By: Tyler Reed, MBA, Co-Founder + CEO, Bizwrite Digital PR
Marketers have long since been under the gun to show measurable returns. That’s the reality, especially as we navigate a digital world where growth is the ultimate metric.
But here’s the thing: you can’t achieve sustainable, long-term growth by chasing short-term sales activations alone. Long-term business vitality requires a balanced strategy, one that re-elevates upper-funnel, brand-building efforts to work in tandem with those critical conversion-focused efforts.
There is no short-selling sales-driven marketing. It’s essential. But relying too heavily on it is a common pitfall. In early 2020, major brands such as Gap, Adidas, and TripAdvisor were publicly acknowledging their need to invest more in creating and maintaining long-term brand equity.
Why? Because while brand building might feel slower to yield tangible returns than the immediate gratification of a conversion-focused ad campaign, those returns are meaningful and measurable.
Nielsen’s data show that, on average, a 1-point gain in brand metrics, such as awareness and consideration, drives a 1% increase in sales. For a billion-dollar company, that’s a $10 million return. That’s far from immaterial, and it proves that brand-building isn’t just a nice-to-have; it’s a legitimate, verifiable growth driver.
The Role of PR and Content in Building Brand Equity
Here at Bizwrite, we have built ourselves around the idea that true brand equity is constructed at the intersection of powerful Public Relations and strategic, conversion-oriented Content. For us, brand building is our core function, driven by a modern approach to PR.
The PR Engine: Driving Awareness and Consideration
The core function of PR has always been to drive awareness and consideration. With fierce competition, that’s almost entirely a digital PR game, although we never neglect traditional media. Our goal is to leverage earned media—mentions, features, and placements—to establish your brand’s credibility and expand its reach into new markets.
Take our client Farah & Farah, for example. We’ve focused their digital PR strategy on securing high-value media placements across news outlets, relevant websites, and social platforms. The result? We helped them secure 547% more media placements. This massive jump in visibility doesn’t just make noise; it drives brand awareness and builds equity in the new markets where they’re expanding, fundamentally shaping how new customers perceive and consider them.
Moreover, brand-building efforts generate huge ancillary benefits. Strong brand awareness significantly enhances the effectiveness of your sales activations. Nielsen measured the impact for a financial services company and found that the correlation between upper-funnel metrics and marketing efficiency was exceptionally strong at 0.73. A powerful brand makes your advertising dollars work harder.
The Content Pipeline: Fueling Conversion
If PR creates the awareness and trust, then conversion-oriented content closes the loop and drives the action.
As traditional sources of brand equity—such as physical visibility on a store shelf—erode in the digital age, your online presence and ability to capture interest become even more crucial. Nielsen data even shows that marketing accounts for 10% to 35% of a brand’s total equity. If your brand is not top-of-mind with consumers, you will lose the sale.
This is where our content services shine. We marry the brand awareness created by PR with high-performing, lower-funnel assets.
Consider our work with Anderson Advisors, a planning and consulting firm specializing in delivering high-quality services to real estate investors, stock traders, and small business owners. We helped them translate their PR success into direct action by overhauling their event emails, landing pages, social copy, and more. This conversion-focused content is precise, compelling, and directly aimed at driving attendance to their key events and getting people to sign up for their services. It’s the essential piece of the puzzle that turns a “known” brand into a “bought” brand.
A Call for Balance
The data is clear: the rate of new brand purchases is dramatically higher online than in brick-and-mortar stores, which puts increased pressure on your marketing efforts to preserve brand health.
Conversion-oriented marketing is appealing because it delivers sales this quarter. That immediate gratification is powerful. But long-term business success requires more than repeat business from existing customers. It requires constantly bringing new people into the top of the funnel and nurturing them down.
That’s why the Bizwrite model works. We ensure you have a balanced share of voice—one that is both loud and credible in the upper funnel through digital PR, and direct and compelling in the lower funnel through high-quality content.
You need both. You need the awareness to open up new opportunities, and you need the content to convert them.
Are you confident that your current strategy strikes the right balance between building your brand and driving conversions? If you need help, just ask us how we can help get you there.
