Are you relevant to your audience?

Take a glance at what kind of information you have available on your website and ask yourself, “How important is this information to the folks we’re trying to reach? Is it worth their time? And how does it reflect on our organization?”

Are you operating from the notion that all you must do is place information on your website and the information will be read by your audiences?

The reality is that everyone now offers website content. They flood the internet with information in the name of SEO in marketing, often over-crowding their site with information that is self-serving and totally irrelevant to readers.

Relying on online communications as a breakthrough means of conveying information has lost its novelty.

Does your website content still connect with your audience?

So, how do you hypercharge your online communications platform?

Look at your communications from the point of view of relevance.

When you step back and look at business communications, there are three basic objectives you are seeking to achieve:

  • Build awareness of your business (i.e., your “brand”)
  • Create an atmosphere of trust between you and your potential clients and current customers
  • Motivate sales

Building awareness can be partially accomplished by creating the necessary platforms and information tools (e.g., a website or a press kit) and a distribution program by which you put those tools to work.

Where you put your information is important. You must place your information in locations where your target audiences can see what you are saying and respond to it.

Relevance is the connector

You may possess all the right information tools and have a solid distribution plan, but, if your information is not relevant, no one is going to care.

What is critical to keep in mind is that what really matters is what your audience thinks.

Bridging the trust-gap between you and your potential customers becomes not a matter of what you say about yourself. It’s about relating how and why your information matters to your readers. It’s the difference between talking at people and talking with them.

Otherwise, information and distribution simply become “white noise” that is neither noticed nor acted upon.

So how can Wellons Communications help you combine content with relevance?

Our sole mission at our Orlando PR firm is to help drive sales and results. We practice what we define as marketing public relations.

We accomplish that by building one’s credibility within their given industry and increasing their overall reputation. We help our clients create and deliver the right message to the right people at right time, which creates a stronger brand reputation. It’s marketing in PR.

There’s an old saying about public relations: “Advertising is what you pay for, publicity is what you pray for.”

That’s because PR generates unpaid media coverage vs. advertising coverage, which you must pay for. It’s Unpaid vs. Paid. Earned vs. Purchased. Credible vs. Skeptical. According to one PR wag, “Public relations tastes great, advertising is less filling (and considerably more costly).”

The right public relations agency support increases cognizance for a brand while upholding a consumer-resonant and positive connection with one’s audience.

In the end, what’s relevant to you is “How do I increase sales?” That is all that is relevant to us, as well. Without your success, we fail.

How’s that for relevance?

Find out more about how our public relations firm can add relevance to your content and add credibility to your other marketing components. Contact me and let me share with you how we can help you make your business more relevant to those you are seeking to reach.

Media relations storylines: Think beyond yourself and your business

This may be hard for some business owners to accept, but media relations storylines are not about your business. It’s about the story, and it’s about the angle the reporter wants to cover that would benefit the readers or viewers of that media.

There’s an old adage: “what’s in it for them?” Proper media relations oftentimes needs to fit inside that prism. You will get more media hits if you are part of a trend, part of a bigger story and have something authentic to say.

Blatantly shilling for your business turns off bloggers, reporters, readers and viewers. But having a real take—something that may or may not directly support your business—is valuable.

So how do you mine those gold nugget ideas?

When trying to get the most out of your media relations, think about storylines that have value beyond the four walls of your business. Here are some questions to ask yourself.

  • Are you part of a trend?
  • Are you helping the common good?
  • Are you an example of a business that is helping turn the community around?
  • Are you lending a helping hand?
  • Are you leading others to make the community better?
  • Do you have a new process that could change the way business is done?
  • Are you providing jobs and extra benefits not seen in the community?
  • Are you innovative, or changing the way things happen for the better?
  • Did you just get a big new deal that will mean new jobs or new opportunities for employees and contractors?
  • Are you going global? What does it mean?

An artful media relations agency will fit your message inside other stories. And by giving of yourself and being authentic oftentimes you end up with stories about just your company.

But if you automatically only think about your company and only count your success and not everyone’s success, you may be left a little bit short on the PR wish.

Yes, there are exceptions. But being humble, being authentic and having something real to say is the pathway to great PR. It’s that simple.

Need a little outside perspective? Give us a call at Wellons Communications. Our public relations agency is made up of former journalists and PR pros who are great at seeing the bigger picture. Reach out to Will at 407-462-2718 or email him at will@wellonscommunications.com.

How to take advantage of trends to get attention for your business

Ever think of yourself as a trendsetter? Have you ever wondered how you can supercharge your digital marketing program by capitalizing on trends?

It’s all too easy to say to oneself, “There’s nothing trendy about my industry.” But, when you step back and take a longer look at your industry, you likely will begin to recognize trends that have come and gone, trends that are emerging, and how trends have impacted your business, both positively and negatively.

Trends can offer substantial marketing upside if you can recognize them as they begin to emerge. Trends become news and, if you use your imagination and identify how a particular trend might affect your business, there is potential for putting yourself in the news as an expert in your field (what PR firms like to dub “authority marketing”).

Do you find yourself thinking, “but trends never happen in my business”?

There are always trends ongoing. You simply must keep an eye out for them.

At this very moment, in 2021, the real estate market is going through a trendy phase that is characterized by a lack of available home inventory and skyrocketing home prices.

Just a quick look at the news reveals other current trends:

  • Hotels are revising their operations to adjust to the post-COVID travel rebound. The lack of employees has forced hotels to cut back on guest benefits that were once considered routine, like free breakfast buffets, in-room guest bars and, yep, even daily room service.
  • The meetings industry is being forced to adjust its business model because of the impact of Zoom and other online meeting tools.
  • There is growing suspicion of Facebook, Instagram and other social media tools as a high-impact means of reaching one’s market.

How can you capitalize on trends?

Be aware of what’s going on in your industry. If you recognize a change in how you and your competitors are operating, be the first to identify the trend.

Make yourself available as an expert observer in your industry. If media know who you are and how to reach you, you have made their job easier and significantly increased your chances of being called upon as an authority in your market category.

Piggy-back on what others are offering about a trend. Offer an observation on a trend that someone else has already recognized. Media cannot simply take one person’s word that a trend is happening. Providing a second opinion, or an example that illustrates a trend, puts you in an advantageous position to generate media coverage.

Generate news that confirms a trend. If you recognize an emerging trend in your industry, explain it – and illustrate it – better than your competitors.  

Issue a simple chart, a photo, an online video, or even create a podcast to make trendspotting come to life and make a journalist’s job easier. The payback, of course, is when your organization’s name is attached to whatever you create to make a trend easily recognizable and more easily understood. 

How do you spot trends?

Look outside your business. If you recognize a trend in another industry, ask yourself, “How might this apply to us or affect us in our market category?”

Something that is happening in the food and beverage in industry, for example, might have a parallel impact on a totally different kind of industry.

Follow relevant websites and blogs. Journalists are constantly on the lookout for what is new and different. If you become acquainted with what media are looking for, you will position yourself to become a trend-spotter.

Remain connected with current affairs and news. When a trend hits the news, ask yourself, “how can I take advantage of this?”, if there is a fit.

An insightful 2015 article by Michael Noice in Entrepreneur provides a more in-depth look at trends and how you can recognize and capitalize on trends. Although the article is six years old, it stands the test of time in terms of its ideas on spotting and taking advantage of trends.

Wellons Communications can put trends to work for you

Our Orlando PR agency is trend-conscious. A key part of our job is to pay attention to what’s going on in the news. We have a responsibility to look for trends and come up with ways to make them work for our clients.

From putting your name in front of media as a qualified observer and reminding them how they can reach you (or us, so we can reach you) to creating vivid examples that explain a trend and where you fit in, we know how to help our clients take advantage of what’s trending.

Are you in a position to take advantage of the next trend in your industry? Or will you be reading about how your competitors are being quoted about what’s happening with the trend?

Start trending in the right direction by calling me and learning more about how we can put our trending team at your disposal and put you in the front of the news.

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