Persuade Public Opinion With The Right Attitude
Reach a Wider Audience with Targeted Public Relations
Public opinion can make or break your company’s brand. So how exactly can you persuade public opinion to better understand your company? The answer lies in having the right attitude.
How you treat your customers and how you handle both the highs and lows that your company experiences say a lot about the kind of company culture you have.
Below, we explore what public opinion is and how having the right attitude can influence how your customers engage with and perceive your brand.
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Public Opinion and Brand Perception
Public opinion can be defined as the view of a sum of individuals on a specific issue. Public opinions regarding a particular business can be formed in multiple ways. Word of mouth, brand interactions, or witnessing how a brand treats its customers can all influence the public opinion of that brand’s target demographic.
Ultimately, public opinion affects how a brand is perceived. Brand perception has to do with what customers believe a product or service represents. Notice that brand perception has very little to do with what you say about your brand. Rather, the emphasis is placed on what your customers think or feel.
Why do public opinion and brand perception play such a critical role in any company’s success? Well, if you have a very negative brand perception that’s fueled by public opinion, then conventional marketing practices won’t get you very far. Even if you shout your company’s honorable values from the rooftops, it will do little to sway public opinion.
So, how can you create a positive brand perception? It all starts with your brand’s attitude.
How Your Brand’s Attitude Affects Public Opinion
A brand’s attitude can radically affect public opinion. It all comes down to confidence and what you sell and how you sell it. You can boost confidence in your brand in a myriad of ways. Below, we touch on the four pillars that support brand confidence so that you can sway public opinion in the right way.
Social Validation
People want to fit in, and because of this, they tend to follow the crowd. According to research, people generally become more certain of what they believe in when they think that others share their opinion. This is known as the attitude consensus effect and is the reason why some things become popular and other things don’t.
This could be beneficial to your brand if your customers already hold a desired opinion towards your products or services. You should then aim to reinforce those positive opinions regarding your brand by showing that it is widely shared.
Of course, you can also show that your brand is well-loved by posting online reviews and surveys on your website and social media channels. When it comes to sales, you should always try to reinforce any endorsements – whether it’s towards your products or services or your brand as a whole.
Repetition
There is a well-known rule in marketing that any message you send out generally has to reach your target audience seven times before it becomes effective. However, repetition is also very effective when it comes to people expressing their own opinions.
Not only does it increase people’s own certainty regarding their stance on something, but it increases their willingness to promote, defend, or act on it.
Marketing teams should use this to their full advantage and encourage stakeholders, customers, and even employees to express their positive opinions about your brand. You can even reward people for doing so, which will give them that extra motivation to speak their minds.
Easy to Understand
Research shows that if you can easily form an opinion on something, the more confident you will be that your opinion is valid. Therefore, it is important for brands to simplify the marketing material they present to their demographic audience.
Easy-to-read fonts and simplified graphics can easily persuade your customers. In turn, your customers will be more certain of the validity of the message you are trying to convey.
In other words, don’t overcomplicate what you are trying to say. Instead, focus on making it as easy as possible for your target market to understand what you are trying to convey. Sometimes, less is more.
Defending What You Believe In
In general, people tend to defend what they believe in. According to research, people also feel more certain of their opinions after defending them.
When people already like your brand, then it won’t take much for them to come to your defense. The trick lies in giving them the opportunity to do just that. It can be as easy as asking the right questions on your social media platforms and letting your customers do all the talking for you.
Creating these opportunities where your customer base can defend your brand can help you to effectively build confidence, support, and loyalty towards your company.
Final Thoughts
When it comes to persuading public opinion with the right company attitude, you have to get your loyal customers on board. Authentic public opinion holds the most votes in the marketing world, which is why you should create opportunities for your brand’s followers to speak up.
Founder and President at The Hoyt Organization
With over 25 years of experience, Leeza’s campaigns have garnered over 150 awards from top public relations organizations nationwide. Additionally, THO serves as the Los Angeles area partner of the Public Relations Global Network, granting clients access to over 50 global markets. The agency was also named to one of the top 200 firms in the country by Forbes magazine in 2021, and she has been named by Globest.com as a Woman of Influence and a Woman to Watch, among other designations.
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