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.
There are so many different things to consider when writing a blog, but for the purposes of this post, I’m talking about how to overcome some of the typical obstacles that get in the way of a good blog post and ultimately how to write your blog in a way that will best speak to your audience.
I can just sit down and write, can’t I?
Coming up with inspiration for content for your blog is the first step in the process which you can read more about here https://blogwrite.co.uk/five-ways-to-generate-content/ but assuming you have a list of topics you’re ready to work through, you then need to think about how you’re going to put these topics into words. That may sound like an odd thing to say because you can just write the first thing that comes into your head, can’t you? Not necessarily. A few business owners or marketers may be able to produce fantastic blog posts by downloading what’s in their head, but the majority will struggle to put their thoughts on paper in a meaningful way.
In my 20+ year background of writing copy for various companies and different personalities within those companies, I’ve seen every possible approach to generating and articulating content. Some of these approaches have been counter intuitive and believe it or not have put people off of using their services. Here are a couple of examples of some of the obstacles businesses need to overcome when blogging about their offering.
Be accessible
Some of the people I work with are very technically minded. Their jobs require a high level of detailed technical knowledge and indeed it’s why their customers choose to work with them. However, when it comes to writing pieces for mass consumption, the complex technical approach probably isn’t going to work best.
Think about your audience carefully. Choose one customer or ideal customer and imagine writing for them. What would they want to see in the blog post? How much time do they have available to read information online? Do they want to see lots of technical jargon, or will that make it harder for them to read? It can be a tricky balance because you need to show you have the knowledge and information your readers require, but equally you don’t want to put people off with an overly technical and jargon-heavy article. You don’t need to be patronising, but it’s important to accept that not everyone will know the same terms, abbreviations, industry specific jargon, that you do.
It’s also good to remember that blog posts aren’t about proving how much you know – the most successful blogs genuinely help people with advice and information.
Shelve the modesty
Another common obstacle I have seen for businesses generating content for themselves, is that they’re too modest. Some of the best companies and people I work with don’t think they have anything to say. I have come to the point now where I almost relish hearing this on first meeting because more often than not it means I’ve found a hidden gem! It is always easier for someone outside of your business to see the things you can’t see yourself.
Downloading this information isn’t a painful process either. I simply ask people about their background, their philosophies and what makes them different to their competitors and wonderful nuggets of information flood out! But they haven’t been able to see it because they are too close to all the good things they do. As is probably the case with most of us, they are more focused on the things they feel they need to improve than they are about all the positive aspects of the business.
This obstacle is a little more tricky to overcome because if you’re the modest type there’s not an awful lot you can do about it. However, if you identify with this, you should try to detach yourself and see your company afresh as much as possible. Again, think about a customer or prospect and pretend you’re writing to them. What useful information could you give them? How can you make their lives easier? What makes you different from your competitors? If you’re still finding it hard, perhaps you have a friend or family member that isn’t involved in the business that you talk to and find out what they think stands out about your offering.
If in doubt, outsource!
Of course, if this all feels too time consuming, or an impossible task, you can always outsource your business blog to a professional copywriter. They will have the tools to take your knowledge and experience and present it in precisely the right way for your online audience. Or see through your modest claims of ‘I have nothing to say’ and easily be able to produce a regular blog on all aspects of your business.
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
Press releases are an essential part of any digital marketing campaign, whether you’re making a general business announcement about a new product, service or crisis communication management, you need to think about why this news really matters and quickly demonstrate that you have a NEWS story. This is at the heart of all digital PR campaigns.
In light of recent discussions disputing the relevance of press releases, our stance at OggaDoon, Bristol, remains the same. The hunger for compelling stories, from publications, journalists and our industries as a whole, is stronger than ever. This has created a relationship, an essential yet, albeit, conditional one between journalists and PR – they need our help to deliver the stories their publications need and our industries want to hear about. For this reason, the competition among communicators is fierce and in turn, they have a wealth of different approaches on how to write the perfect press release – one they think will satisfy the needs of the journalist and secure them that vital collaboration. Here at OggaDoon PR, digital marketing and social media agency Bristol, we would like to share our formula gathering the key newsworthy facts to craft your perfect release. Here’s introducing the 5Ws, the 3Ps and the vital 1C. Intrigued, then please read on!
One common mistake is trying to write like a journalist – when what you should be trying to do is think like a journalist. Imagine you are on the receiving end; you have tens, perhaps hundreds of press releases along with other emails sent to you every day. What are you going to want to read and what is going to make your eyes roll? It’s fair to say that you’d click on the headlines that you are drawn to because they stick out, perhaps because they’re funny, perhaps because they’re succinct, maybe because it was unexpected. It’s also fair to say that you would be put off by big chunks of writing, you’ve got 101 things to do and think about and only 1% of that energy is reserved for reading emails. You would want to recognise newsworthy value, the angle and outcome within the first few lines, otherwise, the tidiness of your inbox would quickly supersede in value and just like that, the email that you spent an hour fashioning now resides in the trash.
If you want to make your press release stand out in a crammed inbox you must find a healthy balance between being original and trying too hard. The best way to do this is to think outside the box with your subject line and title, this is the only place you are granted to be creative and witty – the actual bulk of the release is purely pragmatic. Keep it to the point and make sure you hit the ‘Five Ws’. Don’t try and zhuzh it up with unnecessary jargon and clichés – journalists already know the jargon, they won’t be impressed that you do too. Lastly, don’t say your story is newsworthy, show that it is – if a press release looks like an advertisement, it will be ignored.
One way you can do this is by maintaining a sense of objectivity but also having an overarching sentiment throughout. This could be a sentiment of excitement, regarding a new launch or change in the marketplace, or it could have a theme, like nationalism or nostalgia. Part of identifying these themes is refining your angle and identifying the societal implications of your story.
Whilst people often stress the 5Ws when it comes to writing the perfect press release, the angle that you need to convey from these is often lost – so really, there should be three Ps, a C and an I threw in: alternative perspective, progress, public eye, conflict, and local impact. The angle of your story answers the questions journalists really want to know; Have you got another side to the status quo? What solution is it to what problem? What will the public response be? Who and what does it challenge? What impact does this have on the community? Remember that you have good reason to be invested in your story, but you need to look for the bigger, engaging storyline to give everyone else a reason to be.
Once you have got all these juicy bits in, it is time to offer a bit of context. Your second paragraph should contain an impactful quote from one or two persons that have authority in the industry. Here it is easy to fall into the trap so many are partial to – the temptation of adding fluff. Every sentence in a press release needs to have value, if you are adding one for the sake of it, maybe to balance out the sizing of your paragraphs, you have fallen headfirst into the trap. The key objective should be to select a quote that brings the story to life and helps paint a picture of how influential the announcement is. Quotes are not for information, but for insight – so make sure to use a quote that reflects a unique perspective on the subject.
The further you get down a press release, the less vital the information. Thus, there should definitely be nothing crucial to the story in the last paragraph. This section serves to strengthen and round off your narrative – this could mean offering background into ways the company developed the project or insights into future implications of the news (if this is a core theme of the release, then it belongs in the first paragraph, but if there are other stronger angles, it may be more appropriate at the bottom as additional content).
Empathy may not be the first emotion you would associate with journalists yet employing it will make not only make writing the perfect press release a far more streamline process but also far more successful in terms of responses. We can all think of ways to make our own jobs easier, so try and think of how you can make theirs so, and in the time you save doing so, invest more energy on constructing an irresistible title that will surely make them look twice.
Did you know 85% of people research the products they want to buy online before they make their decision?
When prospects land on a website of interest, yes they want information about the product on offer, but they are actually looking for a lot more than that at this early stage of the buying journey. They want to know what options are available, the price differentiation of those options, what the pros and cons of different products are, whether there are any related sustainability concerns and the general ethos of suppliers. In short, they want as much information as possible, so they feel well informed before they make their decision.
This is step one in the customer journey and yet it often gets overlooked.
Increase your influence
The most basic customer journey is the customer experience from finding out about a product, through to placing an order. Companies that pay this process the attention it deserves will create a Customer Journey Map to visually represent the journey their prospects take before they become customers, while they are customers, and possibly include after-sales service too. Breaking the process down in this way helps businesses to better understand each milestone in the journey and what impact they have on influencing the outcome at each stage. The more influence you can have during the research stages, the more likely prospects are to come back to you when they’re ready to buy.
Blog to build trust
A business blog is useful throughout the whole customer journey but really comes into its own in the early stages. The rest of a website will be front and centre for the second step in the process, when prospects have narrowed down their options and want to see what different competitors have to offer, but during this first step, more generic authoritative market information is a must have.
For example, if a homeowner is looking to buy a new conservatory, they will want to know about the pros and cons of conservatories vs extensions. They will want to know about the different styles of conservatory available, different types of materials used to manufacture conservatories and the pros and cons of glass vs solid conservatory roofing options. Someone looking to sign up to a new fitness regime on the other hand might first want to know about the latest popular trends in diet and exercise and which exercises are better for strength, flexibility or cardio.
It doesn’t matter if you don’t offer all of these products or services, by talking knowledgably about them you position yourself as an expert in the entire field. It is this expertise that warms a prospect to you and builds trust before they have even had any direct contact with you.
Make it easy
If you can make it easy for prospects to find the general market or product information they need, you will build trust and loyalty in your brand and visitors are more likely to return. Consistent business blogs are a great way of helping prospects find you in the first place because fresh content boosts search engine optimisation. You can read more about this here (https://blogwrite.co.uk/why-consistent-blogs-are-better/). Then, if your blog is full of helpful information, prospects can browse through it in their own time and gather everything they need to make an informed choice.
When you think about the customer journey in this way, who are they more likely to opt for? The company with the excellent informative blog that popped up at the top of their search and gave them all the information they need? Or the company that was hard to find in the first place and then only gave details of their own products with no additional market or product information? I know which one I’d choose!
So, when mapping out your online presence, don’t forget step one in your customer’s journey. Be helpful in the early stages and the trust and goodwill you build in the beginning, will come to fruition later, when they are ready to buy.
Establishing and maintaining a business blog is unfortunately not as easy as sitting down and writing the first things that pop into your head. As in daily face to face conversations we can all be guilty of going off on a tangent now and then, and the same can be true of our blog posts. A little bit off centre this way and that can be interesting and add depth, but the most successful blogs offer a service and don’t deviate from that purpose. Here is how to keep your company’s blog on track.
Your blog, website and business will remain the ‘go to’ source of information, as long as you keep your end of the bargain and continue to publish useful content consistently.
UNFILTERED moments such as Wayne Rooney’s heartfelt 2.39am tribute to Whitney Houston may be a thing of the past for footballers on social media – but has the move away from authenticity gone too far?
Whitney has passed away. RIP u will live on forever. Cant believe it. I wanna run to u. Really cant believe this. @
— Wayne Rooney (@WayneRooney) February 12, 2012
As English football prepares to collectively turn off its social media this weekend in response to the ongoing barrage of online abuse – much of it racist – directed at those in the game, there is no denying social media is often a vile and murky world and that a collective stand is long overdue.
Social media companies must start doing more to ensure there are recriminations for those who send abusive and threatening messages and posts. They cannot remain passive when it comes to the abuse sent via their platforms, often from anonymous users.
But good can – and has – come from footballers being on social media, with Marcus Rashford the prime example of the power and reach they hold at their fingertips.
It is a shame, therefore, that more players do not use their platform to display such authenticity. The modern generation of players seem far more willing to settle for bland platitudes and dry “onto the next game”-style posts that convey little character or insight.
It was a complete surprise when AMBITIOUS was been named Best PR Agency of the Year by The Drum Recommends. This is the fourth year in a row that we’ve won, and we’re so proud that our clients have recognised our hard work and efforts.
The award we won is in the agencies under 40 staff category, and there was definitely had tough competition from other UK agencies. The Drum organises the awards to celebrate agencies and is one of a kind in the industry in how it chooses the winners. There are no entries to submit, creative to show or papers to write. Winning can only be achieved through the high regard of clients, supported by their ratings and feedback.
The Drum is a global media platform and the largest marketing website in Europe. Their Recommends database contains over 64,000 ratings left by brands, businesses, and organisations. Here you can find client feedback covering PR strategy, content planning, media relations, and social media. It has the essential ratings for performance levels – from effectiveness to value for money.
Companies searching for suppliers can understand what it is like to work with you and how you perform. The Drum Recommends is a valuable database.
Lis Anderson, Director, AMBITIOUS, said: “We’re incredibly proud of the team. It’s a real reflection on the effort and work that everyone has put in over the past 12 months.
This time last year was very different for everyone, personally and professionally. At times pretty tough. I know we asked a lot of everyone: they delivered. So for all the reasons this win feels pretty special.
We’re looking forward to an exciting year ahead, working with our valued clients, growing the business and expanding the team.”
For more information about our award-winning services, please get in touch.
We’re all different, aren’t we? Some of us need a tight deadline to focus the mind. Some of us just need a clear ‘to do’ list to work our way through and feel good about as we start to tick things off. Whatever it is that gives you the boost you need to get stuff done, be aware of it so you can try to harness it on the days the motivation isn’t coming quite so naturally.
I’m writing this blog on the back of a productive session – one more tick on the list before I finish for the day. I know I’m affected to a degree by the weather. It’s not warm but the sun is shining today and that in itself helps my productivity. Admittedly that’s a tough one to control but there are other things I know I can control that helps me to do what I need to do.
Make a list
I’ve always found lists helpful. I have a list for everything and if I don’t have my list handy when something pops into my head, I write it down or even e-mail it to myself, so I find it when I next log in. We can all hold a certain amount of information in our heads but when it starts to get overloaded it’s only natural that things start to slip.
Delegate
Sometimes we have to admit that we can’t do it all ourselves, so we have to delegate. This can be hard for some people but there are lots of tools that can help you hand over control gradually and in a way that you are comfortable with. Whether you are delegating to in-house members of your team or outsourced freelancers you can maintain full visibility of delegated tasks via regular communication, or via tools that are dedicated to precisely such visibility. Trello (www.trello.com) or Asana (www.asana.com) are just two examples of the kind of software that is available to help you manage your projects in the most efficient way.
Track your time
If you’re not yet sure which areas you need to delegate, it might be useful to track your time for a week or a two. We all think we know where we spend our time, but often our perceptions are wildly out of kilter with reality. It’s also very easy to focus on the jobs we enjoy and leave the tasks we don’t by convincing ourselves that what we are doing is important. By tracking your time, you might find that you are spending too much time in areas that are no longer adding value. And perhaps there are more important areas of the business that are being neglected.
Increase productivity
To increase productivity, it may simply be a case of being more mindful of what motivates us, how we spend our time and which behaviours we can adjust to become more productive without burning ourselves out. Or it might be time to delegate. If you are spending too much time on an aspect of the business that could be handed over to someone else, or if you don’t have time to do the things you know you need to do to drive the business forward, it is probably time to delegate.
Once you have identified the areas you need to delegate, you can set about delegating them. This could be to various in-house fractions, or perhaps to an outside resource. A company’s marketing is one area that often gets left when things get busy and top of the list of things to get forgotten, is your business blog. Smart businesses know they need to blog but getting around to doing it regularly is another matter. By delegating this and any other aspects of the business that you know you are simply not giving the attention they deserve, will free up more time to boost your productivity in other areas of the business.
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.
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