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.
Vision 2030 has opened up tremendous opportunities for KSA organisations to take their place on the world stage over the last five years.
But, when first impressions are so important, how do you project a brand that connects with a culturally diverse, global audience? How do you convey your unique heritage in a contemporary way? And how can you remain distinctive across a fast-changing digital landscape?
Success relies on connecting your brand to the needs, aspirations and psychological motivations of your audiences. The words and images you use must resonate in their minds. They must feel that you share your purpose with theirs.
But words can be empty if they are not delivered by someone they trust, so the tone and personality you use to tell your brand’s story is important. It must be clear and authentic, spoken with heart and passion.
Above all, you want your brand to be distinctive. It should set you apart from others who tell the same story. It must lead with conviction and clarity. Only then will your brand create advocates in all who work for and do business with you.
There was a time when brands were created and then translated into digital applications as an afterthought. Today, in a world where the primary touch points will almost certainly be online, a ‘digital first’ approach to your brand is essential.
Of course, this raises important considerations for your logo. It should remain crisp and distinctive when rendered on the smallest of screens.And it’s worth considering how your brand narrative and tone will remain authentic in videos and infographics. How will it sound through digital assistants? How will it connect through augmented reality and artificial intelligence? What will the experience be online, in apps, and at virtual trade events and meetings?
Once you have explored the brand digitally, you can confidently translate it into what your audience experiences in the real world.
Creating brand authenticity requires a balancing act:
1. Be distinctive in your organisation’s purpose and personality
2. Be true to your rich and distinct heritage
3. Integrate into the global business community.
Visually, your brand will bridge the gap between the incredibly unique and individual cultures of the MENA region, which celebrate delicacy, nuance and complexity, and global brand dynamics which favour bold simplicity.
It is advisable to include semiotic audience research – the study of shapes, colours and images – as part of the development process, as these can take on different cultural meanings across diverse audiences. Reaching an understanding of these differences can help avoid any unintended miscommunication through the visuals you apply to your brand image.
Tone of voice should be driven by similar considerations. To connect pan-culturally, it is best to speak with clarity, whilst retaining your distinctive personality. At all times you will want to appear confident, but approachable.
We have talked about connecting your brand to the needs and motivations of your audience. To achieve this, your process will need to be grounded in thorough audience research. Not only will this drive the best creative outcomes, it will also help your team to make decisions based on an objective view, rather than personal likes and dislikes.
Equally though, brands that successfully achieve resonance are a true reflection of their organisation and people. Your will ideally represent who you are now, and who you want to be. No matter how appealing your brand, if your people aren’t ambassadors, holding its values and purpose in their hearts, it will be unauthentic.
Involving everyone in your organisation – at every level – in the discovery and development process will create engagement and a passionate shared ownership of the brand you create together. The objective should be to make sure that everyone is able to both understand, and be a living embodiment of your beliefs, aspirations, purpose, ambition and approach.
For your audience, this means that the promise your brand makes through its marketing is realised when they do business with you in person.
We have merely scratched the surface here. At P+S, we use a whole host of further considerations, applications and insights to develop brands for our international clients.
From tone of voice (how you speak to the world) and SEO (how you increase your voice’s reach) to the materials and platforms you choose to convey it all. Getting the right brand message, to the correct audience, at the optimal time, is the key to developing a brand that not only attracts but thrives long-term.
In short, creating and communicating a successful global brand requires strategy, creativity and technology. If you can harness all three, the world is yours.
If you’d like to tell us more about what you’d like to achieve from your brand, and explore what we can offer you in terms of developing and promoting it, please get in touch today via [email protected].
Want to grow your agency but don’t know how? Has growth plateaued? Are you struggling to find more of the right type of client? Are you trying to build an awesome team and are finding it tough to find the right people? Or perhaps your agency is growing but you’d like a refresher, tips and advice on how to accelerate your growth?
If any of these questions resonate then why not join a bunch of highly motivated agency owners and Janusz Stabik, a coach and mentor to agencies across the globe and lead coach for Google across numerous agency growth programs to help find the answer.
Audience: Agency owner/founders
What’s holding you back from running the agency you want to run? What do the high performers do differently from the rest? How good is your agency?
Janusz will take you through the strategy, benchmarks, tips and templates you’ll need to run an efficient and effective agency to accelerate your growth in 2021. You’ll meet other agency owners and gain fresh perspectives, you’ll feel the weight lift from your shoulders, you’ll be energised and excited about the future and you’ll have gained clarity on how to get there.
By the end of the workshop you will:
Audience: Owner founder + Directors
Running and growing agency depends entirely on recruiting and retaining good people who do great work. You work hard to attract great employees, you want the best! But what does the “best” really mean? Good cultural fit? Good at their job? Experienced? Passionate about their work? All of this?
If any of the following rings true, this workshop is for you:
At the end of this workshop you will:
Audience: Agency owner founders, sales/marketing teams, account managers/client service execs
The average agency loses 20% of its revenue every single year through client churn. The sobering fact is, this is the average and it’s not uncommon for churn to be closer to 45% (a HUGE hole to fill). This results in unhappy teams, unhappy clients, lost marketing spend, lost time, lost effort, lost money – no wonder growth is so difficult?
What if:
Sound like a pipe dream? It’s not and it’s eminently achievable.
At the end of this workshop you will:
Join this workshop to find out how to kick-start your growth by focusing on your most important asset – your existing customers.
You can book for each individual session via the links above or, for the most value, book all three sessions as a package by emailing [email protected].
Individual sessions are £45+VAT per session for BCI members or £70+VAT for non-members.
Book all 4 sessions for £100+VAT (BCI Members) or £160+VAT (non-members).
Janusz is a coach and mentor to agency leaders across the globe through his coaching practice and consultancy, Digital Agency Coach, where he helps helping agency owners to run better businesses, lead better teams, make more money and have fun doing so. He’s an ex-agency owner, a trusted speaker for Forbes, head coach at the GYDA Initiative and a lead coach for Google across multiple agency growth programmes throughout EMEA.
Dr Matthew Freeman, Reader in Multiplatform Media at Bath Spa University, has founded Immersive Promotion Design Ltd., a new marketing consultancy for the world of Extended Reality. It supports Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) businesses to better communicate with their audiences about the magic of immersive content.
The company builds on sector-development research funded by StoryFutures Academy and Bristol+Bath Creative R+D, and brings together expertise from the BBC VR Hub, Limina Immersive, StoryCentral, Raucous, Bath Spa University and beyond. Last year the team partnered with The National Gallery, Anagram and Studio McGuire to build research-led and audience-tested promotional campaigns for live VR and AR experiences. This led to the creation of new promotional strategies, prototypes, industry bibles and teaching resources for how immersive experiences can be better marketed to today’s audiences.
Talking about Immersive Promotion Design’s success so far, Matthew said: “Many people have recognised the enormous potential of immersive technologies like virtual and augmented reality to transform the creative industries as we know them. Up until now, however, the immersive sector has struggled to reach bigger, more mainstream audiences – the kinds of people used to streaming Netflix but not yet interested in VR headsets.
“The challenge is obvious: How do you communicate the magic of being in a VR experience via social media, posters and trailers? Immersive Promotion Design Ltd. provides a step towards establishing a new promotional language for VR and AR, opening the door to a bigger, more diverse immersive audience. We are very excited to see where this journey takes us.”
Visit www.immersivepromotion.com to find out more.
McCann has further strengthened its strategy team with the promotion of Kathryn Ellis and Gideon Wilkins to managing partners.
Kathryn has over 15 years of experience in leading brand, business and communications strategies, alongside holding the position of associate lecturer in Advertising at Southampton Solent University. She is a leading voice on growing and retaining female talent within the industry, and her acclaimed research in this area has formed the basis for her many keynote speaker appearances at IPA and Creative Equals events, as well as her published work. Whilst at McCann Bristol she has been integral in rebranding the Royal Mint, launching Motability’s first ever direct to consumer campaign and taking Pink Lady apples global.
Gideon joined McCann Birmingham in 2019, having previously held the position of Global Brand Guidance Director at Kantar where he led the Unilever account. In just 18 months, he’s been instrumental in further innovating the McCann strategy offering, enhancing its signature planning and research capabilities, as well as introducing a host of exciting new talent and skills.
The promotions follow the 2020 appointment of Gary Armitage as Regional Head of Strategy, Mastercard last year, and are the latest steps in expanding McCann Central’s 30-strong division of strategy, research and planning specialists, who sit at the core of its effective creative.
Dean Lovett, CEO at McCann Central, commented: “Strategy, planning and research are a fundamental part of everything we do here at McCann and in our pledge to help our clients play a meaningful role in people’s lives. Every day, our expert strategists, planners and researchers uncover insights to guide our creativity and – crucially – create positive results for our clients, which is why we are delighted to be further strengthening our strategy team.
“It’s an exciting time for our business and we recognise that a strong strategy team is central to continuing to deliver the world-class work for which we are known and building on our celebrated philosophy of, ‘Truth Well Told’. We’ve always prided ourselves on the strength of our offering but thanks to these latest developments, we are now the strongest we’ve ever been.
“We’d like to congratulate Gideon and Kathryn on their promotions. We have no doubt that, along with our brilliant team, they will continue to ensure our creative work is the bravest and best it can be, and more importantly truly effective for our clients.”
The McCann strategy team brings different agency disciplines together to build campaigns with a shared, consistent approach. Its strategists’ experience, skills and capabilities include brand planning for digital communication and creative development, from analysis of consumer trends, needs and segmentation, focus groups, workshops and co-creation, to campaign creative and proposition evaluations.
We’re all far too familiar with the term “crisis” after everything this year’s thrown at us. Crisis communications is a key area of PR that may play out in a reactive way, but actually, is something that companies can and should plan ahead for.
Once the preserve of big multi-nationals, this year has shown that even small companies can be propelled into the spotlight, so it’s worth discussing what might need to be in place. I gave my comments in a crisis PR feature in this month’s South West Business Insider. As I said in the article, there’s no one-size-fits all response as your communications approach should vary with the kind of crisis you’re facing. However there are some golden rules as I’ve outlined below:
Please feel free to get in touch to find out more about the kinds of PR support we offer small and medium-sized businesses.
Back in the day (and by the day, I only mean a few years ago), your email address used to be the passport to the internet; now it’s your mobile number, your mobile and apps that unlock everything. The average global Android user spent 27% of waking hours on mobile in April 2020, up from 20% in 2019 (App Annie).
A mobile is in peoples’ hands every day – in lockdown we’re carrying it into every room! It’s actually harder to keep people off mobile than driving them to it. Therefore, we need to ensure we’re making the most of the various ecosystems that brings with it. Brands need to start thinking of mobile as a way of life, not just a device or a screen size.
CRM is at the core of apps
Customer relationship management (CRM) is at the core of apps – a good app becomes a customer’s focal point for interaction with a brand. For example, apps like Amazon and Sainsbury’s Nectar etc used to be an evolution of a website. Now they are the default destination for looking up anything to do with your history with the brands, as well as the easiest way to use their services.
In today’s day and age, it’s the easiest way to start and build personalised conversations, so brands can use it for rewards; changing behaviour; keeping users sticky; building trust; and getting a good understanding of the user’s needs and order history. I say easiest. You can’t just bosh out an app and assume some Field of Dreams magic will happen. You still have to prove the value to your audience; you have to put their needs ahead of your own gains.
And those gains are plentiful! As well as making your customers more sticky, more likely to keep using your service over others, you will start unlocking insight into their spending patterns, their hard transactional data and their behaviour and preferences.
Prove your app deserves space on their phone
Customers are so much more likely to use an app if it’s good. If it’s seen as a bit rubbish, they won’t want to interact with it or share it. Same with a mobile website – don’t immediately force people to get your app or ram it down their throats. Deliver them a great experience on the site first, prove your app deserves the space on their phone and that it will be useable. The worst thing you can do is put more barriers between your users and the content they want.
The key is to make sure you’re understanding the user’s ecosystem. Align your needs with customers and don’t put any barriers in the way. People want a frictionless experience – sending you from an email to an app where passwords are already stored and customers can use single sign on, etc. Customers expect the mobile experience to be seamless and relevant. It’s your job to facilitate that. Helping them is ultimately going to help you. A good customer experience means your customers will spend more. According to a research from PWC, 86% of buyers are willing to pay more for a great customer experience.
Don’t do it just because you can
We do a lot of cool stuff with mobile, in email particularly. People on their mobiles are more likely to be able to see all the interactive innovative coding. That being said, we make sure to never do it just because we can. Time and again I see people using ‘in-email’ technology because it’s available, not because it improves the user journey. It’s about the fundamentals of the next course of action for a user, and if that’s using mobile then great. Every interaction a customer has with your brand will inform their experience, regardless of which channel this interaction occurs on.
It’s also easy when thinking about mobile experiences to ignore or forget about the journey for desktop users. People want to be able to have the experienced tailored to them wherever they are. In email that means not scrimping on designing a less interactive experience; play to the strengths that a bigger screen has. For web-based journey’s, make sure the right tools are in place for people to effectively complete that journey outside of the app you’ve spent so much time developing. Whether that’s making sure the login process is as smooth and frictionless as possible or that the service you are offering is just as easy and exciting, don’t keep forcing people down the channel you’ve chosen.
Mobile devices and apps have quickly become a huge part of our everyday lives. It’s a wonderful opportunity for businesses to strengthen brand loyalty, recognition and streamline the customer experience. Just remember, while mobile is an exciting and worthwhile avenue, as with everything, you need to do it well.
Put the customer experience first, prove that you have something to offer and remember to prioritise those personalised conversations.
The premise of influencer marketing is pretty simple. Choose someone with clout in your target market – someone trusted, admired or looked-up to – and associate them with your brand, product or service. Awareness goes through the roof, positive perception is sent soaring, and you achieve cut through that’s otherwise hard to find.
Although not a new strategy, influencer marketing is growing and has been proven to be effective: a survey by Mediakixs revealed that 80% of practitioners have found influencer marketing to be an effective tool. And it’s a real money-spinner – according to Influencer Marketing Hub’s 2020 Benchmark report, Influencer marketing is estimated to be worth $9.7 billion, with the market growing by 50% each year since 2016.
The same report reported that brands are recognising this growth, with 66% of respondents saying they will increase their Influencer marketing budgets next year. Although most commonly used for B2C markets, we’ve all clicked on a social post or read an article simply because we recognise the face in the thumbnail, so why shouldn’t it work in a B2B environment too?
We had the opportunity to put this theory to the test last year. Our clients at Panasonic TOUGHBOOK (the world leader in rugged computing) wanted some means of elevating their brand beyond its already-lofty position, and we believed an influencer strategy could be the way to go.
As we were approaching a B2B market, it was clear from the start that this wasn’t a campaign to be built around the audience reach an influencer has. What was more important was finding somebody who was a perfect fit for the TOUGHBOOK brand, and someone we could build a credible, engaging story around.
We needed someone who matched the ruggedness and strength of the TOUGHBOOK devices, someone who could match the brand status of TOUGHBOOK as world leader in rugged IT, but also someone that could offer more than just audience reach. Luckily, we were able to secure the services of global rugby icon, former Wales and British and Lions captain and absolute giant of a man, Sam Warburton.
We used the formidable (but endlessly friendly) presence of Sam to create a multi-channel campaign, incorporating the more traditional B2B marketing channels, such as LinkedIn and display ads, but also exploring newer territory, such as YouTube ads. Using a combination of campaign keywords and razor-sharp targeting, we ensured that our ads would capture the attention of a new audience for TOUGHBOOK, as well as engaging with the more typical audiences in a different way.
Despite a month or two of delay due to the pandemic and national lockdown, we figured out a way to finally come together for some socially-distanced filming days. This allowed us to capture some amazing footage of Sam doing his thing on the rugby pitch, but also displaying his well-honed studio skills, discussing leadership and parallels between sport and business leadership with Panasonic TOUGHBOOK MD, Kevin Jones.
In five short weeks, following the film shoots, we were ready to go live with a whole range of assets; a mini-series on Leadership, seven videos for YouTube pre-roll ads, a campaign specific landing page, blog content, downloadable digital guide, a selection of display and LinkedIn ads, and social material for Sam to share on his Instagram and Twitter feeds.
As with most things Sam Warburton touches, the end results have been pretty impressive. We set ourselves a simple goal of raising awareness of the TOUGHBOOK brand, which we achieved very quickly. The landing page is the fourth-best performing landing page Panasonic have ever created, with over 18,000 visits in the seven weeks that the campaign has been live. Over the first three weeks, we were even outperforming the main TOUGHBOOK site in terms of website sessions.
This was an experimental campaign, with the simple goal of gaining increased brand exposure in a niche market, made possible by the courage of a client who was willing to push boundaries and try something different. And from such a positive start, we’re looking forward to more of the same in 2021, building on the high levels of awareness we’ve established and turning that into a raft of bottom-line boosting sales leads.
Let’s just hope Sam keeps his boots clean for us…
If you’d like to find out more about how we can help your business reach its potential, get in touch with us today at [email protected].
If there’s one thing we can be certain of in 2021, it’s the uncertainty that lies ahead. But just as we all look forward with optimism to the roll-out of the COVID vaccine, at P+S we believe there’s also an antidote to uncertainty.
And in this article – the second part in our ‘Ones to watch in 2021’ series – we look at some of the creative, innovative technologies and marketing techniques that are likely to rise to greater prominence in the coming 12 months.
COVID has made us all change the way we do things. Face-to-face meetings, business travel, exhibitions and events have all been on pause, meaning we’ve all had to become more open to innovative ways of working. My hope is that, even as things level out, people will retain that attitude and continue to explore new avenues, looking at how we can combine physical and digital marketing techniques and become even more effective in engaging with our audiences.
Over the past year, I’ve seen a marked increase in the number of companies encouraging their staff to become involved in the marketing efforts. This includes everything from TV ads (PC World have been using employees, for example), to video blogs (like our own here at P+S),to guest content on written blogs, and staff featuring prominently across corporate websites. This isn’t new, as such, but it’s certainly becoming more and more important, especially in B2B sectors, where authentic people, telling authentic stories, give commercial messaging real credibility.
Promotional giveaways and merchandise have always been a useful tool in the marketing mix. But the inexorable rise of environmental awareness (and action) means we now need to be thinking about giveaways that are sustainable and friendly to the planet, rather than glossy, gimmicky gadgets. A whole industry has arisen around this, with responsibly sourced materials being used to create everything from mouse mats to rain macs, and renewable energy sources being called on to power USB chargers, desk fans, lamps and much more.
It’s also impossible to ignore the impact of the pandemic on our ability to send prospects and customers physical items at all. Remote and home working mean marketing departments no longer hold relevant postal address details on their target audiences – even if they’re longstanding customers. This, allied to the predominance of environmental considerations, means digital giveaways will become even more popular in 2021.
Virtual production rose to prominence late last year with Disney’s The Mandalorian. This year, I see it shifting from high-end productions to become far more prevalent in commercial film making. Instead of shooting against a green screen, actors are surrounded by massive LED screens, with minimal physical props in the foreground. This removes the need for compositing and lights the cast perfectly, making it a more viable option for marketers looking to up the production values of their film work without requiring colossal budgets.
With the current pandemic showing no signs of slowing down, people are more aware than ever of their own health. At home, fitness and mindfulness have become go-to solutions for alleviating stress placed upon us by the current restrictions and wearable devices, fitness and mindfulness apps have seen a boom in popularity over the past year.
With almost all of the leading tech businesses having some form of wearable tech, and apps being more accessible than ever due to the digital-first mindset of the current generation, health tech has become smarter, more intuitive and more reliable.
Even healthcare professionals are now relying on technology to manage the backlog of appointments, using apps such as Babylon Health, Ada and even FaceTime to consult with patients without the risk of face-to-face appointments.
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