Another question we’re often asked is “can you get good PR results for absolutely everything?” Or, in other words, can you PR anything under the sun, even something that might appear pretty dull? The short answer is, probably, and the long answer will explain what we mean by that. Certainly, nothing phases us here at Carnsight – we’ve helped raise awareness of niche construction firms, divorce lawyers, children’s nurseries, technical media agencies, care homes (just ask us if you want to see how). But it’s never a one-size-fits-all approach. Here’s how to lay the groundwork for good PR results for any brand, business or product.
First and foremost, ask yourself what are you trying to achieve through PR? There are a lot of potential benefits of PR, whether it’s about driving sales, recruitment or staff morale, so establish what’s most important to you and your business. This is key to help you track results and adjust your strategy for success. PR support can be given at this stage from a good PR consultancy, to help you define this.
Next, what overall take out do you want your audience to be left with? There might be an overarching message about your brand, and/or one about a particular offering or service. This may evolve – even over a short period of time. For example, with our flexible working platform client, That Works For Me, their message and audience evolved following launch, and they were nimble enough to keep pace with this. Have a look at our Three Lens Messaging Session details for more about what we try and establish upfront.
A new digital tool for the construction industry can either be the least or the most newsworthy thing, depending on who you’re talking to.
So, you’re all set with what you want to achieve with PR, and how you want to come across. Now – what’s most important for you to talk about? Do you have a new launch to promote or is your business changing in some way? Or is it that you have some great, original ideas that could work for commentary, thought leadership, podcasts or events? There are a range of ways to make yourself heard depending on what it is you have to say, so spend some time working out what your content should be. Again, this is where a good PR agency can help. And remember, getting good PR results is all about relevant content. A new digital tool for the construction industry can either be the least or the most newsworthy thing, depending on who you’re talking to.
Running in tandem with what you want to say, who do you want to say it to? Who’s your core audience – this could be your current audience and/or the audience you’re trying to target in future. Then, work on where you’d reach them – is it through newspapers, magazines, online sites, podcasts, broadcast? What kinds of media platforms, and what content do these platforms cover? Have a look. Remember, the journalists writing for those publications want to provide the most interesting content for their audience. With a bit of research, you can always ensure what you’re trying to say and the way you’re saying it is spot on for your audience. If it is, your PR efforts will be rewarded.
This is a common trap – on the one hand there are key things you really want to say (“we’re the best at this”) and on the other, there’s what journalists want to write about. The two don’t always meet in the middle. Have a look at our advertising versus PR piece for more on why PR is about being useful rather than being salesy. That’s where the careful balance and knowing what’s realistic comes in. Yes, there’s often a way to talk about your new service but it’s not usually about listing its benefits in an article – it could be about displaying your expertise in the sector or contributing to a round up article with a few details about your product, for example. Strike the balance.
The above are basics to get right as the foundation to achieve good PR results, and it’s worth spending some time on those areas up-front. If you’ve tried a PR push and you haven’t achieved coverage, it might not be because your service is too dull – it might just be because you haven’t paid attention to the basics. Take an honest look at what you’ve tried and check if it ticks the boxes. Or, get help from a trained PR consultant who will do the legwork for you.
Today we have a fantastic guest post by Emily Morgan. An experienced digital producer with a Computer Science MSc, Emily Morgan has worked at ITV for the last twelve years, across its flagship daytime programmes including This Morning and Loose Women. She was part of a team working across online channels for the broadcaster, reaching millions across the UK through digital content including its popular email newsletters.
The next time you’re in the midst of a digital detox, think what makes you hover over the unsubscribe link on an email newsletter… and decide NOT to tap it. As you prepare to hit send on your latest business mailing, ask yourself whether it would pass the ‘hover test’. Here are five easy ways to make sure it does!
What grabs your attention as you’re scrolling through a backlog of unread emails? A clear and catchy subject line can mean the difference between that all-important open, and the trash. It may be microcopy… but it’s mega important!
Keep it short with your mobile audience in mind (the Nielsen Norman Group suggests aiming for under 40 characters), avoid the spam filters by swapping overly promotional language for a clear call to action or statement of value, and try a question to get your viewers engaged from the off.
Ensure your emails are valuable to the recipient. Provide a strong reason for your customer to open the email, read your message, and click through to further content online.
Whether you’re using your email to impart wisdom, reveal business updates or drive sales, your customers have let you into the private space of their inbox – now it’s up to you to make it count.
This may well mean considering personalisation and segmentation (we’ll let Salesforce explain) to drive up both open rates and conversions. And with good reason – an Experian marketing study revealed personalisation can achieve a whopping 158% increase in click-through rates.
Effective emailers keep their messages brief and straightforward. Cut out busy, competing content – nobody will thank you for a cluttered email!
With much of the web having moved to single-column layouts which display text in an easy to scan typographic hierarchy, viewers expect a similar clarity from emails.
Focus on the readability principles you’d use on your website; a clear font and high contrast text, sub-headings and short paragraphs will enable people to scan easily.
Oh – and we know we don’t need to remind you – but check, check, and check everything again before pressing send (and get someone else to check it for you too).
80% of recipients delete their emails immediately, according to Campaign Monitor. But don’t despair! Images can be a powerful tool to grab attention. They also speak to visual learners – you can impart multiple brand messages in a single image. Whether you’re using in-house or stock images, choose pictures relevant to your brand and purposeful to your message.
Keep images large and high quality (but optimised for efficient download) so it’s easy to extract information – remember many people will be reading the email on mobile where full-width images will work best.
However it is worth mentioning that (well-formatted) image-free emails often gain higher click-through rates in A/B testing. Why? Probably because they’re closer to the personal communications we value in our inboxes.
And don’t forget about accessibility – avoid text in images and use alt text so that everyone – including people using screen readers and those with their images switched off, receives the full content of your email.
Of course (and slightly annoyingly) there’s not a one-size-fits-all rule for the perfect newsletter, but strategies such as A/B testing can get you closer to what’s perfect for you.
Necessity has taught businesses much about agility over the past year and a half, and your email strategy is one area in which you can be super-reactive.
A/B segmentation splits will allow you to test subject lines, images vs plain text, shorter vs longer; and deliver a result which you can act on straight away. If only other business changes were as easy!
Learn more about A/B testing from Mailchimp.
Extra, extra! Be mindful of BIMI.
Noticed company logos popping up next to emails in your inbox? Brand Indicators for Message Identification (BIMI for short), is a new industry standard that lets companies display their logos next to the email messages they send to their subscribers. To take advantage of BIMI, you need to adopt DMARC, and validate your logo with a VMC. Too many acronyms? Talk to your email provider for more info and to decide whether it’s time for you to be identified!
By Leigh-Ann Hewer, Account Manager
When telling your business story, it’s easy to get bogged down in the detail. After all, your company might very well be your life’s work and the outcome of a 20-year career build-up. The harsh reality, however, is that very few people will care about that part.
At least not at first.
When writing your business story (for awards entries or website copy etc) you can’t waste time with backstory, and certainly not in your opening. Novels don’t start with backstory (at least they shouldn’t), they start with action. Spark. They start with the inciting incident.
And your business story should too.
The inciting incident is an event in a story that upsets the character’s status quo and begins the story’s movement, either in a positive way or negative, that culminates in the climax.
(Joe Bunting, 2018).
Essentially, the inciting incident is the moment in time that sparked change. The moment you made the choice to start your business. It may have been floating there in the back of your mind for a while, you may have been ‘uming’ and ‘ahing’ for years, but the inciting incident is when you decided, yes!
Your business story should start there. Why? Because that’s the fun part! That’s where the action begins and the story hooks the reader in. It makes them care about what happens next. It’s not to say you can’t mention your 20-years of experience prior, but rather that it can come later when you have a tight enough grip on the reader’s attention.
The inciting incident of your business will often come shortly after discovering a problem you noticed that your business solves or facing some kind of issue yourself. It should be a moment captured in time, the moment you solved the problem. The moment you said enough was enough and linked your business to the solution.
Really, paint a picture for your readers and keep things as simple as possible.
For example, our client, Jessica Heagren, founder of That Works For Me, saw that talented women in senior positions were struggling to find flexible work after having children, so she created a flexible work platform to solve this problem. Her inciting incident was when a friend of hers called in tears one day on the brink of going bust. Her underqualified finance resource had miscalculated her cashflow. Jess asked why she didn’t have a CFO and she said she was too small and didn’t have enough work for someone that senior. So, Jess said, “Why not recruit a Mum who’s done it before at a really senior level but only wants a few hours’ work each week?”
Ping! Light bulb moment. Spark. Inciting incident.
If you were writing this as a piece of fiction, you would start there, wouldn’t you? There’s a rule in fiction that the inciting incident should happen as quickly as possible (within the first three chapters at least, if not the first page!).
It can be tempting to see creative writing and business writing as separate things. But, as a children’s writer and PR, let me assure you, you really shouldn’t. I learnt that the hard way. Think about your business story like you would any other story. Think about its structure; the beginning, middle and end, the hero’s journey, the character arc. If you’re not hugely familiar with these terms, I would say it’s definitely worth learning a bit about them. There are tons of great resources out there. Here’s one to get you started.
It can be tempting at times to put ‘professionalism first’ when writing about your business. You want to validate and justify your expertise and experience and provide evidence for why the business works. The thing is, writing your business story shouldn’t be like writing a longhand version of your resume.
Writing your business story has to be fuelled by passion. That’s not to say professionalism goes out the window (we can’t make bold claims with no supporting evidence). But we can focus on the why, instead of the what. The why is usually what makes the what more interesting.
Writing is a real passion of mine. I love words and sentences and I love how they all come together to make us feel something. Remember to start with the inciting incident, focus on the why, and evoke a feeling, and you’ll have yourself a great business story.
Leigh-Ann Hewer has been promoted to Account Manager as part of its fully flexible team.
Originally joining as an intern in 2019, Hewer quickly rose through the ranks to be appointed Account Manager this month. All Carnsight Communications employees work flexibly, with Hewer spending her Fridays pursuing her passion for children’s book writing. She is also coming to the end of a part-time MA in Writing for Children at Bath Spa University.
Founded in January 2016, Carnsight Communications works with small to medium-sized businesses across the UK spanning sectors including health and care; healthtech; creative agencies; recruitment, and construction. Clients include Armadillo, Axela Ltd, and St Joseph’s Hospital. Owner, Jessica Morgan, worked in London for 15 years before moving to Marshfield to set up shop.
The PR and communications consultancy creates strong commentary and content for businesses, ensuring that expertise and work are showcased through the media; develops SEO optimised copy and runs social media and blogger and influencer activity. The team is currently part way through five charity challenges to mark five years of the agency, having already completed three.
Jessica Morgan, Business Owner, commented, “We’re very lucky to have Leigh-Ann as part of our team, and her promotion to Account Manager is well deserved. An intuitive and thoughtful communicator, she brings her writing talent to every project she works on. She quickly grasps all new challenges and is talented at social media, as well as being a valued part of our team.”
Leigh-Ann Hewer added: “I’m incredibly grateful for this promotion and look forward to continuing to grow and nurture the relationships that I have built with our fantastic clients and the incredible journalists we work alongside. It’s been a pleasure working at Carnsight Communications from day one, and I thoroughly look forward to seeing what the future holds for the business and my wonderful colleagues as we continue to grow.”
If you would like to read more from Carnsight Communications, why not check out some our website where you will be able to find some useful PR hints and tips alongside other great blogs.
Business Owner, Jessica Morgan recently tackled the Jurassic Coast with her sister to raise funds for Target Ovarian Cancer where they raised a whopping £1,740. You can read this blog here
As a small, proactive PR agency, we work on a mix of short term projects and longer term PR activity. Working on a range of clients and communications helps to keep us fresh and we enjoy being able to help fledging companies as well as large, more established businesses.
A short burst of activity can give a company or individual a boost and create the kind of impact they’re after. While longer-term pushes can build and sustain momentum as well as awareness amongst your target audience.
We want to position you and your business as thought leaders – trusted sources for commentary and information that journalists come back to time and again. The best way to do that is through a sustained approach.
Clients often ask what they can do to support that and the answer is quite a bit. We start with how they’re currently engaging with publications and journalists – including on social channels like LinkedIn and Twitter.
This is a good way to raise awareness, helping to amplify coverage and getting to know the content being covered.
These are good steps to take to help support PR efforts and get you even closer to the publications and writers that will be the most powerful for you.
To find out more about engaging with publications check out our post on the importance of working with local and trade press.
I don’t know about you, but for a long time, LinkedIn was the platform that I felt the least comfortable navigating. Its whole demeanour is very different to other types of social media like Facebook or Instagram, and the content that’s shared on the platform is held to a very different standard and set of rules than I was used to.
Or at least it seemed that way.
LinkedIn is an incredibly powerful platform. Did you know that LinkedIn now has over 722+ million members and that there are 11 million millennial decision-makers on the platform?
LinkedIn is an important part of any business’s social media strategy and in today’s blog post I want to share with you the five key things to remember when engaging/to secure engagement on LinkedIn.
Though the platform is indeed much more formal and professional than the likes of Instagram or Twitter, that doesn’t mean it has to be dry. In fact, having a clear personality and personal brand is incredibly important.
Make sure your voice is clear in every post and chose a profile picture that truly represents you and/or your business. Believe it or not, it doesn’t have to be you in a suit with a white background (though of course don’t use anything compromising either – I’d hope that goes without saying).
Make sure your about section is more than just your job title. Who are you and why do you love what you do? Why are you good at what you do? Again, let your voice shine through.
Be honest. Share your professional journey. We all want to feel connected, and nothing is more relatable than having to overcome obstacles. LinkedIn is about presenting your best professional self, but that doesn’t mean presenting your perfect professional self. People don’t actually engage with perfection, because we all know it isn’t real.
I don’t know everything about the way the LinkedIn algorithm works, but what seems to be clear is that LinkedIn loves sharing native content. This basically means that LinkedIn is more likely to show a piece of content that originated on the platform more widely, than a piece of content that originated elsewhere.
If you’ve written a blog post, consider sharing it on your LinkedIn profile as a LinkedIn article rather than just a link. You can add a note stating where the content originated but it’s more likely to be seen when shared natively.
Like on any other social media platform, consistency is extremely important. If you want to receive engagement on LinkedIn, you have to engage with it yourself. Make sure you’re posting regularly. Don’t set yourself an unrealistic and strict upload schedule but think about how many times a week/month you could pop on and give your time.
Make sure as well as sharing your own content, you’re engaging with others. Comment, like and share content that interests you and is relevant to you and your business. LinkedIn isn’t about simply sitting there and shouting about how great you are. It’s not about sales. Like any social media platform there has to be a bit of give and take and you must demonstrate you are an engaged member of the business community.
If you’re having trouble thinking about what content to post, there are three categories that always go down well:
These are great go tos for forming content and are relevant across the board.
According to sprout social, the best times to post on LinkedIn are as follows:
Most people seem to check LinkedIn during their morning commute and on their lunch break. This is something worth considering. If you’ve got a great piece of content the last thing you want is to share it at a time when nobody is looking and have it get snowed under by new content published at the key times of day.
This is probably the trickiest of the tips to master as it’s completely understandable that your schedule might look different day-to-day. Try your best but bear in mind it doesn’t count as a fail if you miss it.
Now, it can be argued that connecting with everyone on LinkedIn is a valid strategy and I’m not here to dispute it. However, I would highly encourage you to find your community and ensure that your LinkedIn connections are meaningful. LinkedIn is more sophisticated than a popularity contest. Networking isn’t about having weak links with everyone; it’s about building strong relationships that serve both parties. Just like friends on Facebook, the people you add and never communicate with aren’t really your ‘friends’. Nurture your LinkedIn network as you would your immediate face-to-face business network.
Winning awards is a wonderful way to earn your business prestige and recognition within your industry. Awards are not only great for PR, but also for team morale, positioning yourselves as experts within a given field and encouraging new business consideration.
But, how do you win awards? The truth is, no matter how great your business actually is, it all comes down to your entry.
Awards entries take a lot of time and energy; something that business owners and employees are often pretty short of. They can be frustrating and long, and ultimately, that’s where we come in. We can help you craft that winning entry. At Carnsight we’ve written countless and we’ve picked up plenty of tips and tricks along the way. Today we’re going to share some of them with you. Here are 4 tips for writing a great awards entry:
Before you even begin writing your entry you need to identify which award it is you actually want to win. Scratch the surface and you’ll find there are countless different awards out there in every single sector and industry and so it’s important to find which ones are right for your business.
This takes a lot of research and usually involves a lot of whittling down, too. Awards entries take a lot of focus and so it’s not possible to enter every one in your industry. It’s important to know which awards are worth the most to your business. Which one would mean the most to you and your business to win?
At this stage, a PR can help you by thoroughly researching the awards within your industry and creating a list of suggested focuses. At Carnsight, we not only work to provide a list of relevant and exceptional award opportunities, but we ensure we understand the entry and judging processes in order to give businesses the best chance of success.
As we’ve stressed above, entering for an award is a lengthy process which requires a lot of thought. If you’re a business owner or someone who works for the business, the likelihood is you won’t have a lot of extra time to give outside of the work you already do. Taking on such a task on top of your existing responsibilities is a lot and this is another reason why getting help from a PR is a good idea.
A PR will be able to give the entry exactly the time and attention that it needs and deserves. They can focus on the project and ensure that it is completed to the best that it can be without needing too much of your time as a business. Not only this, but a PR will likely be able to complete the entry that little bit quicker, given their experience in crafting entries.
This is perhaps the biggest area in which we can help as a PR consultancy. It’s often difficult as someone who is incredibly close to the business to see the bigger picture. A PR can help you to craft a story within your entry, telling the judges exactly who you are and how you got where you are today. As PRs we are skilled at telling businesses stories and it’s something we do on a daily basis. PRs know exactly how to get under the skin of your business and how to craft an entry that’s relevant, inspiring, attention grabbing and honest.
A PR will also be able to help you give your entry that special something. With vast experience, good PRs are especially great at knowing how to make your business stand out from the rest. It’s important to know what your hook will be, what makes your business the deserving winner over the hundreds of other successful businesses that have entered?
There’s no point in writing a beautifully crafted award entry that raves about your business if you can’t back up what you say. Judges want proof of your claims and you will need case studies and value based evidence in order to validate your entry.
It’s all very well to say that your marketing campaign was an unmatched success, but can you prove that? One of the best ways to prove your business is to demonstrate its impact. What has changed for the better because of what your business was able to achieve and how has it changed? You might struggle to feature the full results but even % are better than general terms.
You can find examples of our work in the form of case studies here. Case studies are a vital part of demonstrating what you can do as a business.
To find out more about PR can help your business check out our blog post on the benefits of PR.
You can also see further examples of our coverage over on Instagram where we share new coverage every Thursday.
Speaking to a journalist, especially for the first time, can be a bit daunting. Often we become all too aware of being recorded and of the significance that’s attached to each word. It’s easy to get flustered if you don’t fully understand the question or don’t feel like you have the perfect answer lined up. Talking it through with a PR agency or even a colleague in advance can really help.
Today we wanted to share with you some of our best tips for preparing for a journalist interview so that you can go into a meeting, on a phone call or, increasingly, on a video call with positivity and confidence.
The most important thing in developing your confidence going into an interview with a journalist is that you feel prepared. If you can, ask if it’s possible to see the kind of questions or areas the journalist would like to cover in advance. They may or may not want to share and these might not give you all the detail (many prefer off the cuff answers and discussion) but even some information will help.
You can also think of the kind of questions you might be asked so you can prep some answers, as well as refreshing your memory on any information such as reports or research you’ll need to know. It’s often helpful to write out some key bullet points that can sit in front you as a support.
This is important. It’s great to be interviewed but it’s also important to land some of your key messages during the interview. What do you want to work in there that would help your business and would be useful to say to the particular sector the publication focuses in?
It can be helpful to think of three key points that you can visualise as a triangle in your mind, but even one point about your expertise that would be good to come out is helpful. You should write it/them down and have it in front of you for reference.
You may feel you know what they cover, but be sure to have a good look at the publication your interview is going into so you can get a feel for what they cover. This way you can ensure what you have to say is relevant, and think of your responses in light of its tone.
Having a look at the journalists most recent work can help massively. You’ll get to know their voice and style, what topics interest them, and it can also provide you with reference points for conversation. You can compare and contrast, as well as getting a feel for the dialogue. Twitter is useful here as well as a Google news search.
Even though talking to a journalist might make you feel slightly under pressure, there really is no hurry. It’s important to remember that you are providing value in what you are able to offer. Take your time and don’t feel the need to rush your responses. Allow yourself to think things through as you would in any other conversation.
During the interview, the journalist will write down or record everything you say. Remember, anything they capture could be used for the interview so if you don’t want to see your words in print, it’s best not to say it in the first place. Unless you know them really well, treat everything you say as ‘on the record’.
If you want to share additional information that you’re keen not to attach to you, don’t do it during the interview. Instead, discuss it with your PR consultant or PR agency as there might be another way to share it.
Journalists aren’t trying to catch you out when they leave pauses after answers. Often people fill in the gaps and then say things they hadn’t prepared which leads to more interesting content – which is obviously what they’re after. So feel free to leave silences and let the journalist lead.
If you’re asked a statistic or figure that you don’t know and don’t have written down, feel free to say “good question – I’ll need to check that out. Can I email you back afterwards?” Don’t feel on the spot or you may make a mistake. It’s OK not to know everything immediately. If it’s really not something you can answer you can always say “that’s not really my area of expertise.”
The bridging technique is very important in dealing with difficult questions. For example, you could say something like: “That’s a really interesting question – but I think the key point is…” This will help you move on to something you’d like to highlight and can direct the conversation away from topics you might find difficult to cover. Remember, they are after interesting content, not trying to trip you up at every turn.
“One more thing” – it’s often the final question that trips people up. The formal interview seems to be over and before you say goodbye, the journalist asks an extra question that might catch you off-guard. Remember, the interview isn’t actually over until you say goodbye and hang up or leave the room. Be aware of the last question.
If you can bear these tips in mind during your interview with a journalist, you have little to fear. Often our anxieties are just in our heads. Entering anything with a level of preparedness makes a world of difference to our confidence so relax, give yourself time to prepare, and enjoy.
If you’d like some helping landing an interview with a journalist feel free to contact us here, and we can discuss how Carnsight Communications might be able to help.
As a PR agency, we often talk about the importance of building the profile of a business or an individual, but what does that really mean? Here we cover the basics about building a profile – why it’s important, how it helps with day-to-day PR and where to start.
When we talk about having a profile, we mean being known for something – often for a specialism. For a PR agency, our client having a profile will either mean that, when discussing you with a journalist they might know you by name, or by company. Or we will be able to quickly demonstrate your profile by sharing articles and coverage that proves it.
Equally, you or your company might be given a quick Google at some stage. Generally, a range of pieces appearing, not just from your website, demonstrate what you stand for. The same goes for prospects or potential customers or connections – if they search for you, they should ideally see a good range of pieces that represent you and your area of expertise. (We’ve also written more about the benefits good PR brings across your business).
Being known for something in particular will mean you’re more likely to be featured in an article about it. You might become a go-to person on the topic. You could appear on a podcast or at an event all around it. Even if you feel you’re an expert, it’s much harder to convince a journalist to feature your commentary or news if they’ve never heard of you and can’t find much about you online. Especially if you’re up against competitors with ready-made profiles.
Remember, journalists need to be sure they’re speaking to an expert, rather than someone who could be talking a good game without much substance behind it. They can’t risk spending time on an interview otherwise. And, if they do find a good source with a decent profile, they will come back again, and could even remember you if they move positions or publications.
Two main things are important: the consistency of what you’re saying and the regularity of you saying it. Consistency comes back to your key specialisms or areas to push. And it’s not just about talking – it’s also about demonstrating. As an agency, you can do this through sharing creative work to prove your proposition, for example, or, as a business, through your output or your products.
We are happy to work on one-off pushes or launches, or on ongoing PR. But, to build a profile, you need regularity. It’s important to be providing what publications need frequently and consistently. That’s also key if you want to get into a particular publication. We will help you to understand what to target them with and we will keep them on our radar and discuss you with them at every appropriate opportunity. We can only do this with an ongoing relationship.
We often work with people who have never promoted themselves or their business, or worked with a PR consultancy before, so we’re experienced in starting from scratch. It’s an opportunity – a clean slate. But it’s also important to understand that it’s the start of a process of building a profile. PR isn’t about going from zero to hero overnight.
Take Joe Wicks, as an example. He wasn’t really on my radar until his brilliant PE With Joe initiative this time last year. We’re now faithful Friday home PE fans (fancy dress and all!) and you can hardly move for seeing another article or cover story about him. So I could be forgiven for thinking he was an overnight sensation.
But actually, he’s openly talked about his 10 years of hard work behind the scenes, leading to that event. If he’d have hired a PR company 10 years ago (and maybe he did) there’s no way he would have been so in demand. He worked hard on his product, captured the zeitgeist and now his profile is sky high.
OK, so we don’t all have Joe Wicks ambitions (although some might!), but we may want to become a sought-after speaker within our sector, or the go-to professional in our field within our local area. And it’s great to start with a clear objective.
As PR pros, it’s our job to help you define that objective – that’s why we kick off with our Three Lens Messaging Session. And from that, we create a plan which will have clear steps to build towards that ambition.
We’ve landed some great pieces for clients relatively early on in working with them – be that an interview with the BBC, the Evening Standard or The Times. Fantastic. But one piece – even a brilliant piece in a top tier publication – does not make a profile.
Having a profile is about momentum and consistency. Top tier titles might be part of that, but probably sector press will be as well. More about the importance of trade and local press here.
Two final points – it’s not about having advertorials or paid-for pieces. These aren’t always viewed in the same way as editorial. Advertising is part of the mix, but it’s not the same as having an earned profile. And lastly, timing is also crucial. It’s great if you did some activity five years ago, but if there’s nothing since that, your profile isn’t a current one.
For further advice on this, we’ve also written about what you can do to support profile raising through your own channels.
You’ve probably heard of the term ‘evergreen content’, but what does it really mean and how do you make the most of it? Evergreen content is basically content that keeps on giving. It is something that remains relevant over a long period of time (so is not time-sensitive), has good search engine optimisation, and continues to drive traffic long after it’s first posted.
Though all of your blogs and other online content aren’t likely to disappear after posting, evergreen content is content that people will always need, want and search for. Typically lists, industry resources, how-to guides, top tips and product reviews lend themselves well to evergreen content, but ultimately to make content that’s ‘evergreen’ you must ensure it remains fresh and of interest to your target readers.
Now you know what evergreen content is you might be asking why it matters. Here are some important reasons why you absolutely need it:
Evergreen content ultimately saves time and energy while still achieving great results. It is a necessary part of maintaining website traffic and coverage views.
Despite what you may think, even the biggest and best publications rely on this content and not the splashy, fleeting news headline.
Now let’s talk about how to write evergreen content and how to make that content work hard for your business:
Get to writing up your evergreen content now and save yourself a lot of stress and energy later. Go forth and provide constant value to your reader, while your evergreen content provides constant value to your business.
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