Publicizing Truth – Stranger Than Fiction!!!

What I discuss in today’s post may seem insignificant and even repetitive– but it is important. Important because unless we look within and find faults with what we do and how we do, we will never improve. I hope my personal insight helps you find some relevant answers as well……

In the business of perception building – faking is often a given. From revolutionary products that promise to change the world to those who claim to reverse your aging process – we have seen and heard it all.

As consumers, we are wary of such claims but as professionals, we still find it difficult to stay away from making such world changing declarations. 

I guess exaggeration is a given when it comes to marketing, advertising or public relations, but today we all find the distinction between reality and perception getting lost in a web of words and images. 

Have you ever stopped to think, why is it that most PR professionals no matter which stream, nation or community they belong to suffer from this obsessive compulsive disorder? Use of baseless adjectives like – state-of –art, one-of- its- kind, revolutionary, life-changing etc. have become part and parcel of our common vocabulary to describe something as normal and common as a pen drive to a driving car. 

The reason could be many from the clients we work for, to the consumers we cater to or the media web we have created where only the tallest claim manages to draw attention and stand out…..

Whatever the reasons, the need of the hour is to reinvent ourselves into professionals who promote truth, build perceptions that are real and market stuff for what it is really worth. 

It could seem like a tough call, but in truth, it is the best policy to follow in the long run.

To start you can try some of these time tested methods, which might help in changing the way you do Public Relations..

• Be truthful and objective when analyzing your client and his competitors.

 

• Find what’s the unique selling point or the differentiating factor between your client and his competitors and see how best you can use it to market him. It could be anything from his offering, to the quality of his offering, to the market segment he wants to target or his approach. It is for you to find out, and to package it effectively without manipulating.

 

•  Be truthful to your client. He is passionate about his business and can often lose sight of reality, he has hired you to give him your expert advice – so don’t shy away from giving him a reality check and showing him the real value for his product/offering. This also helps in setting the expectations right at the beginning – for both parties.      The client understands his product is not going to replace Google overnight and you will know – it could take a lot more effort to create the buzz  than you were initially made to believe. Trust me, clients value such consultants, because only when you are passionate about something will you fight for its good in the long run.

 

• Be creative. There are many creative ways of saying the same thing without actually faking or promising things that don’t exist or your client’s product cannot deliver.

 

• Be truthful with your analysis and plan. If you know from experience that the client’s offering is not going to get him any regular PR initially – then tell him so – to start with he will have to do some paid PR and focus on other aspects of marketing to get some attention and brand recall, before he can expect some genuine media attention to come his way. It is fine! It does not show less on your capabilities as long as you provide him with good alternatives; in fact, it shows you believe in being honest. Every CEO dreams of giving an interview on BBC or CNN – well the fact is very few make the cut, even if they are backed by the best agency!   We all know marketing is a mix of using paid and non-paid channels – for each the ratio and budget of spends varies depending on what they are trying to market.

 

• Before you go out and talk about your client and his products in the media or to his customers – Study it well. ‘Believe in what you are trying to sell.’ If you don’t believe in the virtues of your client’s offering, there is no way you can convince another person on how great a product it is. In other words, when you are truthful about a product, your passion to drive the product is visible to the world. It is quite similar to what you do when you find this great place downtown – you make sure all your friends check it out too.

The benefits of being truthful in your PR campaigns are many, to start with you will spend less time convincing a journalist or a consumer that your product is really, really revolutionary!!

Journalists, bloggers and consumers all at some point or the other have stated, they are tired of this fad, which fails to die down.

For the change to set in, we as professionals need to realize that we are not miracle makers but mediators of information between a brand and its users. To be true to ourselves, our profession and our clients, all we require is to put forward the truthful information in the best possible manner.

How to use 'intent marketing' – to win a customer!!

Pick on a customer’s ‘intent’

In marketing and public relations, identifying the INTENT of a customer can give a whole new dimension to your campaigns and also bring you success since the campaigns are more informative and focused.

A regular marketing or PR plan focuses on creating mass awareness or creating an intent. While an intent driven marketing and PR plan focuses on reaching out to those who already have the ’intent’ with the exact information they are seeking. 

A successful marketing/PR campaign would be one, that’s a mix of both these techniques. 

Identifying the intent of a person might be a long and tedious process in the offline world but online –there are many techniques which help you know, understand and use the intent of a possible customer to your advantage. 

In a recent study Ruder Finn a public Relations agency, focused on surveying the users’ intent when going online. It found – the seven most important reasons that people go online today in order of priority are- 

1. To learn
2. To have fun
3. To socialize
4. To express themselves
5. To advocate
6. To do business
7. To shop 

Intent Idex

From a marketing point of view, this result broadly sheds light on four things

-  The reason why a person would be reading up about your client or using his product online

- Where possibly you can find your target customers

- The channels you can use to reach out to them with information on your client and

- The approach you should use for each of these segments, because they are here with a certain intent

However, to build a detailed plan around this would require some deeper analysis on an individual client level. Certain processes that can help you understand the intent of a person online with respect to a specific client could be - 

-  The search keywords he used when looking for your product or something similar

- Details given on the source of the link which brought him to your site – for example – if it is after reading some content you posted on an article site, then probably you need to evaluate the content to find out what exactly the visitor was looking for. The content was close to his query which is why he came to your site seeking more information on the same

- Today there are very many tools available online, which help you evaluate the behaviour of a visitor to your site. For eg: Which were the pages where he spent most of his time? Did he watch the webinar or video on your site or download a whitepaper document? These behavioral patterns in most cases indicate the stage of decision making a person is in. It could be the research stage, it could be the price comparison stage or it could be the purchase stage. 

To turn a prospect into a sale it is important to identify at what stage of decision making he is and provide him with the right information, using the right approach. 

Now that you have some idea on what is the intent of your customer how do you incorporate this input to build a successful marketing campaign? 

Here are a few simple steps 

Step 1 

Find out where is your target audience present – where is it that they look for information the most. It could differ from segment to segment – if your target are teens – the kind of sites they visit for information are very different from the kind of sites a boomer would go to seek information. So research the places your target customer haunts and device a plan to share your information there. This process might involve all measures from press releases to creating social network profiles to getting traditional/online media coverage

Step 2 

Based on the intent research done by your team (you can use methods suggested on top), zero in on keywords that imply a stage of decision making. Create a grid 

Researched keyword	Stage of Decision making implied	The kind of information to be shared	The page URL to be linked to on your site	How will you engage the user once on this page
‘The best Blue ray player’	Research stage	Positive reviews for your product	Page where the user can read this information	There could be Q&A to know his exact preference, some video etc.

Step 3 

Now use this grid to plan all your content push activities – ensure you use these researched keywords and phrases and link them to different content pages on your website or other places (review sites, forums) which will provide a prospect with the right information (he is looking for) about your product and help the customer with his decision making process. 

Step 4

Ensure your website is optimized to answer all the queries, a prospective customer may seek information on. Keep him interested in your site by engaging and intriguing him at the onset, with third party endorsements (product reviews, testimonial, news coverage etc.)

Give him the impression that you want him to get unbiased information – you will have a more convinced customer. 

Step 5

Ask the customer to participate – Ask him to leave comments on your product offerings, any feedbacks to improve, his view on the product, ask him if he is seeking any more information, product updates – it all gives a better idea on his intent and also connects him to your brand.  You can use some of this information (if good) to woo other customers.

Follow –up on email (if shared) to nurture the lead.. 

Intent marketing does not require drastic changes in your marketing or PR plan. All it requires is some change in your approach.

If done properly, intent marketing helps you understand your customers and their wants better. It helps you relate to them at an individual level and make a personalized sales pitch in the virtual world.

So go for it, surprise your customer with this psychic phenomenon

Successful Marketing is more about Creativity and less about Money!!

Today’s post on Merl’s PR Speak is about some  interesting images, that speak a thousand words. They also create brand recall and help connect people with what they offer. Most of all these images entertain all with their sheer creativity…

Wouldn’t you want to buy these solid building blocks from Lego for your kids??

A little bit of imagination and out of the box thinking is all it took to make this eye catching advert do wonders for the brand!!

Weighing down!!

Tilting a normal and boring looking billboard makes this advert quite meaningful and eye catching. You look at it because it is not placed properly and when you read the message – you can’t help but compliment the guy who designed it. – Impressive and effective.

Never seen a more effective ad, which talks of what smoking can do to you and the people around you

Powerful

Clean Sweep!

The basics!

In all the four pictures above – by just strategically placing their adverts/product dummies the companies have managed to create  interesting and eye catching campaigns.

Companies today spend a lot of money on marketing and advertising in pursuit of creating brand awareness.

Often the point missed – is the fact that marketing is not so much about money as much about creativity. Its also a lot about getting across to the right people in a way that they remember to invest in your product or service.

A simple idea showcased differently can make a brand stand out in the market place.

Creativity needs to be fed. Your surroundings and the surroundings of your target audience is the best place to look for inspiration and ideas when it comes to designing Marketing campaigns. 

Don’t forget to get into the shoes of your target audience – How do they think? What appeals to them? What do they look  for when buying a product or service? What need of theirs can your product address? If you do your research well, you will always manage to come up with a marketing campaign  that your consumer will identify himself with. If it does not appeal, then maybe you missed something really important – don’t shy away from going back and researching again, till you find the answer and get it right.

An important question every marketing or PR professional should ask himself before ideating a campaign is – How can I do this differently ?

Not every idea may materialize into a campaign, but the point is atleast you are thinking…..trying to think beyond the ordinary, the regular, the mundane, the usual.

Beyond the box and into the space…….