Getting the most from your PR

PR is a specialist field and most companies work with a PR agency to manage their media liaison. Here are some tips on how you can get the most from your agency and get your organisation’s staff prepared for both positive and negative media attention.

Share your marketing objectives with your PR agency. If they’re not clear on your company’s direction, they will be unable to guide your PR planning.

Work out a budget for your PR. And be clear on what you will get for your money. Allow your agency enough hours in the budget for media follow up. This is the sales process that will get your stories in the press.

Develop a media activity plan for the year. Ensure that this ties in with your marketing activity for maximum benefit. Consider the newsworthy stories and how you can present these to the media.

Approve the lists of target media for each press release. Ask your agency to share the target list each time they sent out a press release. Highlight the most important contacts to follow up.

Be able to respond to the media requests quickly. Organise media training for a range of people in your organisation, so you are able to provide an expert to talk to the media at any time. Prepare media kits, so you have materials on hand to present key topics.

Be prepared for crises. Disaster can strike at any time, so make sure your company is prepared. Develop a written document in conjunction with your PR agency and make sure key people are aware of it. As a minimum, the document should include:

·         a list of people to contact, with out of hours telephone numbers

·         the procedure for releasing a statement

·         a range of scenarios with possible responses

Measure your success. Be clear on what your PR agency can produce in terms of reporting and agree on the contents of a monthly or weekly report.

Got a story you want to share with the media? CraftWrite can assist you with writing press releases, articles, case studies or media kits. Contact jill@craftwrite.com.au for a chat about how I can help.

The A to Z of Advertising

Here are a few words of wisdom from the world of advertising:

Awareness – creating awareness is an important reason to advertise, but that’s just the beginning of the process. You need to turn that awareness into sales.

Big idea – communicate one single idea to your audience that will make sense to them and drive them to buy.

Call to action – a strong call to action will drive sales.

Desire – your advert needs to create desire to purchase the product. Techniques include discounting, or in the case of a new product, creating the illusion of a “must have” item .

Effectiveness – measure the effectiveness of your campaign. For example, measure brand recognition pre and post campaign.

Free – a strong word in advertising. But customers are becoming more wary and wonder “what is the catch”.

Goals – Be clear on your goals and carefully plan your advertising spend.

Humour – Funny adverts can be very effective. Increasingly adverts are required to entertain in order to gain cut through.

Integrated campaigns – We all consume different media at different times of day, therefore integrated campaigns are important to ensure you connect with your audience.

Jingles – a fantastic way to get inside your consumer’s head and ensure they remember your product.

Know how – Engage the right advertising agency for you.

Leads – Record and process your sales leads quickly.

Memorable – Ensure your advert is memorable. But remember it’s the subject of the advert that needs to be memorable not the advert itself.

Naughty  - Being a little bit risqué in your advertising can pay off. You might attract some complaints, but as long as the target audience are not offended it may be worth the risk.

Online – it’s hard to get cut through with online adverts, so you will need to be extra creative to attract attention.

Press – Printed newspapers and magazines are a gradually dying media as more and more of us source our news and entertainment online. However, for now, press shouldn’t be ignored as part of an integrated advertising campaign mix.

Quantity – get the quantity (frequency) of adverts right to create sufficient awareness. People often need to see an advert several times before taking in the message.

Response mechanism – people respond to adverts in different ways so provide as many different ways to respond as possible – phone, email, in person etc.

Simplicity – keep it simple. We are bombarded with advertising messages all day long and people will not take time to understand something complex.

Timing – get the timing of your adverts right. This could be time of year, time of day or at a trigger point in someone’s lifetime.

Understanding – your advert must be clear and the message understood in a second or two.

Value add – a useful way to drive responses. Eg: Buy now and get an additional XXX.

White space – a design technique to make an advert clean and uncluttered and therefore easy to digest.

X factor -  Sometimes an advert just works, despite not testing well in research groups. Trust your gut instinct and go for it!

Yes – the technique of asking questions that you know the audience will say “yes” to. It’s an effective way of engaging the audience.

Zoo – the use of animals is an effective technique in advertising.  Connect the animal traits to your brand or message and it will help to make it memorable.

Jill Bynon is an experienced copywriter who has written and edited many advertisements. Contact CraftWrite today for help in crafting your ads: jill@craftwrite.com.au

Managing Integrated Campaigns

We all consume different types of media at different times of the day, and for different reasons. This is why single channel advertising campaigns are so rare. With the ever growing number of communication channels it’s important to understand your target market and how to connect with them. Marketers need to be comfortable in producing communications across several mediums. Here are a few tips for managing an integrated marketing campaign:

Be clear on your objectives. It’s easy to get lost on what you are trying to achieve when caught up in the million things you have to do to go live with a campaign. So remind yourself regularly of what it is you are aiming for.

Get organised. By this I mean prepare a series of folders, both electronic and paper so you can keep track of the various rounds of artwork, briefing notes, and calculations for each aspect of your campaign.

Select your media carefully. Don’t assume that TV will be the most effective medium. If your budget won’t allow a sufficient media spend for TV spots, then select a range of channels that will give you your best “bang for buck”.  Depending on your audience, this could be something like internet ads, posters and radio or a clever social media campaign

Ensure the clarity of messaging across all mediums. The big idea may work well in TV, but be less convincing on the web or in direct mail. A good agency will think this through before presenting ideas, but it’s always worth checking with a little home market research on family and friends not connected to the brand.

You don’t have to use the same images for each media channel. So long as there is a strong common message or element that links each communication piece, then it will knit together as a campaign.

Make sure you can measure the effectiveness of each media channel.  Consider different phone numbers for each call to action or a system of codes – whatever works for your business. Be aware, though that TV can drive your web traffic or your yellow pages link. Not everyone will choose to respond in the same way.

Brief all customer-facing staff. With many campaign elements, it’s essential that everyone who deals with customers either on the phone or in person are aware of the campaign and what it is about.

Measure the results of your campaign from all angles. Understand what worked and what didn’t work. Sometimes a campaign can have a surprising effect that you could never have predicted.

Jill Bynon is an award winning marketing campaign manager, turned copywriter. Contact CraftWrite for your copywriting needs across all mediums: jill@craftwrite.com.au

Organising a Memorable Conference (and avoiding death by powerpoint)

Marketers are often challenged with organising the annual sales conference or senior managers’ conference (or both). Here are a few tips on keeping the event interesting and memorable.

Have a theme for the conference, it could be a fun thing, or something more closely related to your business. It can add some entertainment to the event, but at the very least it will provide an objective to your conference.

Mix up the agenda. Try not to have one presentation after another. Break up the day with interactive sessions, break out groups or other activities.

Issue your speakers with a clear presentation topic. Inevitably you will have some formal presentations, so try to ensure it isn’t some rambling wrap up of the year. Having a preview before the conference will allow you to make revisions so everyone stays on topic.

Ask all the speakers to submit their presentations to you well before the conference. Issue everyone with a template to use then edit the slides for readability and consistency of style. This will also allow you to pre-load the presentations onto one computer to ensure a slick transition from one speaker to the next.

Consider your room layout carefully. If space allows, a good way to arrange seating is at round tables (with an open end, so no-one has their back to the speaker.) This is usually called ‘cabaret style’. It can encourage group participation and make the event less formal.

Encourage networking and teambuilding. Organise activities for your delegates so they have to interact with one another. Try to keep this to the theme of the conference so it’s not perceived as a pointless exercise.

Celebrate successes and share strategy. Use your conference gathering to present awards and announce incentive plans. It’s a good opportunity to introduce any new direction for your business and to motivate staff to reach these goals.

Serve good food. It may seem like a minor detail, but lousy food will taint a delegate’s memory of the event. Avoid the curled up sandwich platters and you’ll help create a positive impression.

Introduce a special treat that will make the conference memorable. Choose an unusual location or organise an activity that delegates may not have done before. Try and keep your treat in keeping with your theme. Do whatever your budget or imagination allows.

Organise an external motivational speaker. This is something else you can consider as a treat in order to make your conference memorable.  Ensure your chosen speaker is properly briefed and that they keep to topic otherwise you could leave the audience  thinking “what was that about?”

Avoid getting staff to share hotel rooms to save cost. If you need to organise accommodation, allow staff a room to themselves. Sharing rooms usually causes angst or bickering and you’ll never please everyone.

Remember to get feedback. Ensure no-one leaves without completing a questionnaire about the conference. It will provide valuable insight for next time.

Follow up on any issues raised. Delegates will feel that they have been listened to and that they have a voice if they can see that issues or questions raised during the conference are being addressed.

Don’t forget to have fun with it! It’s always stressful organising events of any kind. But it’s an opportunity to be creative and to really get to know your sales team or senior management people.

There are always lots of communications involved in a conference. Invitations, delegate packs, important information and questionnaires. CraftWrite would love to help you with any copywriting requirements for your next conference. Contact Jill today,  jill@craftwrite.com.au