When I take a first meeting with corporate executives, professional firm partners or non-profit executives, they almost always start our conversations with the same comment. “We’re the best kept secret in town,” they say.

Most of these decision makers usually have tried one solution or another to gain attention. They have rebuilt their websites. They have engaged Search Engine Optimization (SEO) specialists. They have pursued publicity. They have instructed their in-house colleagues to network. In each case, these organizations have pursued one strategy or another, perhaps responding to a contractor’s pitch or after reading the latest advice available on the Internet. Yet the end result has delivered little or no change to their invisibility.

The problem is that one approach in isolation is not enough to promote a brand or its identity. Public relations and marketing campaigns are successful when they are engaged as an interactive process, combining multiple approaches to achieve recognition.

The first step to take is to identify your audience. Who are your clients, customers or donors? Next, identify the most effective means of reaching them. Will they respond to publicity, to interactive media, to a better website, to community outreach?

Once you have answered these questions, meet with a public relations and marketing specialist whose professional tool box offers a variety of services that can simultaneously meet your communications needs. Branding support, media relations, social media strategies, website content, community relations and special events are among the many tools that can build a successful campaign.

Next, determine the core messages that distinguish your brand. Who are you, what do you do and why should anyone care? Build a unified approach to emphasizing those core messages and integrate them into your communications approach.

Recognition begins when your target audience sees your brand messages often enough to remember them. The key to overcoming invisibility is being seen.