-focused approach can help

 

There’s a certain irony in working in digital infrastructure.

You’re the engine room of the internet – powering websites, platforms and content; keeping storage, cloud services, networks and data flowing.

You make the digital world work, keeping everyone else online, connected and visible.

And yet… generating visibility for your own brand? That’s more of a challenge.

The digital infrastructure market is crowded. Buyers are sceptical. Sales cycles are long. And your competition are behemoths like AWS, Microsoft and Google.

So how do you cut through?

How do you prove you’re not just another “cloud solution”?

How can you prove – categorically – that PR spend is worth the investment?

Common challenges for digital infrastructure brands 

Do any of these challenges sound familiar? If so, read on. Digital infrastructure brands are among the hundreds of B2B tech brands we’ve worked with for the last 30 years and these are the problems we see most often. 

Struggling to generate visibility and differentiate: Being seen is one thing. Getting noticed is another. Visibility puts you on the radar, but standing out is what makes people pay attention. Your tech might be smarter, faster, more secure but if your message sounds like everyone else’s, it’ll get lost. Buyers are under pressure and short on time so your PR needs to grab attention, outshine the competition and be remembered.

Your buyers have complex buying cycles: Selling into a buying committee is like trying to convince a table full of people to agree on where to eat: the IT lead wants performance; the finance lead wants savings; the compliance officer wants a stress-free audit.

Infrastructure deals take time; they’re high value, involve multiple decision-makers and often drag on for months. With all the internal discussions, questions and delays you need to keep one foot in the room the whole way through. So how do you stay relevant and helpful without being pushy or annoying?

Performance PR can help digital infrastructure brands

It increases visibility through:

  • Press releases which get your news in front of the right journalists.
  • Articles which give your take on the issues your buyers care about.
  • Case studies which prove you can deliver.
  • Videos which bring what you do to life in a way that’s quick, clear and shareable.
  • Award entries show you’re recognised for your solutions and work.
  • Social campaigns which put your message in front of decision-makers where they’re already scrolling.

It can aid complex buying cycles:

PR must support and nurture journeys, not just bring in the leads initially. Therefore there needs to be a drip of communication, with messages delivered clearly, confidently and consistently.

  • PR can keep you visible across a long decision-making process period so you’re not forgotten.
  • It can deliver a steady flow of interviews, thought leadership and media features which can educate and reassure your buyers throughout the process.
  • It can help to secure third-party endorsements e.g. via customer testimonials or mentions in analyst reports which make it easier for buyers to justify their decision internally.

All these PR activities can position your brand as a trustworthy, forward-thinking choice. And earning trust is key, because when buyers are comparing options, the brand they’ve seen offering consistent, valuable insight is the one they’re more likely to pick. And when you tailor messaging to your buyers’ different roles, your sales team can use PR’s useful content and coverage to keep conversations warm – and crucially – moving.

How Performance PR can secure internal buy in

Even if you do, not everyone in your organisation is likely to get what PR does.

To non-marketing teams and senior management, things like “brand awareness” or “engagement” sound fluffy. Instead they’re focused on: leads, deals and revenue. So when you talk about top-of-funnel activity or PR coverage, the first question is often: “What’s the ROI?”

A fair question, but it puts a lot of pressure on professionals like you to prove the value of work which doesn’t always result in conversion overnight.

Have you ever had to justify questions like: 

“How many leads did that article bring in?”

“What’s the value of that podcast appearance?”

“Do we really need to be on that panel?”

Well this is where Performance PR comes in. 

Performance PR is built on measurable KPIs, ensuring every campaign is aligned with your business objectives. By directly linking actions to outcomes, it delivers clear evidence of impact. It ditches vanity metrics and speaks the language the boardroom wants to hear.

It arms you with proof so when leadership asks what PR is doing for the business, you can confidently say: “Let me show you.”

Measuring PR’s impact for digital infrastructure brands

So just what might those numbers and outcomes look like in a Performance PR campaign designed to target these challenges?

Visibility: If PR is helping you to become more visible, you’ll see increased media coverage, search interest, social mentions, website traffic and backlinks.

Complex buying cycles: To measure whether your PR efforts are supporting complex buying cycles, you want to track metrics which show how PR is influencing awareness, trust, education and conversion over time. Are more people searching for your brand, visiting your site or downloading your content after a campaign? Are leads engaging with thought leadership, mentioning articles in sales calls or moving through the funnel faster?

If you’re in digital infrastructure and battling to stand out, drive your pipeline and prove ROI, it’s time for a partner who gets it. That’s where we come in. Find out more about Performance PR and how we do it here at Whiteoaks. Ready when you are.

By Hugh Cadman, Senior Content Creator, Whiteoaks

In this blog we discuss:

  • Leveraging personal branding to extend the reach and impact of a company’s overall brand
  • What we can learn from masters of personal branding, like Richard Branson and Sheryl Sandberg
  • Why personal branding is as much a tool for B2B as it is B2C

 

It’s all about me. Is that essentially what personal branding is about, and does it have any relevance to the world of B2B technology?

Personal branding certainly has a role to play in B2B tech, but it is not about boosting egos. If crafted and shared with thought and precision, the vision and values of founders, owners and business leaders can be hugely influential.

The point to stress here is that personal branding is about extending the reach and impact of the company’s overall brand. When fully integrated into a B2B PR and marketing campaign, personal branding is very rewarding for the individuals concerned – and their companies.

We can learn from high-profile masters of this art, such as Richard Branson, who regularly posts updates on LinkedIn and mixes business-related content with philanthropic causes and personal insights.

Or Sheryl Sandberg, the former COO of Meta, who has such a strong voice on workplace equality with her Lean In initiative. This has helped to burnish her former employer’s progressive credentials.

The face of an organisation

Personal branding should not be about one individual over and above the company. Leaders serve as the face of the organisation, and if their personal profiles are properly crafted but also radiate authenticity, they build the company’s reputation.

Authenticity is a well-worn word, and goes further than a personal vision, values and inspirations. It is also about being honest about risks, disappointments and admitting to the odd bit of vulnerability.

We know that marketing needs to be brand-led and intelligent, engaging audiences more personally where possible. Personal branding, however, is not just about image but also the story behind it.

Individuals investing in their personal brand help to humanise the corporate identity and add a dimension to its values and vision that wider tech audiences can relate to.

It is easy to assume that a focus on the personal is best suited to consumer-facing companies, but it can have significant impact in the highly-competitive world of digital technology.

Building trust and visibility

Performance PR-led campaigns can incorporate personal branding strategies for key leaders behind a tech brand, moving them further forward on the public stage. Using expertly crafted, highly-targeted content on social media, personal brands provide an entry point, building trust, visibility and drawing in potential clients and investors who resonate with their expertise.

Trust is always important for ambitious tech brands that need a higher profile. If audiences feel they can trust the individuals running a company, that is a substantial advantage.

We should remember that personal branding goes beyond social media posts or videos shot in a suspiciously pristine kitchen. In B2B tech PR there are many opportunities for amplification.

Alongside insights that are original and captivating, key leaders can share thought leadership articles, snappy blogs and informative whitepapers from the corporate brand to further build credibility. PR experts can work with these stakeholders to devise a consistent schedule for posting relevant content on social media channels.

Content is what attracts the right audience, and if personal branding initiatives use cliché after cliché, then they are not going to convince anyone.

Working hard to establish trust and credibility by focusing on the right content with the right language is very important. It is also vital not to sacrifice quality for quantity. Business leaders who have something to say about everything tend not to do their brands many favours.

With key leaders taking steps to build a personal brand and develop a community of followers, businesses have a highly valuable, additional tool that increases the power of their corporate brand with target audiences, enabling them to amplify their presence on all channels and ultimately drive sales.

Get in touch to find out how we can help you build your personal brand and in doing so increase the visibility of your business. 

 

 

The rapid spread of misinformation and disinformation online is the most severe short term risk to the world, according to the World Economic Forum. By influencing opinion before the truth has a chance to catch up, it’s expected to radically disrupt electoral processes over the coming years and increase distrust in media and government sources.

Disinformation, which is different to misinformation in that it involves people intentionally spreading falsehoods, is also affecting the business sector. Malicious actors can easily spread false narratives about products, services or even an industry as a whole on social media platforms. The availability of generative AI tools and deepfake technology has made it much cheaper, faster and easier for convincing fake content to be created and circulated, potentially leading brands to lose control of their messaging. This can undermine customer trust, threaten brand credibility and damage an established reputation.

Granted, it’s impossible for B2B tech organisations to prevent bad actors from sharing false information, but what they can do is adopt best practice steps to help safeguard their brand.

Enabling authenticity with established key messages

A strong, authentic narrative, underpinned by established, specific and detailed key messages, can help shield target audiences from false claims. Generic messaging is prone to mistrust. For example, if an organisation mentions that it is committed to ESG (environmental, social and governance) principles, but fails to explain exactly how, audiences might just believe the term is being used as part of a greenwashing agenda. This is where brands spend more resources on green advertising than actual environmentally-sound practices.

Research has shown that 71% of ESG content in traditional media discusses a specific subtopic, such as a commitment to renewable energy sources. In comparison, only 16% of ESG content on social media discusses a specific subtopic. This is driving a significant increase in negative discussions about ESG on social media platforms from people who believe it to be an empty buzzword.

It’s testament to the danger of generalisations and what they can lead to. If brands can truly back up their ESG claims with tangible initiatives, it’s best to communicate with precision and detail to prevent bad actors from building fake narratives around them. The need for detailed messaging also applies to different content types such as thought leadership pieces and customer case studies, addressing potential misinformation points and establishing a single source of truth.

Monitoring the landscape

Once B2B tech brands have taken control of their messaging, it’s time to look outwards. Social media listening tools can allow organisations to track millions of conversations happening around key topics that are relevant to their industry.

By monitoring specific keywords, hashtags and phrases, these tools can detect emerging disinformation narratives. Brands can then identify any prominent creators of disinformation campaigns, and even where competitors are currently being impacted, which may provide clues as to where future threats could materialise.

With visibility of emerging fake narratives, brands have more time to respond in the most appropriate way. For example, official statements in direct response to mistruth can provide clarity to audiences and ease any fears or concerns. To add further credibility, these messages can be delivered via a verified social media account to reassure audiences that they are engaging with the genuine brand.

Trust is now a valuable currency

The battle against disinformation is ongoing, but it’s not insurmountable. By establishing a clear, authentic narrative, backed by detailed messaging, B2B tech brands can reduce the impact of false claims and maintain credibility. Combining this with proactive monitoring, can ensure organisations are primed to react to threats and prepared to mitigate emerging risks before they escalate.

Disinformation is spreading quickly and convincingly, and trust is now a valuable currency. Brands that commit to transparency, precision and vigilance will be better equipped to safeguard their reputation and foster much-needed long-term trust with their audiences.

Talk to us today about how to safeguard your brand in the age of disinformation.

Increasing brand awareness is a non-negotiable for growing businesses. Without strong brand visibility, potential customers may overlook your products or services, opting for competitors who have built a stronger and more established reputation. Growth plans are hindered as a lack of awareness translates to fewer leads, fewer instances of customer engagement and ultimately lower sales. One way to enhance brand awareness and recognition is via entering, and ideally winning, industry awards. But why are industry awards so effective in building a powerful brand, and how can B2B tech organisations submit a winning entry?

Celebrating excellence in the industry

Industry awards serve to celebrate excellence within a specific industry. They’re not just certificates or trophies that sit on office shelves, but external validation of the effort, hard work and dedication applied by specific individuals or teams to projects. This endorsement builds trust with potential customers and partners, reassuring them of the organisation’s quality and reliability. Awards can often come with media coverage, increasing your brand’s reach. This exposure helps differentiate the organisation from competitors and puts your brand in front of a broader audience.

Awards also play into team recognition and morale. They recognise the hard work and dedication of your team, boosting job satisfaction and increasing the chances of employee retention. This recognition can also attract top talent to your company. Award wins can be showcased on your website and social media channels, as well as in job descriptions and wider marketing strategies to appeal to jobseekers who are looking to join a celebrated organisation.

Benefits can also come from attending the in-person ceremonies often attached with being shortlisted for awards. These events provide a chance for attendees to network with other stakeholders in the industry and increase brand awareness.

A PR agency to assist in the process

While there are many advantages to winning or being shortlisted for awards, casting a wide net and applying for every award available is not the right approach to take. Researching industry awards that align with your business goals and values takes time. You must consider what your company most excels at, for example. Also, which category is most applicable? If your main product is software-as-a-service, there will often be specific categories offered by award providers that focus purely on this type of solution. It’s then easier to back up an entry with relevant data and testimonials that give your business the best chance of both being shortlisted and winning the award.

As a performance-driven PR agency we help our clients build brand awareness and credibility by identifying them towards the most appropriate awards and categories to enter. Award entries often have strict word counts, so every sentence needs to be impactful. Our team of specialist content writers have vast experience of devising award-winning entries. These experts can incorporate the most relevant information into the most concise, yet compelling answers to questions.

With award entries often coming with a range of criteria, our experts’ attention to detail ensures every award entry fits the brief and conveys exactly why your business is worthy of the recognition.

Building a recognisable brand

In the competitive world of B2B tech, building a recognisable brand is essential for growth and success. Industry awards offer a powerful solution to this challenge by providing a platform to celebrate and validate your company’s excellence.

When done right, award entries are a strategic investment that can drive significant benefits for your business and brand. Partnering with a performance-driven PR agency can be invaluable in this process, helping to identify the most relevant awards and categories, and crafting compelling entries with meticulous attention to the entry requirements.

The results? Not only does winning the award give you another accolade to add to your trophy cabinet, but it can also increase brand reach in the media, help you stand out from the competition and even boost team morale.

Want to find out about how we can help you achieve industry recognition? Chat to one of our experts today.

Navigating the world of marketing and PR presents a unique set of challenges for CEOs and founders of B2B technology businesses. Not only do they have to shoulder the responsibility of steering their companies through rapid growth phases but also the increasingly crucial task of enhancing their visibility within the industry. This dual mandate stems from pressures exerted by investors and the board, who recognise the vital role brand visibility plays in attracting investment, building long-lasting partnerships and driving market influence. 

CEOs and founders of scale-ups in particular frequently find themselves wearing multiple hats, with PR and marketing among them, but often taking a back seat to more immediate operational demands. This is exacerbated by the fact that their professional backgrounds rarely lean towards marketing communications. And that’s perfectly fine. After all, not everyone wants an academic degree in PR. 

However, every business owner in a competitive B2B tech landscape should understand the critical role of PR as it directly contributes to business growth by supporting lead generation, attracting investors and opening doors to new partnerships and collaborations. Positive media exposure, thought leadership articles and endorsements from reputable sources help to establish credibility and trust among target audience, industry peers and stakeholders.  


Don’t let skills gaps put investors off 

The repercussions of the PR and marketing skills gap are far-reaching, particularly when it comes to attracting investors and establishing industry visibility. A study conducted by ScaleUp Capital found that a substantial 63% of companies fail to secure funding due to perceived deficiencies in their sales and marketing capabilities. Investors rigorously assess a company’s market visibility, brand reputation and strategic messaging when evaluating funding opportunities. Without a robust PR strategy in place, CEOs and founders may struggle to effectively convey their company’s value proposition, potentially missing out on critical investment opportunities. 

Recognising these challenges, many CEOs and founders initially attempt to manage PR internally. However, they soon realise the resource-intensive nature of effective PR campaigns and the specialised skill set required to achieve meaningful results. This is where partnering with a specialised, performance-driven PR agency can make a significant difference and unlock new opportunities to propel growth. 


Improving brand visibility with a Performance PR agency 

An experienced PR agency like Whiteoaks brings a wealth of industry-specific knowledge, established media relationships and a track record of delivering measurable outcomes. By outsourcing PR activities to experts who understand the intricacies of the B2B tech industry and market dynamics, CEOs and founders can optimise their time and resources. This strategic partnership not only enhances the company’s visibility and credibility but also allows its leadership to focus on core business functions critical to driving growth and innovation. 

But how does a Performance PR agency help to improve brand visibility? 
 

  1. Strategic messaging and positioning: A Performance PR agency works closely with CEOs and founders to craft and refine its key messages and brand narrative. By identifying a single-minded proposition, industry trends and competitive advantages, the agency ensures that the company’s messaging resonates effectively with its target audience and reinforces its brand positioning.
  1. Content creation and distribution: Using a single-minded proposition as a guiding principle, expert copywriters develop engaging content such as press releases, thought leadership articles, case studies and blog posts that highlight the business’ innovations and position key executives and subject matter experts as thought leaders within the industry. The agency will strategically distribute this content, which includes core brand messages, across various media channels and platforms to maximise engagement and enhance the company’s credibility and authority.
  1. Media relations expertise: A Performance PR agency leverages its established relationships with journalists, editors and media outlets to secure high-impact media placements. By pitching compelling stories, expert commentary and company news to relevant publications, the agency ensures that the tech business gains visibility among its target audience and industry influencers.
  1. Social media and digital PR: In the digital age, online visibility is crucial. Consistent messaging in organic and paid online content makes it easier for the target audience to recognise and remember the brand. A Performance PR agency utilises digital PR tactics such as SEO content, social media engagement, online reviews management and influencer partnerships to boost the business’ online presence and manage its reputation effectively.
  1. Measurement and analytics: A Performance PR agency employs robust measurement and analytics tools to track the impact of PR efforts, including the volume of media coverage and message penetration. Metrics such as media impressions, website traffic, social media engagement and sentiment analysis provide valuable insights into the effectiveness of PR campaigns. At Whiteoaks, we use KPIs to measure campaign performance against a business goal. Our ‘fixed fees for fixed outcomes’ model is designed to deliver tangible outcomes and positive return on investment.


Ultimately, the decision to partner with a Performance PR agency isn’t just about filling a skills gap. It’s about unlocking new opportunities, shaping industry perceptions and achieving enduring success in a competitive market.  

At Whiteoaks, our performance-driven approach will help to elevate your company’s visibility, inspire confidence among the board and investors and pave the way for future business growth and innovation.  

Get in touch with us today to discuss your next campaign.