By Frank DiFulvio
(WHI News) — Five steps to consider when you are managing your Client’s Media Relations needs and interests; for the long term.
1) Identify Your Target Audience:
A cosmetic company advertising an anti-aging face cream on MTV would not be a financially sound decision; but non-demographic specific media relations is still being used by technology driven Media Firms who rely on non-discriminating software to “blast” general information about a product or service to demographically agnostic audiences. This approach wastes money, time, and human resources. WHI targets both a core and ancillary audience that is demographic specific; based on every subset of marketing analytics (age, gender, race, ethnicity, income) that can be reasonably extracted from public data. This saves our clients money and time — while getting instant feedback about messaging success – by measuring sales, general / industry specific publicity, and name recognition status during the entire length of the contract.
2) Find Out the Needs and Interests of your Selected Audience:
How do you know what your target audience is looking for from your client(s)? Easy, ask them. Use focus groups, employee surveys, and a general mission statement(s) to find out what they need, how much they are willing to pay to get it, and than specifically tailor your client(s) messaging and pitch to the data recovered, reviewed, and analyzed by your Project Team. You are providing a service to the target audience, while simultaneously selling your client’s product and/or service to them without them even knowing it. That is not a conflict of interest; it is a mutually beneficial service. Developing and implementing a marketing communications plan for your client(s) becomes a great deal easier when you already know what those you are selling to want, need, and are willing to pay. If you know your target audience; you provide your client with a quantitative industry advantage.
3) Find Complete Synergy in your Cross and Multi-Platform Branding:
When media relations incrementally morphed from brick and mortar press releases, blast faxes, E-mail marketing, and random spam to full service social and digital marketing communications, using cross functional new and social media platforms to expand publicity and messaging to a wider global audience; WHI began developing the strategy now known and widely used in the industry as Integrated Media Synergy Branding (IMSB). With so many social and digital new media platforms (Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Word Press, and others), the danger for Media Relations Professionals is accidentally creating a multi themed, even contradictory, brand and message that confuses their targeted audience. IMSB integrates a developmental micro and macro branding and messaging system that is uniformly used by social and digital media platforms to publicize a consistent message and branding for our clients. If your going to publicize and sell a product or service, why not universally brand your company at the same time — for either up-grade or new product development launches?
4) Highlight your Clients Success and Subjugate their Failures:
Media Relations is an inherently pro-active endeavor. It is a testosterone driven industry. We have to provide sustainable, substantive, and immediate client success. What we sometimes forget is the role that Reputation Management plays when a public company that you helped to become more visible gets into trouble with a failed, defective, unreliable, or even dangerous product or service. Discrediting, or lessening the impact of negative public reviews, general media publicity, market devaluations, and recurring public interest stories is equally important as publicizing client successes. A Full Service Media Relations Practice without a Crisis Communications and Reputation Management service can never fully serve it’s clients needs and interests. That is why WHI has a Reputation Management expert assigned to every project team from the moment a client contract is signed.
5) Think Long Term:
Position your client(s) for long term success. This can only be done by branding and defining your client(s), their product(s), and service(s) from the moment you sign a relationship contract with them. Don’t launch a full service media relations campaign unless you have your client(s) long term goals, interests, and needs in mind. Remember, its always easier to brand than to re-brand a year or two later — and a great deal less expensive for both you and your client(s).
The WHI Group 