The best techniques to close a deal!

/in /by

StrategyDriven Marketing and Sales Article |Close a deal|The best techniques to close a deal!Closing a deal remains a crucial step in the sales cycle. It is therefore important not to miss a chance to close when the opportunity arises. Discover the best techniques to close a deal through this article.

Secure a deal through the sale price

The sales price is elastic. There are three ways to present it and turn a prospect into a customer. However, you can also turn to tools like Kaspr to help you convert your prospects into customers.

The addition of your features

Announcing the full list of your features is a very effective closing technique. It is a way for the prospect to have a full understanding of what they will pay for. It is the same principle as the shopping list. In addition, you can announce your price before or after.

Recurrent payment

Here, the price is divided into small units per day or month. Displaying a sliding scale price according to the package gives the possibility to highlight certain formulas and to nuance the investment. This closing technique is a classic in the SAAS sector. In order to reduce the perceived cost of the standard offer, the latter generally display a prohibitive premium price.

The Delta

You can advertise your selling price as “+X%” or “-X%”. You can also compare it to the market. This method will work if the solution you offer is easily comparable.

Introduce incentive bonuses

If your customer is hesitating for any reason, it does not necessarily mean that they are unwilling or unable to buy. It may be that the product or solution you are offering is not valuable enough to them for the price you are offering.

In order to close a deal quickly, it is therefore necessary to argue the perceived value of the product or to reduce the price.

The best way to increase the customer’s perceived value is to offer an incentive bonus. In general, the bonus should be valuable to the customer, even if it doesn’t cost you much. Remember that a high-value bonus is not necessarily a high-priced bonus. A high-value bonus is a valuable addition to the customer’s willingness to pay for the product. This is why it is important to have carried out good customer discovery beforehand in order to reach the target group.

In addition, in order to achieve an effective negotiation, you can reduce the price and at the same time ask for interesting counterparts for your company.

StrategyDriven E-Learning Marketing System | Online Training | Online Training Program | Entrepreneurship | Revenue Growth

Focus on scarcity of supply and urgency

Urgency and scarcity are effective ways of closing a deal. However, most salespeople use this technique inappropriately. The idea of this method is to communicate the feeling to your customer. To this end, here is what you can do:

  • Mention that you are limited on this offer or product.
  • Tell the customer that the offer or product is already of interest to several other competitors.
  • Adding that your internal capacity cannot cope with the current order volume and that this will undoubtedly lead to a delay.

There are many applications for this purpose. However, the most important thing is the reality of the points raised. You should always think about the elements that would really allow you to capitalise on urgency and scarcity. Credibility cannot be bought, it is built as you go along.

Draw up a balance sheet

When your prospect is hesitating, it is necessary to review the characteristics of your offer. This method is useful, especially for clarifying the sales pitch and closing a deal more easily. The aim is to clarify the situation in the customer’s mind with regard to the content of the offer and the benefits it can bring.

When you take up the whole offer, you logically explain the interest it presents to them. This makes it easier to reach an agreement.

Choose a tool that makes your job easier

A lead generation tool can also help you close a deal more easily. By multiplying contacts and focusing on the hardest-to-reach leads, you can use Kaspr.

Kaspr is a lead generation tool that allows you to get the contact details of your prospects via their LinkedIn profiles. This tool takes care of searching for this contact information in real time from the web. It is one of the best ways to get qualified information about your prospects in record time.

Conclusion

You can close a deal through the sale price and incentive bonuses. You can also use the scarcity of the offer. However, don’t forget to take stock and use an effective tool to help you in your approach.

Branding Trends To Improve Your Business In 2022

/in /by

StrategyDriven Marketing and Sales Article | Branding Trends To Improve Your Business In 2022

What does branding mean?

A brand refers to ‘a person’s perception of a product, service, experience, or organization,’ (Emotive Brand, 2021). Branding refers to the actions which you take to develop your brand. Your brand includes many different elements such as your logo, graphics, tone of voice, persona, and message. Modern marketing involves creating a story around your brand, the story should demonstrate who you are, and why your business came to exist.

Why is branding so important?
Branding is so important because it helps to differentiate your business from the competition. Using your brand you can show potential customers why you’re unique, and what sets you apart from the rest. Establishing a brand can help you to create a memorable business, and build recognition. Great branding helps you to create a distinctive style, and show customers your persona. With the right branding, you’ll achieve brand recognition across the market. If you’re looking to improve your branding, here are some of the top branding trends for 2022.

1 . Activist Brands

In 2022 we’ll be seeing an increasing number of activist brands. Consumers prefer brands that use their voices to make a difference. Businesses across the globe are making CSR part of their branding, whether it’s social justice or the environment. The key is to include activism in your brand personality, there are plenty of ways that you can do this including:

  • Support charity work and campaign for positive change.
  • Help customers to make a difference by using your products.
  • Use social media to share your philanthropic values.
  • Focus on inclusivity & diversity.
  • Educate your audience about social justice issues.

2. Immersive Branding

In 2022 businesses will be using immersive experiences, to shape their brand storytelling. What exactly are immersive brand experiences? These experiences are about bringing your audience into the world of your brand. The idea is to engage your community, invite interaction, and establish a connection.

According to Rock Content, ‘ The immersive experience represents any brand action aiming to create a new, illusory environment for its audience.’ The idea is to ensure that the audience ‘feel part of what is being presented to them.’ There are plenty of different immersive experiences you might use, whether it’s a virtual reality experience, a digital game, or a themed event.

3. Quirky Elements

Quirky branding is set to be a hot trend in 2022. There are lots of ways to approach quirky branding, you might use humorous hand-drawn artwork, surreal imagery, or bizarre graphic design.

To create a quirky brand you need to think outside the box and dare to get creative. If your design work is quirky, you’ll need to represent this eccentricity in your tone of voice too. Branding is all about remaining consistent, this way you’ll help your audience to recognize you.

If your branding needs a revamp in 2022 don’t be afraid to shake it up with fun typography, clashing colors, and odd artwork. Eccentric branding is all about making a statement.

4. Minimalism

If you don’t like the sound of quirky and eccentric design work, not to worry, minimalism is still in vogue too!

Why is minimalism still so popular? It could be because customers want to understand a brand with zero effort! They want immediate clarity, (and this works well with plain branding). In 2022 we’ll be seeing plenty of simple logos and typography and neutral colors. It’s best to work with a graphic designer to create your logos and design work. Minimalist designs might look easy to produce, but it’s actually much trickier than you think!

5. Topical Elements

We’ve seen plenty of topical branding and marketing this year, and this is certainly going to continue throughout 2022. Many businesses are focusing on current affairs and using these topics to create their branding.

Topical branding is a great way to engage your audience, using shared values. Of course, there’s always the chance that you could cause controversy. It’s best to do plenty of target audience research beforehand. Before you get started, create guidelines, and discuss your approach with your team.

StrategyDriven E-Learning Marketing System | Online Training | Online Training Program | Entrepreneurship | Revenue Growth

6. Inclusivity

Ignoring inclusivity is a huge mistake, not just morally, but for your reputation. So many brands have come under fire for not being inclusive enough, (and you certainly don’t want to join the club)! It’s important to examine your company as a whole, from your staff to your values, the third parties you work with, and your marketing. Unless you build an inclusive brand now you’re going to need a rebranding later down the line.

7. Humanized Personas

To keep up with the latest trends you’ve got to humanize your brand. Customers don’t naturally trust corporations, but they trust their peers. Creating a credible brand is about developing a humanized persona that people will trust.

According to research from Finance Online, consumers like brands that are helpful, friendly, honest, funny, and trendy. Stats also showed that it was important to consumers that brands were politically correct. When you humanize your brand with these attributes it’s easier for customers to relate to you.

When you’re building your brand you’ll want to ensure that you come across as professional. Your audiences will judge your brand on everything, from your website to your social media content and your customer service. You’d be surprised how much small things make a difference. For example, using a business phone instead of your personal number will help you to present your brand as more credible. To read more, check out the Phone.com website.

8. Nostalgia

Plenty of companies are using nostalgia as part of their branding, throw-backs to the past are a great way to make your audience feel all warm inside! Some brands are using 80’s style graphic designs, others are using 70’s music tracks for their ad campaigns.

Creating a nostalgic brand is about considering your target audience. To get a few cool ideas, check out these examples of nostalgic branding. When you’re looking to create an excellent branding campaign, what you need is a little inspiration.

9. Authentic Stories

Branding is all about telling stories, it’s about using the story of your company to engage your audience. In 2022 brands will start to focus on the stories of their audience. User-generated content is a fantastic way to shape a down-to-earth brand. The great thing about UGC is that it is inexpensive to produce, and it has an excellent engagement rate. Modern consumers are bored of glossy and perfect ads, they want authentic content produced by people just like them.

When you’re building your brand it’s a good idea to perform competitor research. By no means should you copy your competitors, but you should learn from them. Examine the different aspects of their brand, from their strengths to their weaknesses. Understanding the competition will help you to create a stronger brand. The key is to define your USP and use this to promote yourself.

The Takeaway

Paying attention to the latest branding trends will help you to grow your business and thrive. Remember, it’s your brand that helps you to stand out. With so many similar companies in the market, it’s important that you find ways to set yourself apart. Don’t be afraid to get creative when you’re building your brand.

Taking a few risks could help you to build an incredibly memorable brand. Ensure that you gather plenty of feedback from your audience, with the right insights you’ll be able to make lots of improvements. With the right marketing tips and branding advice you’ll take your company from strength to strength.

Online Marketplace: New challenges to overcome

/in , /by

StrategyDriven Online Marketing and Website Development Article, Online Marketplace: New challenges to overcome

The marketplace model of eCommerce is one such breakthrough that allowed everyone to become a part of the new ecosystem of online commerce. There was a time when the entry of an online alternative in a market would scare the hell out of small offline retailers. The consumer behavior was changing and the prices were getting aggressively competing; it was not easy for small retailers to keep up with their online counterparts.

Then came the marketplace model that allowed even small retailers to claim a share from the multi-billion dollar pie of eCommerce. Now, instead of competing with the offline retailers, the eCommerce sites were connecting third-party retailers directly to their customers. We called this model the pure marketplace ecosystem, where the owner of the marketplace did not maintain the inventory but simply connect the people with inventories to the people who want to purchase. The marketplace was just an intermediary, which would make money from the commissions they charged on each sale generated for their retailers.

The time changed, markets evolved, competition became even harsh, and marketplaces required more innovative ways to make money than the mere commissions. This gave birth to different sub-classifications of the actual marketplace model, which still exists:

  • E-Bay: A peer-to-peer marketplace that sales only from the third-party inventories
  • Amazon: A hybrid marketplace that sales from both in-house and third party inventories
  • Walmart: A hybrid combined with the physical model to sell both in online and offline ecosystems

What’s next in the marketplace model of eCommerce?

The meaning of an online marketplace is changing as we speak. Today, the boundary that differentiates a physical marketplace from its online counterpart is as thin as a thread. The biggest names in the marketplace ecosystem, such as Amazon, Alibaba, and Walmart, have established both online and offline presence and securing major shares of the pie through their Omni-channel manifestations.

Today, the marketplace business is no more about massive catalogs of different categories of products. Instead, marketplaces are creating ecosystems for their customers. They are driving customers towards the business from all possible sides and earning customer loyalty by offering everything at one place on any channel. Take Amazon for example. Is there anything that Amazon can’t offer to a common consumer? From entertainment to finance, grocery, vegetables, electronics, home furnishing, and cloud services, Amazon is the best example to understand the rapidly evolving face of the Retail 4.0 marketplace model today.

StrategyDriven E-Learning Marketing System | Online Training | Online Training Program | Entrepreneurship | Revenue Growth

Is the marketplace is a profitable business idea in 2020?

It indeed is. Even the biggest entities in the market cannot cover everything. There are still numerous niches with profitable prospects for the new entrants. It certainly not an easy job to set up a marketplace and compete with the likes of Amazon, eBay, Alibaba, and Walmart. However, you don’t need to compete with them, if you identify some niche marketplace ideas. The marketplace model offers an array of benefits to the merchants and the customers, and all of them could encourage them to come along with your platform:

  • A combined channel: You could offer a hybrid channel to small retailers and merchants to generate sales from both online and offline markets.
  • Better exposure: Selling on a marketplace platform reveals new doors to the merchants who have been relying on traditional channels. They can even expand their business internationally.
  • Reduced marketing cost: Merchants need not spend a fortune to build eCommerce sites and then marketing them. They can save all these costs by simply signing up on your marketplace.
  • Established trust factors: Retailers get access to an established platform, which its customers already trust. This trust factor is induced to the sellers of the marketplace, too.
  • Competitive product prices: With so many sellers available for a single product, the prices are l always competitive. It encourages more customers to shop from your site.
  • Multiple revenue channels: As a marketplace owner, you need not depend on commissions alone to make money. You can make money from several non-traditional channels, such as showing featured products, sponsored products, and selling membership subscriptions for added benefits to sellers and the customers.

No doubt, the above benefits for everyone lay down the foundation of the marketplace model, but it’s not all breezy either. There are some pitfalls too that require strategic resolutions:

  • It’s all technology: The core that drives an online marketplace business is pure technology. From the marketplace software to web-hosting, content delivery networks, third party APIs, and compliance with the laws, everything is driven by technology. That makes a competitive marketplace setup quite expensive, complex, and workforce-extensive.
  • Chicken and egg problem: Sellers won’t board your marketplace until you have enough customers to make good sales, and customers can’t purchase until you have sellers. It makes the opening days for a marketplace business pretty complicated. You would need a significant amount of investment to market your platform, and then acquire sellers through handsome incentives.
  • Data security: When you are managing a massive marketplace with so many merchants, customers, and sensitive information onboard, there is a high risk of data security. Since the only asset you have is your platform and data, you have to be very particular about keeping it secure.

How you can start an online marketplace business?

It’s a big question – how to start an online marketplace business? There is the technology and there is business process development, both go hand-in-hand to form a complete marketplace ecosystem. If you have a business plan or a niche in your mind, you need to focus your efforts on handling the following four challenges first, and you could own a great marketplace business:

Note: You need to manage these challenges keeping your customers and sellers/merchants in thought. You can’t start a marketplace by conciliating with the needs of any of the two stakeholders.

Marketplace Software

Marketplace software constitutes your entire platform. You would need a collection of different marketplace solutions that work collectively to build your marketplace platform. One of the major constituents is – the marketplace website.

Marketplace website builder: You can develop your marketplace platform from scratch by outsourcing your project or hiring in-house developers. However, this would be a highly expensive and time-consuming undertaking. Instead, you can purchase a ready-made, open-source, multi-vendor eCommerce script to set up your platform in a few hours. There are various clone scripts in the market; you can get one of them and build your website. These scripts will provide all the fundamental features you need to build your platform. Since they offer open-source code access, you can also customize them the way you want.

Another alternative is using a free eCMS like Magento, PrestaShop, or OpenCart. However, these Commerce platforms are mainly suitable for inventory-based eCommerce sites, as they do not provide multi-vendor support out-of-the-box. You will have to purchase a corresponding multi-vendor module or extension from a third-party vendor to add marketplace features. They are open-source too.

Some SaaS solutions are also present in the market with ready-made marketplace sites. If you are ready to pay a monthly recurring fee, transaction fee per-sale, and can do with limited control over your site, this could be one of the fastest ways to build and launch your site in a day. These solutions are closed-source.

The choice is yours, you can use any of these options based on your preference and requirements. Do some research and select the most suitable option, as it would be a long-term commitment. You can’t switch your marketplace software every now or then.

Branding and Marketing

Be advised that customers don’t remember the seller but the marketplace platform itself. Therefore, every bad experience customers receive from your sellers directly affects your business image. All the discounts, Ads, and promotions, happen in the name of the marketplace platform. If you can’t get your customers to remember your brand identity, know that there is something wrong with your marketing and branding activities.

Supply-chain and Demand

The sole purpose of a marketplace platform is to fill the gap between supply and demand. Both the buyers and the merchants are your customers. You need to maintain a steady flow of demand and supply to keep both of the ends happy. Without buyers, you will lose customers and demand; without sellers, you will lose the supply-chain. Happy customers create demand, and sellers create the supply. You have to maintain an optimum balance between the two entities to succeed.

Flawless Customer Support

For both the buyers and the sellers, customer support is the most volatile constituent that might just ruin everything at any stage. There is a need for offering continuously impeccable customer support to the stakeholders. However, it cannot happen unless your sellers are supportive to the customers. You might try your best to give flawless experience to the buyers, but everything stops if your sellers don’t do their part. You must create an environment where everyone is doing his or her jobs properly. From quality control to addressing queries, processing refunds, and undertaking replacements, everything should work in harmony with each other. Consider professional grade customer service software or hiring professionals to build you efficient systems to reduce customer support issues.

To Conclude

Overall, the marketplace is a challenging business. However, easy businesses don’t furnish good returns. You can win this war with technical advancements and customer-friendly policies. If you want to create a hub of customers like Amazon and eBay, you shouldn’t arbitrate on the above four fronts. Invest in innovative marketplace software solutions, bridge the supply-demand gap, market your business, and extend the best customer support –this is the optimal way to command the new challenges of marketplace business and succeed effortlessly.

About the Author

Jessica Bruce a professional blogger, guest writer, Influencer & an eCommerce expert. She is currently associated with ShopyGen as a content marketing strategist. Jessica also reports on the latest happenings and trends associated with the eCommerce industry.

Follow her on Twitter @Jessicabruc (https://twitter.com/Jessicabruc)

Tips on How To Drive More Sales

/in /by

StrategyDriven Marketing and Sales Article |Drive Sales|Tips on How To Drive More SalesAnyone who wants a successful business needs to work on their sales techniques. It simply is not good enough to create an excellent product, stick it up on the shelves and expect it to sell itself.

Although you will make some sales that way, in order to maximize sales and profits and push your business forwards and grow, you need a fully-fledged marketing and sales strategy that considers every aspect of the sale, from the packaging to the individual customer. Remember, there is a lot of competition out there, and even if your product is far superior in every way to your competitor, if they have done the hard work of getting to know their customer and created a rapport with them, then they will sell more. In the end, it pays dividends to do the backgrounds and develop strategies and plans to drive more sales.

Focus on Your Brand

It’s all about excellent branding these days, and if you have not spent time and money on developing your brand, you will be falling behind. Your brand is like a foundation that all your sales and marketing material can hang off of. Moreover, it is something that your customer and, just as importantly, your staff can believe it. It is a great logo and coloring, and much more. It is a complete ethical framework with visions and goals that aim to improve society. It is also all the core values that you believe in, and it is all about the company culture. When your sales team and your marketing material use key messages in their pitches, that all go back to this foundation. This makes the company appear coherent and true to its word. People want something to believe in, so give them that. Being able to tap into the way your customer thinks and connect with them on a deep level will help you drive sales. Your brand is something that should be instantly recognizable from a core message, your sales team needs to be fully on-board with this idea, and all platforms need to comply.

The website is key and needs to demonstrate all these things, so that when a customer is interested, that can find that foundation there. Also create a brand narrative that incorporates all these ideas which is on the website. Also, consider a unique and hard-hitting story that sparked your inspiration to create the company in the first place. In a nutshell, branding is very important, and it may be an idea to sit down with a few instrumental people in your team and develop it if you haven’t done so already.

Define Your Customer

If you want to target your sales material, you need to have a clear understanding of who your key customer is. You need to pose some questions to create an ideal customer type, think about the demographics, whether or not they are likely to have children, how affluent they are, what interests do they have, their likes and dislikes, etc. Knowing who you are targeting your sales pitches and marketing material at allows you to create focused and targeted material. To help you get an idea of who your customer is, you should use toll such as social media. You could monitor the competition’s social media accounts as well, or if you do not have your own, yet. Social media will allow you to develop great insights into how you customer things. You can even post questions and ideas and see what comes back. When you start understanding your customer a little better, you may be able to work out the types of keywords they would use when typing something into Google when searching for a product that you sell. That means you can load your website with keywords and ensure your marketing material uses them too. Defining your customer and understanding what makes them tick is how to generate more sales and make better products.

What Problems Are You Solving

A product is created with a specific problem to solve in mind. You need to clearly define this problem with reference to your target customer. So, think about how you are adding value to your specific customers’ lives. You need to understand their lives pretty well to be able to do this because if you are not adding value, your product will not sell. So you need to focus on the benefit your products will serve. By doing this, you will ensure that the people you want to attract are attracted by your sales pitches.

Track the Competition

It is important that you monitor your competition so that you can develop your business’s competitive advantage over them and stay on top of potential new trends that they are benefiting from, among other things. Take a look at all the material you can and investigate their products too. Look at the language, images, keywords, etc., they use in their marketing material. Look at how their customers interact with them on social media. You could perform a competitive analysis that can give you insights into how your company is performing against theirs. Think about how you differ. What is your USP (unique selling point)? What benefits do your products offer in comparison? What is better about your product. What weaknesses can you exploit? The better you know the competition, the stronger your sales pitches can be.

StrategyDriven E-Learning Marketing System | Online Training | Online Training Program | Entrepreneurship | Revenue Growth

Use A Multi-Platform Strategy

These days you can use a variety of platforms to get your products out there. Don’t just focus on a single format. What’s more, the vast majority of them are free. You can use social media such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter to advance your brand and promote your products. Creating a point strategy is key in the overall effectiveness of this. Social media is a great way to build relationships with customers and track the effectiveness of a particular post to further refine and update your marketing and sales material. Also, remember you can utilize your own blog to your advantage. Load it with keywords, and create new content regularly so it stays relevant, and Google finds it more easily. Also, consider Amazon and Amazon seller 3rd-party software from D8aDriven. Do not limit yourself to a single promotional avenue.

Pricing

Choosing the right price to sell your items at can be tricky. Too high and it turns people off, too low and people will question the quality of your products. You need to do quite a lot of market research in this field and think about where you stand in comparison to your competitor. If you have made a case that sees your brand a synonymous with quality, then you may well be able to charge a premium. You need to over-promote the quality aspect so that this issue is driven home, and people see you as superior in quality.

Packaging

Packaging is essential to the overall customer experience, and it will be one of the last times you can contact your customer to make an impression. Quality packaging that helps promote your ethical consideration, such as sustainable packaging, goes a long way to boost credibility. Also, something that is beautiful and creative to open makes the process a lot more alluring. These customers will remember your brand and are more likely to buy from you again. Additionally, they are more likely to be willing to pay that little bit extra. Any contact you can have with the customer should be jumped upon and exhausted.

Focus On a Strategy to Keep Your Customers

Once a customer has bought a product from you, you need to find ways to keep these customers. Packaging with a card and an offer in it is a good strategy. Also, when a customer buys from you, ensure you get their email address so you can add them to your email list. Freebies and offers sent via email are also good ideas. Also, think about content. Great content such as blog posts and vlogs that are designed to connect with your customer and entice them into using you again are a must. Use your social media pages to your advantage too.

Get Feedback

If you really want to know what your customer is thinking, ask them. There are many ways you can do this, from a poll on social media, to creating a questionnaire and linking to it from a social media site. You could put a postcard in the packaging material, or just a link to an online questionnaire. Ask what your products lack, ask about any specific problems that you may not have considered, ask what they like and dislike. It really is up to you.

Inside Information

Advise your customer on your company’s visions, make them aware of why you are creating specific products, and how you came up with this idea on a personal level. Tell them about a product that you have in development. Your customers would like to hear about these new things, and you will be able to develop trust.

The Growing Importance of Ethics in PR

/in /by

StrategyDriven Marketing and Sales Article |Ethics in PR|The Growing Importance of Ethics in PREthics have always been important in PR, but they have officially become more important than ever. The world is changing by a significant degree, and so is the public relations industry. Nearly every single PR organization follows a code of ethics. These can either be company policies that they will follow when working with clients or rules from a proper board. PR Council, PRSA, Institute of PR, ICCO, and Global Alliance are just a few of the boards that offer their own code of ethics.

However, the rising importance of ethics raises an important question about why it is becoming so important. And to answer that, it is best to look at what ethics really mean for PR firms in general.

What Is Ethics?

Simply put, Ethics are rules or principles put into place that every individual who is working in the firm will have to follow. These rules guide PR professionals in a way that allows them to act responsibly and treat their clients with fairness. These principles also happen to be very strict, as people who do not follow the rules set out by a board are blacklisted from the industry.

However, the perception surrounding PR firms and professionals alike is much less positive. Despite various ethics boards having their own rules in place, people have mixed feeling about them, to say the least. A 2018 global report on ethics and its evolution found that over 57% of participants in the US thought that PR, as a field, was unethical. This report tends to stand out compared to the 44% of individuals worldwide who believed the same.

Why Is Ethics In PR Important?

Despite what many have come to believe about PR in general, ethics is the glue holding everything together. A few reasons why Ethics in PR is important:

Helps Sustain the PR Profession

One of the most important reasons why ethics exist in the PR space is to promote healthy competition. If ethics were no longer part of the equation, healthy competition could very well go out the window. Firms will start a race to the bottom as they try to gain the upper hand regardless of the cost.
Without proper Ethics, companies will start relying on underhanded tactics to get ahead of each other. Aggressive procurement tactics and spreading misinformation are just two of the many dangerous ways companies will try to get ahead. As a result, PR firms, their clients, and their employees will suffer. The ethics boards strongly advise against unfair competition in the industry, as no one benefits from it in the long run.

Improves Relationships with Clients

Another important thing to understand about PR firms is that they rarely ever work independently. Whenever they work with another company, they become an extension of their beliefs and morals. And if they happen to act in a way different from their employer, that could be bad news for the entire industry.

With a proper code of ethics in place, PR firms will always be sure to represent their clients according to their public image. The PRSA code of conduct specifies various instances where professionals who act out of the interests of their employer will be violating their regulations.

StrategyDriven E-Learning Marketing System | Online Training | Online Training Program | Entrepreneurship | Revenue Growth

Maintains Positive Public Perception

Although most PR firms act as an extension to various companies, they also represent the greater industry. Therefore, their actions can carry consequences for other PR firms, where ethics comes into play.

The ICCO has even created its 10-point Helsinki Declaration, where it details the ethical standards that companies will have to meet to continue working under the board. This massive change came because of a major scandal, which included various PR firms. Buzzfeed chronicled the rise of such firms that were using unsavory methods to benefit their clients.

How is the PR Industry Changing?

Media consumption and the PR landscape, in general, are shifting so rapidly that it is hard for most companies to keep up. The shifting tide of PR is especially dangerous when considering how slow some boards of ethics can be when updating their rules.

The Rise of Convincing Sponsored Content

One of the major changes coming to social media and people’s consumption of it was the rise of paid content. According to the same global report of 2018, 64% of surveyed professionals believe that most people will not be able to tell the difference between content owned and paid for. What is more worrying is that 60% of the professionals believe that people will not care.

Therefore, if a PR agency has not aligned itself with a board of ethics, it will be under heavy fire from the public that cannot distinguish between fake and real news.

The Changing Multi-Media Landscape

70% of professionals believe that the PR industry as a whole will be changing drastically within just five years. 36% of these professionals believe that their firm is not ready for such a change, whereas the rest believe they are. The factors that are influencing this change are paid influencers, branded content, and fake news.

All of these three things can prove to be detrimental to a PR firm. Only with a proper ethics board on its side can PR agencies survive such a drastic change. Furthermore, the code of conduct board has the power to properly investigate the possibilities of PR firms engaging in such convincing under-handed tactics.

How Can PR Firms Prepare for the Future?

The future for PR firms is looking a little bleak, considering how quickly the industry is changing. Over time, fake content will be almost indistinguishable from curated content, putting PR firms in a difficult position. If PR firms focus on their code of ethics or align themselves with a specific board, they can better prepare themselves for such a future.