Three Steps to Protect your Brand in a Crisis

Unfortunately, we’ve all seen brand reputations damaged when crisis strikes due to lack of effective planning or communication. In today’s fast-paced media timeline, effective communication is essential to a brand’s survival. 

​There is no perfect strategy to predict or avoid a crisis, and a crisis can be very different for everyone. So, having a strategy to respond to crisis is the next best option. Let’s look at three tips to prepare your business for the difficult situations.  

1. Prioritize

Don’t make the mistake of starting to think about crisis communications when your brand is already deep in controversy. It’s not easy to deliver an effective message while also trying to stay ahead of the constant media cycle.  

Set aside some time (you’ll thank yourself later) to consider threats to your brand or potential crises. Talk with your team and research appropriate responses to decide where your brand stands on any threat or controversy.     

​2. Establish

​Now, you’ll need a team. Whether you have a crisis communication team, outsource this service or rounded up key leaders within your brand, it is important everyone is trained and up to speed. To do so, schedule regular meetings and constantly check in to re-evaluate your brand’s crisis communication strategy. As newsworthy crises continue to catch brand after brand off guard, always keep your plan in mind and learn from their mistakes or successes.

3. Practice

You know the saying: practice makes perfect! Testing your plan is an important step to not only evaluate its effectiveness, but for preparing your team for a real situation, which we hope you never have to do.

Create a likely crisis scenario and play out your crisis communication strategy. Practice runs allow you to be more confident of your brand’s ability to withstand controversy or to improve the weak points discovered during the simulation.  

​This might feel like worn advice to prepare for a PR nightmare, but with so many brands getting it wrong it was time to review the basics. If your brand needs any communication assistance with creation, implementation or training, you know who to call!