There’s
nothing worse than random marketing, with confused (and confusing) messages
being squirted out without any thought to the recipient, your potential
customer.
The best
marketing and PR strategies are carefully crafted to communicate a small number
of core messages, and to then reinforce those messages by repetition.
The
fact is that, once upon a time, it used to be that people needed products to
survive – a loaf of bread, some vegetables, a bit of meat.
Now,
it’s the other way around. Products need
people to survive. In a business
context, and in a market economy, companies need customers to survive – in
other words, marketing and sales.
So far, so
obvious. Less obvious is that the marketing
and PR landscape has changed out of all recognition, with the internet and
social media adding a multitude of new promotional dimensions. The need for integrated PR strategies has
never been greater.
Here are
some thoughts on building a successful PR strategy.
Objectives
The longest journeys start with the first
step. However, you also don’t set out on
a journey without knowing where you want to go.
That’s the first rule of marketing and PR: defining what you want to
achieve, on a quarterly basis – whether that’s to develop the brand, position
the company with its buying markets, drive traffic to your website or generate
enquiries. Clear objectives give you
something to aim for, measure success, and better determine what could be done
better.
Strategy
Strategy is the glue that binds
everything together. It defines an
overall approach, rather than the nuts and bolts. Clear objectives provide the finishing line;
strategy is broadly how you intend to reach it.
A good strategy will articulate brand and corporate personality, ethics
and values – in other words a cohesive framework within which marketing tactics
easily fit.
Messages
The
central element in any successful marketing strategy is information. We need to provide potential customers with
the essential facts to buy our product rather than someone else’s.
Yet
that’s precisely the central element that a great many firms fail to recognise
in devising marketing or promotional campaigns.
The information that customers need to make that buying decision is
confused by poor messaging or corporate techno-babble.
Indeed,
some firms’ corporate communications are so full of technical information to be
impenetrable. Time after time, I see
corporate literature or websites that convey huge amounts of information that
the firm thinks it should communicate - but not the essential information that
the potential customer wants to hear.
Strategy + Messages = Content
In the buyer-led world, content is
king. You need to attract the right
customers and lead them through each stage of the sales cycle. Creating that great content and placing it
where buyers are looking doesn’t happen by accident. It takes a good content strategy, research
and expertise – and making sure you show up on search engines.
By aligning your published content with
your potential customers’ needs, you will naturally attract inbound traffic
that you can convert. It merely
involves distilling key facts and figures and promoting corporate and product
information online and offline in ways that potential customers will find
digestible.
Integration
Social media and the internet have
allowed for a new kind of information flow, one in which we can all participate
– from creating a regular blog to posting on Facebook, publishing video content
on YouTube or sharing images on Instagram – not to mention Twitter, Google+ and
rest of the social media universe.
It’s a new kind of information democracy
in which we are all publishers. It has
allowed us to replace old outbound “push” marketing with inbound marketing to
pull people towards our companies.
That takes great content that is
appropriate to your customers and a well-crafted PR strategy to ensure
consistency of tone and content across platforms. The absolute need for integration has never
been greater.
Do you have an integrated PR strategy?
We are
specialists in national and international PR strategy and delivery. You can contact us at +44 (0) 1620 844736 or Charlie@davidgraypr.com or connect with us on LinkedIn,
Facebook or Google+.
Image courtesy of Frank Tschokert
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