Apr 22, 2022
A criminal charge is emotionally draining and can hugely affect how you or your business are viewed by your customers and employees. This article will explain how effective marketing could help salvage your reputation…
Navigating charges and the possibility of a criminal trial can be scary, but don’t let it overwhelm you. With a compelling reason, you may even be able to negotiate a lesser charge or avoid a trial with services like The Crown Prosecution Service. Likewise, there are ways to limit the damage and even repair your reputation. In the following article, we will discuss how to make the best out of a bad situation and the many ways a marketer can help you repair your reputation after a criminal charge.
What is the Role of a Marketer in Reputation Management?
A marketer’s job is to be a highly effective storyteller and promoter. They might promote a brand, company, product, or person, but either way it is the job of a marketer to highlight the appealing qualities of a business or individual to maximize profits and build a positive public image. A marketer researches and understands your target audience, then formulates strategies to tell your side of the story and guide the conversation away from reputation crises like a criminal charge.
How Can a Criminal Charge Effect Your Reputation?
Being involved in a criminal lawsuit can be emotionally and financially draining, but it can also have huge implications for your business. A negative public perception of your personal or brand image will have a ripple effect that damages the number of opportunities, premotions, collaborations, and profits you are seeing in the future. Investors and stakeholders could lose faith and pull their support to protect their own reputation. You may lose previously loyal customer, public supporters, or even big projects that you have been working on. Because of this, it’s important that you start working to improve your reputation immediately to limit the damages.
How Can Marketing Repair Your Reputation After a Criminal Charge?
Repairing your reputation is not an easy task, but a marketer has valuable skills and expertise that can help you get back on the right track. Here are just a few of the ways a marketer can help save your reputation after a criminal charge:
1. Assess the Damage to Your Reputation
The first step a marketer will take is to analyse the severity of the damage. They will look at many factors, including…
- Online opinions
- Employee and stakeholder responses
- Sales performances
- Profitability
- Share prices
- Media response
- Social media searches
By gathering hard facts and statistics, marketers are able to create a recovery strategy and have a better idea of the impact the criminal charge has had on your business or personal reputation.
2. Formulate a Communications Strategy
A marketer can help you reach out to your key stakeholders and investors to keep them up to date with events and the effects on your business or personal brand. It’s critical that at this stage you are completely transparent and provide information regarding the mistakes made and the steps you will be taking in response.
Having a clear line of communication is the best way to start regaining trust.
This honesty should also extend to the public. Making a public statement is a delicate process and one that a marketer can help you with. You need to take ownership of the situation and any mistakes that you have made. If you withhold information, refuse to make a statement, or hide the truth, you risk further damaging your reputation.
It’s important that you have a clear communication strategy to help you respond and control the situation.
3. Start Changing the Narrative
After a reputation crisis, like a criminal charge, a marketer can help you start slowly changing the narrative.
If you are a business, you can start leveraging customer stories and testimonials as a reminder of what you have to offer. At this stage, your target audience is much more likely to trust the word of a review than your official marketing efforts.
For someone looking to repair a personal brand, you can take steps to show that you care and have learnt from this experience. For example, by donating or working with a charity that relates to the charges.
In both cases, showing that you are taking steps to rectify the situation is a great way to steer the conversation in a more positive direction.
4. Create a Social Media Response
With the fast passed and cut through social media culture, it’s important that you respond to a reputation crisis like a criminal charge, or you risk further damage to your reputation.
A marketer can help you monitor social platforms like Facebook or Twitter so you can see when an online user is taking about you or your brand. You can use this to respond to comments and show that you are actively responding to concerns.
Doing so is a great way to maintain a good relationship with the public, although it’s important that any responses reflect the same stance as your initial update or apology.
5. Rebuild Your Credibility
After an initial reputation crisis, rebuilding credibility and trust is a slow process, but it’s something that a marketer can help you plan for.
The most effective way a marketer can help you rebuild your credibility is through thought leadership. Creating videos, and other content, for social media or your blog that shows your expertise within your industry. This might be through tips or discussing changes within your industry.
Similarly, ensure you are interacting with people online by joining discussions and participating in events. Communicate with other industry leaders to show target audiences that you are more than a criminal charge.
6. Use SEO to Reduce the Visibility of Negative Content
One of the most valuable things a marketer can do for your reputation is to bury misinformed or damaging content.
Once something is on the internet it can never be deleted. However new content that is optimised to appear before negative content on a search engine result, can effectively reduce the amount of people who see it.
Most viewers only click on links that appear on the very first page of a search result, so this marketing strategy can be hugely beneficial.
But Can Marketing Save your Reputation After a Criminal Indictment?
A reputation crisis can be devastating for a business or individual, especially when criminal charges are involved. The help and expertise of a professional marketer can go a long way to reducing the amount of damage and restoring your reputation. From helping you produce and deliver an effective response, creating a communication strategy, changing the narrative, and limiting the exposure of particularly negative content, employing, or at least consulting a marketer during a reputation crisis is a must.
If you’re looking for more ideas on how marketing can help you with reputation management, subscribe to the TopRight blog! Or connect with me on Twitter and on LinkedIn. You can learn more about how to bring simplicity, clarity, and alignment to your brand’s story, strategy, and systems in our best selling book: Marketing, Interrupted.
Please be advised that this article is for general informational purposes only and should not be used as a substitute for advice from a trained marketer. Be sure to consult a professional if you are interested in marketing services. We are not liable for risks or issues associated with using or acting upon the information of this site.
Photo credits:
Photo by camilo jimenez https://unsplash.com/photos/qZenO_gQ7QA,
Photo by Timon Studler https://unsplash.com/photos/ABGaVhJxwDQ