Hints and Tips – brookscomm

Choosing the right communications partner

Posted by brookscommon January 14, 2023September 1, 2023in UncategorizedLeave a comment

As we settle into a new year, most organisations will be reviewing their communications activities and anticipating how they will contribute to their overall business strategy over the coming months. And despite the current economic climate still looking somewhat uncertain, it’s encouraging to hear that 61% of marketing leaders are expecting budget growth throughout 2023, with 86% even predicting that the political and economic environment over the next two years will have a positive effect on business performance.

However, with this budget growth and optimism comes a responsibility: how do you utilise your marketing spend to get the best return and crucially, how do you find the right partner to help you achieve your goals?

A tailored approach

Look for a communications partner that is flexible and adaptable to your needs, so that you are getting the most out of the relationship to add measurable value to your business. This enables a seamless partnership with your own team and resource so that a communications agency can simply be an extension of your existing operations.

Unique insight

The adage is true that many hands make light work but working with a communications partner isn’t just about having extra pairs of hands. The right agency will also add value with innovative ideas, an external point of view and expertise to ensure you’re making the most out of your existing marketing and communications activity. They will listen intently and ask relevant questions, challenging you with concepts and new solutions that you might not otherwise have thought of.

Commercially focused and industry qualified

Ask a potential partner to demonstrate how they have added value for their clients. Do they have client case studies and testimonials that showcase previous successes? Discover how they measure the impact of their communications activities, how they present this information and how often they review activities with their clients. It’s imperative that your communications partner is commercially astute and understands that its function is to help meet your business strategy. The CIPR and CIM are champions of best-practice cost-effective communication strategies, so find out if the practitioners in your communications agency are qualified and active members of these institutes.

Powerful relationships

Building strong relationships with your partner ensures that all stakeholders are aligned with clear objectives, measurable outcomes and a comprehensive understanding of messaging. The better your relationship with your communications agency, the more value the team can add as a business partner. Find an agency team with great business acumen and one that has your best interests at heart.

By getting the right communications agency in place and all fully committing to achieving the same goals, the partnership could be one that continues to add value for decades to come. To find out how brookscomm could become your trusted communications partner, please get in touch.

Why integrating business communications matters

Posted by michaelbrookscommon January 16, 2018August 2, 2023in How To:Leave a comment

Customers don’t think of brands in terms of digital marketing, advertising, PR or social media, so neither should you. Successfully integrating these communication disciplines makes sure your brand messaging is consistently more effective.

Integrated comms is not easy though. It’s especially hard for smaller organisations where there’s less resource or expertise. At first glance it may seem that it requires four times the effort or budget to get results, but that’s not the case. Here’s how you can make your business comms strategy more effective:

Align goals

Find out from the senior management what the business objectives are for the year. Then plan how your marketing strategy can help achieve these goals. For instance, if the business wants to grow by 20%, understand if this is likely to happen by up selling, acquisition, market diversification or launching a new product etc. Visualise what business communication activities are most likely to support this desired goal in the year ahead.

Aligning the marketing strategy with business objectives may sound obvious, but its surprising how often the previous year’s marketing strategy gets repeated. Aligning goals brings clarity and focus to the marketing strategy.

Profile the customer

Build a profile of your ideal customer. Speak with your customer service and sales staff to find out what your customers goals and challenges are and how your product/service solves them. If you’re unsure what challenges your customers face, then create a survey and ask them. Include in the profile demographic information so that you know what media and whose opinions your customers value. Use the customer challenges as topics or themes for your business communications plan for the year ahead.

Build an integrated content map

Customers transition through three phases before buying: awareness, consideration and decision-making. Using the customer challenges you have identified, envisage what content you can produce for each phase. For the awareness phase try to come up with ideas for content that are eye-catching, short and informative. For instance, an infographic, tips articles, a short advert or quote. The goal here is to reach your customer and impressive on them that your product/service is a possible solution to their problem.

For the consideration and decision-making phases you are looking to convert leads. This is where you can use elements of the marketing mix (price,product, promotion, placement) to communicate what is special and unique about your product/service. This type of content is typically longer to consume, more detailed and authoritative than the first phase, its vital that you provide evidence of the benefits that other customers have found from your brand. Content formats include case studies, white papers, and survey findings, with special offers, discounts to help turn prospects into customers.

Overlay the 2018 calendar to spot seasonal opportunities and finalise your plan to product content that can be repurposed in terms of length and style for PR, digital, social, and advertising formats. If it can’t be used across the four disciplines, seriously consider the value of the exercise.

Use Automation to improve efficiency

The best integrated marketing strategies utilise automation tools to make sure they are regularly communicating with their stakeholders, not just when they publish fresh content.

Automation isn’t expensive or overly complex. Platforms like mailchimp offer basic automation for free. Consider setting up a series of emails which regularly talk to customers who have opted into your comms over a three-month period. Plot the emails and the content they deliver to mirror the buying life cycle. Older content could be quickly repurposed and added to email workstreams. Integrating email automation with opt-in leads captured from e-advertising on Facebook or from Gleam competitions can be a highly effective and constant stream of new business.

Automation doesn’t just apply to digital marketing. Set up Google trend and publication alerts to be kept informed on developments in your market. Understanding what and when journalists publish in your sector help you fine tune your PR outputs so that your business communications remain aligned and integrated.

At brookscomm we have over 20 years of PR & marketing expertise and a proven track record of providing an integrated communications strategy. We can help you boost your business, email hello@brookscomm.com or call us on 01483 537 890.

Twitter @PRexpertsUK Linkedin: brookscomm Facebook:brookscomm Website: www.brookscomm.com

Ok Google, is the future really Voice Search?

Posted by michaelbrookscommon June 13, 2017August 3, 2017in UncategorisedLeave a comment

Technology is always evolving and the latest innovation, ‘Voice Search’ is gathering momentum, with the big players being Amazon’s Alexa, Microsoft’s Cortana, Ok Google and Apple’s Siri at the forefront. Ever asked Siri or Alexa what the weather is like? That’s voice search. Instead of typing and searching for a keyword or phrase, you can simply ask out loud where the nearest bar or coffee shop is. Utilising natural language processing, a computer science concerned with artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, these artificial assistants can listen and respond to search queries almost like a real human.

Voice Search is one of the biggest SEO trends

Used by many consumers already, Voice Search is set to be one of the biggest SEO trends for 2017 and thus comes with many opportunities, as well as challenges to overcome. Google CEO Sundar Pichai announced during his Google I/O keynote that 1/5 searches made with Google Android App is a Voice Search.

How will this affect PR and digital marketing professionals?

Not only will clients want to be discoverable on a standardised search but also in a Voice Search. It will no longer be viable to just focus on short tail keywords, but with the nature of the conversational queries asked using a Voice Search, it will become imperative to monitor and maximise long tail keywords and phrases too. Furthermore, with the bulk of Voice Search queries based on proximity of a company or product, it’s essential to ensure your business location base is optimised.

However, despite how advanced artificial assistants are, they are still a long way off being perfect. The main issue is the mismatch between what is being asked and what the AI captures, often ‘hearing’ incorrectly, producing misspelt words and thus irrelevant search results.

Voice Search is here to stay

That said, Voice Search is only going to improve, so here are our main pointers for being agile and embracing AI into your digital marketing and PR strategy:

Longer, conversational style queries including natural language and question phrases are used more.
Location optimised results are paramount.
Voice Search queries amount to higher intent, as buyers are nearer the ‘decision, purchase’ stage.

Voice Search isn’t the future. It’s happening right now, isn’t that right Siri?

At brookscomm we have over 20 years of PR & marketing expertise and a proven track record of providing an integrated, measurable PR and Digital marketing strategy. We can help you boost your business. Email michael@brookscomm.com or call us on 01483 537 890.

Follow us: Twitter @PRexpertsUK Linkedin: brookscomm Facebook:brookscomm Website: www.brookscomm.com

The Benefits of Outsourcing Social Media

Posted by brookscommon January 20, 2017August 3, 2017in Uncategorised1 Comment

Social media isn’t just for teenagers! Whether you are a start-up company or an established brand, utilising a variety of channels to increase brand awareness and generate leads has many benefits. In fact, the possibilities are endless. Google aside, Facebook accounts for approx. 40% of website referral traffic.

Social media presents the opportunity to engage with your target audience, potential clients, easily become a thought leader in your sector and cross promote content. With 90% of businesses attributing increased brand exposure, and over half reporting improved sales just from social media, you should seriously consider optimising to reap the rewards.

Arguably, the most attractive aspect of social media is that it’s free! However, the consistency and regularity of posts is vital and an active social media presence is great for your business.

So, here’s why you should outsource your social media…

Messaging:

Although social media is a great tool for promotion, being perceived as too overtly salesy can do more damage than good. Therefore, it is imperative first and foremost to establish a genuine connection, listening and conversing with a human, empathic voice. Anyone can buy 1000 followers, but just as in real life, relationships aren’t built overnight and a loyal customer base evolves over time.

Quality, Consistency & increased ROI:

The best results are achieved by curating clever content which resonates with and benefits your target audience, in addition to joining in and responding to key trends and customer queries. A combination of commentary by a brand, mixed with agency input ensures the best of both worlds. An agency can organise and schedule PR and marketing activities to seamlessly align with social media efforts, generating an integrated campaign to achieve greater return on investment. Since content creation alone can take as much as 18.5% of the day, it’s worth outsourcing these activities, allowing more time to be spent on other areas of a business.

Paid Advertising:

Creating a social media account might appear to be free, but. in doing so the platform uses your profile and demographic information as currency. These social media platforms offer sophisticated segmentation tools enabling users to advertise, for a fee, to whoever fits the profile of their target customer. Additionally, the reporting features offer a wealth of metrics such as engagement, click-through rates etc. which provide valuable insight. Knowing how to set up advertising campaigns, how much to spend, which adverts work best and how to convert clicks into sales requires in-depth experience. When utilised correctly such strategies can be highly cost-effective in meeting sales and marketing strategies.

Efficiency:

It’s a fast-paced world, especially in social media, so it’s paramount to have a team who really know their stuff, from the latest Twitter updates to knowing which social media platform is right for your target audience. There’s no need to stress about self-teaching yourself the basics. Instead, leave it in the safe hands of an agency who can easily and effectiveness understand your goals, implement a blend of organic and scheduled tweets to grow your following, engage your audience and report back with key performance indicators.

So, what are you waiting for? Find out how you can benefit from outsourcing your social media right now.

Call us on 01483 537890 or, alternatively, email us hello@brookscomm.com and we can help you engage with your target audience successfully using Social Media.

Tips for writing the best Press Release!

Posted by brookscommon December 1, 2016August 3, 2017in How To:Leave a comment

startup-photos

Good press releases are worth their weight in gold and are solid components of your PR and Marketing armoury.

Professional press releases need to be concise, interesting, thought provoking, and, for best results, should adhere to certain industry guidelines. A press release is a public announcement that your company wishes to make to the media. By its very nature, it should have real news value and be of interest to people outside your organisation.

Our Co-Founder and Managing Director, Mandy Brooks, offers tips on how to write compelling professional press releases that hit the mark:

Make sure the headline is direct and to the point; just give a short description of what’s being announced. Read the headline and ask yourself – So What? If you are not convinced then try to word it differently for greater impact.

Keep the first paragraph to three or four simple sentences that answer the following questions: Who? Why? What? When? Where?

Avoid overselling the company up with meaningless phrases. Instead, try to present the whole story in one easily digestible paragraph.

The body of the release should exclude all extraneous material. In particular, any phrases that don’t mean anything shouldn’t be in there. If you’re going to describe what a product or a company does, do it without too much marketing jargon.

Always make sure that the company web site is listed, and that the names, numbers, and email addresses are given for anyone who will be handling enquiries from the press. Name two people, if possible. Add yours/the company’s twitter handle so press can use that for contact or find out more information – both the website link and the twitter link are also valuable for SEO purposes should it be distributed online, or if the press release is published online.

We offer press release & PR training on a range of subjects, from Social Media to speaking to the press.

Call us on 01483 537890 or, alternatively, email us hello@brookscomm.com and we can help you engage with your target audience successfully using Twitter!