Author: Wellons team

The shift to digital – and how it affects your PR program

Posted on by Wellons team

In just a little more than two decades, how we transmit news – and how we absorb news – has been completely transformed, thanks to the rapid onset of the internet and social media.

The transition of news to digital sources has disrupted newspapers and magazines. TV and radio have also been greatly impacted, although they have quickly adopted social media as part of their overall communications platform.

What has happened is that digital has become newspaper, magazine, TV and radio all wrapped up into one. And it has revolutionized how we get our news.

How people get their news now

According to a study done by Pew Research Center, a large majority of adults in the U.S. get their news on digital devices. In fact, 86 percent of participants reported they often or sometimes use a smartphone, computer or tablet to get their news.

The next highest medium participants used to get news is television at 68 percent – nearly a 20 percent drop from digital devices. 50 percent of participants got news from radio while only 32 percent turned to print publications.

Digitally speaking, where do people go for their news?

Among digital platforms, Pew Research Center found the most preferred one for news is news websites or apps. About a quarter of U.S. adults prefer to get their news this way, compared with 12 percent who prefer search, 11 percent who prefer to get their news on social media and 3 percent who say they prefer podcasts.

Younger people, as you would expect, have adopted news use patterns different than their elders. Americans ages 50 and older use both television and digital devices for news at high rates, while the younger age groups have almost fully turned to digital devices as a platform to access news.

So, what does this mean for you and your PR program?

First, you must have a digital component in all your marketing communications.

Second, you must understand how to call upon digital media to augment your overall marketing program.

And that’s where communications resources – like a PR firm, social media agency or digital marketing agency – enter the picture.

Digital communications are a powerful means of calling attention to your business. But what kind of attention are you attracting?  Communicating digitally is one thing. Communicating effectively is different.

How we approach digital marketing at Wellons Communications

We have three basic tenets to approaching digital marketing for PR purposes:

  1. We view digital marketing as a springboard for marketing your business

Like a diver who vaults into the air from a springboard, you must select what kind of dive – or messaging—you want to undertake. And you must decide how you want your business to look when it appears on a mobile phone, tablet, computer or within a social media platform.

  1. Keep it simple

We battle to keep messaging simple and understandable. Attention-getting headlines. Short, understandable sentences. Visuals that instantly make your message come to life.

We support this simple approach by mixing in complementary features – like video, a podcast or blog – that keeps your online visitor wanting to learn more about you.

  1. A third thought: affordability

Marketing your business is a necessary expense, but you want to keep costs under control and avoid overspending. Small-to-medium-sized business simply don’t have the luxury of spending a great deal on marketing.

We seek to put together digital public relations and marketing programs that do the job you intend without going overboard on costs. That doesn’t mean you should conduct a digital PR program on the cheap. It means staying within your budget.

At Wellons Communications, we still call on the experience we gained creating simple, effective communications programs. Only now, we direct our messaging via digital sources and digital targets.

If you’re seeking to charge up your digital PR outreach, use a digital resource to get hold of us: send us an email at will@wellonscommunications.com or a text at 407-462-2718. Or even pick up your cell phone and give us a call.

We’ll be happy to get right back to you, examine your needs and let you know how we can help you amplify your digital marketing communications.

Making marketing changes in a tough business environment

Posted on by Wellons team

The new year is just around the corner. You are likely at the point of wrapping up your marketing plan…and budget…for 2023. Before you finalize your 2023 marketing plan, however, ask yourself four important questions:

  • Is the marketing plan delivering what we want or expect?
  • Do my key marketing resources (advertising agency, PR firm) clearly understand our overall business objectives?
  • Do we need to make marketing changes that can substantially benefit us?
  • What changes in our marketing plan do we need to make to keep us where we are or increase our business in a challenging marketing environment?

Here’s an example of how we approach marketing

Let’s take a hypothetical small business and see how we might address these four key marketing questions.

Situation:

Your company can only afford a modest advertising budget and a limited PR budget. Your ad budget barely reaches the level of effective communications…reaching your target audience with the frequency that registers recognition, let alone a sizeable response.

For your 2023 marketing plan, you have the same amount budgeted for paid advertising and PR. Inflation, however, will diminish what your limited ad budget will be able to deliver in terms of reach and frequency.

How will you maintain reach and frequency while keeping up with inflation? How will you address customers or potential clients, who will also be feeling the impact of inflation and be less willing to spend until the business climate turns around?

The challenge:

Maximize the impact of your marketing budget without spending more than you did in 2023.

Here’s how we would address this challenge.

Our recommendations:

Keep the same budget in 2023.  If you spent $125,000 in advertising in 2022 and $25,000 in public relations and promotion, maintain the same overall budget.

With no additional marketing expenditures and less impact from the marketing dollars you have available, look for other ways to use your budgeted dollars effectively…or more effectively.

So, how do we do that?

  1. Use what you’ve got. If your creative messaging and materials are satisfactory, continue to use them without making costly major production changes (art, copy, photo, video, digital).
  2. Look for peaks and valleys in your sales. You may want to front-load part of your marketing spending ahead of your peak season with the notion of “peaking your peak.” By putting your dollars to work to raise your peak, you will have them working considerably more efficiently than trying change what have historically been seasonal sales valleys.
  3. Re-allocate your marketing expenditures between advertising and public relations. If you have $125K available for advertising, take $5,000 and allocate it to public relations and see what your PR firm can do to deliver a specific goal of $30,000 in measurable editorial impact in consumer or trade media.

We are a public relations firm. But we are also a marketing firm.

The example above illustrates the kind of thinking we would put into your business and how we can help you improve on your overall marketing efficiency.

When you look over our recommendations, you may notice three key features about the critical thinking we put into every client’s business:

Maximizing what you already are spending. This might mean re-using or recycling marketing messages that already work or have worked in the past so you can minimize production costs to free up some of your marketing dollars.

Be willing to re-allocate how you use your marketing dollars. Sure, we’d like to have more PR dollars to work with (we are a PR firm, first and foremost), but only if those dollars can be used to deliver measurable results.

Invest marketing dollars only in approaches that will enable you to earn more revenue sooner rather than later. That may require spending in different patterns (i.e., time, longevity, allocation) than you previously have done. We aim at ways and means that enable your marketing dollars to earn more revenue in the short-term.

Call Wellons Communications to discuss your 2023 marketing plan

We are always looking for new business, just as you are always looking for ways to improve your sales.

That said, we sincerely believe our marketing-centric approach to public relations can offer you insights and directions that can enable you to get the most out of your marketing dollars.

If that means more spending on PR, great. If it means making changes in your advertising and collateral materials, that’s also great.

We are not afraid to recommend changes. And we are equally willing to recognize that your plan is just what you need.

Talk with us about how your marketing program is going. Ask us what we think of your overall marketing approach. No need to be protective or defensive. What’s done is done and we are not judgmental.

We will be candid. And that’s because that’s what we believe you want to hear when you talk with us.

We’re eager to hear from you.

What’s your plan for dealing with unforeseen circumstances in business?

Posted on by Wellons team

What’s your plan when a business problem pops up that is totally unforeseen? What’s your order of response to an event that is unanticipated, troublesome, and not even your fault?

Who steps up to represent your organization? Who determines how you are going to react? What are you going to tell your customers? What are they going to say when media comes knocking on your door?

Few, if any, really foresee a “black swan” event

Nobody really expects a “black swan” – an unpredictable event beyond what is normally expected of a situation and that has potentially severe consequences for one’s business.

What kind of “black swans” are we talking about?

Events like COVID-19, a workplace accident that results in injury or even death, the actions of a disgruntled employee who is identified with your organization, slowdowns in the supply chain that affect your operations, to name a few.

The event does not even necessarily have to be your fault. It can be something that affects your industry, like a slowdown in the supply chain, a weather event that disrupts flights and operations, or an economic event that has an influence in your business category.

Unanticipated events happen and you need to have a basic outline prepared to deal with them.

When was the last time you looked at your crisis plan?

Good news: most organizations already have crisis communications plans prepared.

According to a PR crisis survey that PRNEWS and CS&A International, a specialist risk, crisis, and business continuity management consultancy, conducted in late 2019, about 62 percent of companies have crisis plans.

The bad news is that once the crisis plan has been prepared, it is often jammed into someone’s file and gathering dust and forgotten. According to the same PRNEWS survey, “it’s uncertain how many regularly update them (crisis plans). In addition, few companies consistently practice crisis scenarios.”

Why are these plans forgotten? Primarily because no crisis has occurred and there has been no reason to look at the plan. Or because personnel change and no one can remember who wrote the plan or where they put it.

No matter what the reason the plans “disappear,” crisis plans can easily become outdated or misplaced. And that puts you and your business in peril.

Crisis plans need to be reviewed annually…even if it takes only 15 minutes

Overseeing a crisis plan doesn’t require an entire day of your organization’s time.

In fact, it can take about 15 minutes a year once it has been prepared.

Your review needs to address questions like:

  • Is the general plan still current?
  • Has the contact information in the plan changed?
  • Who oversees the plan?
  • Do we know how to find the plan when we need it?
  • Has our industry or situation changed so that the changes require us to modify our plan?

Who’s in charge of your crisis plan? And who keeps it updated?

Theoretically, your CEO or COO is responsible for your crisis planning and response.

In reality, someone in the lower ranks, or an outside resource, is responsible for crafting the plan, testing it out, and keeping it updated.

It’s important to ensure that someone in, or connected to, your organization is clearly in charge of crisis communications planning and stays in touch with its basic response actions. This same person should be the one to review the plan and call management’s attention to any changes that require the buy-in of the entire organization.

So what does Wellons Communications have to do with crisis planning?

Wellons Communications serves to write crisis plans, test them out, freshen them up when required, and, in an actual crisis, act as either the spokesperson for your organization or prepare your designated spokesperson’s response.

In short, we stand at your side and help guide your response so you immediately can communicate your side of a story to four key audiences:

Your employees: let them know that your only point of communication is whomever is designated as your spokesperson.

Your customers: tell them what is going on and what you are doing to address it.

Media: Identify one person (by name, title, and contact information) who is your spokesperson and how to reach them. And keep in mind that media includes both consumer media and trade media.

Your industry: if your business category is caught up in the crisis moment, let your industry association know what you are doing and who is speaking on your behalf.

Pre-empt crisis response now…by reviewing your crisis plan

Chances are you already have a crisis plan in place…or have, at least, thought about it.

If you have a plan established, look at it and update it. If you don’t have a plan formalized, put one in place, even if it’s only one page.

If you anticipate that you need—or may need—crisis planning assistance and crisis response assistance, consider our Orlando PR firm and let us help you put a plan together, conduct a run-through to see how it works, and stand by your side in the event you need to respond to a crisis.

And remember, those “black swans” are only a moment way…and you need to be prepared to address them if they occur.

Use video to spice up your communications

Posted on by Wellons team

Looking for an inexpensive way to get an edge on your competitors or gain a powerful new connection with your target market? Consider these observations about video marketing and think, for a moment, how this relates to your marketing and public relations strategies:

This certainly suggests that businesses need a video marketing strategy — but this idea isn’t new. What has changed is the importance of video’s presence on every platform and channel.

So…are you using video to convey your message? Or are you totally dependent on words and still pictures to communicate your key marketing messages?

Video is a staple of our everyday lives

America has been a TV society since the 1950s.

The notion of “TV”, however, now extends far beyond sitting in front of a television set.

Social media has revolutionized how we “consume” or watch information. YouTube, Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, TikTok and all the other gaggle of online information sources have both created demand for video content and influenced how people receive and absorb information.

Cell phones, tablets and computer screens are now more dominant than one’s television set.

The takeaway: To remain relevant, you need to include video in your total marketing plan and particularly in your public relations communications, to effectively put yourself in front of your key audiences.

But doesn’t video cost an arm and a leg?

Over the years, video-making tools have become more and more accessible to the average marketer and small business owner. Today almost anyone can launch their own video marketing campaign.

An inexpensive video need not look like it was produced in one’s garage. Plenty of low-budget videos look as professional and polished as their more expensive counterparts.

The costs of video creation have declined significantly. Cameras have improved a great deal – in fact, if you have a smartphone, there’s a video-quality camera sitting in your pocket right now. This makes recording footage quicker and simpler than ever before.

That does not mean, however, that you should set up a chair under some lights and hit the video button on your cellphone to record something. It does mean that you can have video content produced at a reasonable price that can stay well within your budget…and underscore your business’ level of professionalism.

You must put aside a sufficient budget to reach effective levels of communication. The exact amount, of course, will vary with each client’s budget capability and needs, but something in a range of $750-$2,000 can serve to get your video presence established.

How Wellons Communications approaches video content development

The message you want to communicate will depend entirely on your product or service.

At our Orlando marketing agency, we strategically rely upon the themes and messages you use in your overall marketing plan. That provides consistency with what you are already saying about yourself.

There are, however, four basic ideas to which we subscribe in planning short video content packages:

  • Sound quality is paramount. Viewers must be able to hear and understand what you are saying.
  • Get to the point! Communicate your relevant thought within 10-15 seconds.
  • Add a personalized element. This provides an emotional connection with your viewer.
  • Be mindful of the length of your video. Shorter is better.

We can build a video package for you.

We plan the video package. Unless it’s something short and snappy for social, we typically don’t shoot them. We use professional videographers who have professional equipment who will make you look as professional as possible.

We can build your video package from scratch—from what you want to say and how you say it to how it will look, where, how, and when the video will be used and how much it will cost. We also handle the research to identify a video team that will stay within your budget.

Before we get to the production stage, we plan…and plan…and plan. This usually results in a storyboard that illustrates how your video will look. In turn, the video team we select takes that information and puts your video together (under our supervision).

Finally, we assist in the distribution of the video, from coordinating its use in your online marketing initiatives to distributing it to news media.

Use video to freshen your marketing. And call on us to get it underway.

At our Orlando PR agency, we think like marketers and act like the public relations professionals we are. We think of ourselves as “marketing public relations” practitioners…and that translates into virtually all the PR services we provide our clientele.

When you are ready to add video to your marketing or PR mix, keep us in mind or simply call or email us and let us discuss with you how you can, affordably, add video to your overall marketing program.

How to hire a PR firm

Posted on by Wellons team

Public relations firms do their best to improve the overall business objectives of their clients. The positive performance of clients, after all, is the only business measurement that really counts.

How often, however, do clients share necessary information with their public relations agency to “arm” them with the information the PR firm needs to succeed?

Often, companies simply ask PR firms to pitch their services without providing or sharing information that is critical to formulating an effective PR plan. On occasion, PR firms are confronted with organizations whose basic theme is “I am the client…and what are you going to do to improve my business results?”

The importance of communicating with your PR firm

PR agencies are, of course, outside services.

However, when you bring a PR firm aboard, you need to include your PR firm as a key member of your marketing organization. That means sharing information with them. Often, this is confidential information the firm needs to know to help you successfully compete or, at the other end of the spectrum, prevent potential damage to your business.

PR professionals are not clairvoyant. They cannot read the minds of clients. And, without providing PR team members with a clear and basic outline of your wants and needs, they cannot deliver results that meet those needs.

Prepare your PR firm before you even hire them

When you anticipate bringing a PR firm on board, whether it’s hiring a PR firm for a small business for the first time or because you’re changing firms, you can get the most from the firms by providing them an overview of what you are seeking to do, accompanied by a backgrounder on your business and your business category.

Surprisingly, many organizations have no idea how to build a PR brief. As a result, the entire process of enabling PR firms to respond to your business ends up below expectations, both for you, as a client, and the PR firm, as an outside service eager to help your business. This might leave you wondering, “Is hiring a PR firm worth it?” It definitely can be, but you have to do it right.

How do you hire a PR firm?

Start by identifying firms whose background, whether on point to your industry or with the capability to help you within your business category, is a fit for you. Some agencies specialize only in certain categories like tourism, medicine and law, or industry categories like automotive or agriculture. Other agencies have clients in a variety of categories.

Specialists provide advantages because their learning curve is less. Generalists bring the advantage of “transferability” that allows them to bring strategies and tactics that have worked outside your business category to your side.

Where to start looking? The local Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) chapter, if you are primarily a local business, or trade journals like PRWeek, which list PR firms and their backgrounds, is one place to start. If you’re looking local, your normal networking opportunities might yield some options. And of course, there’s always the power of a Google search. A quick “PR firms near me”, or in our case “Orlando PR firms” should do the trick.

Pitching new business is a risk for PR firms

One important rule: limit the number of agencies you want to have pitch to you. If you ask for too many agencies to pitch, you will not be able to give each the time and attention required. Many agencies will feel like pitching your business is a lottery and will pull out. Putting together a proper pitch is an expensive business for an agency, so many are becoming increasingly discerning about the pitches they do. If they feel like pitching your business is a lottery, they will decline participation, and you might miss out on a great fit.

Keep in mind that agencies will also be asking themselves, “Is this someone I want to work for?”

By providing each new business participant a basic brief, you will immediately convey that you are serious in your search, well-prepared in how you intend to measure each agency and ready to provide strong direction.

Spell out what you want to accomplish

Briefs for competing PR firms do not need to be long documents. They can be very basic. The good news is that most of the information you need to share with them already probably exists in your business plan.

Here’s a basic outline of what should be provided to PR firms before asking them to pitch your business:

  • Your business objectives
  • Where your business or brand currently exists in your business environment
  • What you want your business or brand to be
  • Target audiences: Who are you trying to reach?
  • Key competitors
  • Issues and considerations that the agency must take into account
  • Existing research or information you can share about your business
  • Other marketing you already are undertaking (e.g., advertising, promotion)
  • Time frame: When will you be receiving pitches, and when you will make a decision?
  • Budget: Provide a budget range that is easily within your capabilities
  • Structure: Who will be the primary point of contact with your business?

Pick a firm you can trust

At our Orlando PR firm, we’ve been on both sides of the table on pitches and have seen the good, the bad and the ugly in terms of how companies have gone about hiring a PR firm.

If you’re looking to hire an Orlando PR agency, we’d be happy to consult with you on the process and present our thoughts on what we could do for you (and if we’re not the best fit, we have a great network of other Florida agencies with a wide range of specialties, and we’re happy to refer you).

Want to chat? Give Will a call at 407-339-0879 or shoot him an email at will@wellonscommunications.com. No matter who you choose to help with your PR needs, we hope you use this process to find your perfect fit…and we hope you see awesome results for your business.

How up-to-date is your crisis communications plan?

Posted on by Wellons team

If you run your own business—or oversee a significant operation of someone else’s business—you are always conscious that you are only one mishap away from an incident that could derail all the hard work you have put into establishing the good name and reputation of your enterprise.

It could be an accident that causes injury or death to a customer or an employee.  It might be someone losing control of a vehicle and crashing through your front window. It could be someone protesting a cause and selecting your business as the target of whatever they are espousing. It could be a tornado that sweeps through your location and causes major damage.

The point is that all businesses and organizations are subject to experiencing some form of crisis. And, in the face of that gloomy reality, it only makes sense that one needs to be prepared with a basic crisis management and communications plan.

Incidents may not necessarily be your fault

Crisis communications-related incidents know no boundaries.

As often as not, crisis situations are triggered by safety or operational issues that happen in your industry. And when they occur, you can potentially be caught in the flurry of communications that inevitably surrounds the crisis.

For example, unruly passengers acting out on airplanes trigger focus on the entire airlines industry and can even extend to other transportation businesses like trains and busses. An outbreak of salmonella or e-coli in a restaurant can result in media focusing on issues like “How clean are dining establishments in our area.” A cyberattack from a foreign nation could disrupt your ability to supply services to your customers.

You may not be at fault, but because someone else has experienced or created a bad outcome, you may get caught in the crossfire.

Be prepared….and stay prepared.

A survey conducted in late 2019 by PRNEWS and CS&A International, a specialist risk, crisis and business continuity management consultancy, reveals that while 62 percent of companies have a crisis communications plan, there is great uncertainty about how many organizations regularly update their plans.

The same survey suggests, in addition, few organizations consistently practice crisis scenarios.

In short, they put the plan on the shelf to gather dust and fail to review it frequently enough to be of any value. The survey also goes on to reveal that almost 40 percent of companies lack any kind of crisis response plan.

By failing to remain in touch with one’s crisis plan, should a crisis-related incident occur, one’s response to the incident will be slow, confused, lacking clarity, and likely putting an organization in a defensive posture.

If a crisis incident occurred, what would you do?

Who would you call? Who should be called? How do you reach them? Who will investigate what is happening? Who should be speaking with media? Who should be representing your organization? How do you reach legal representation to ensure that whatever you say does not put you at risk?

From an operational standpoint, what immediate changes must you undertake in response to the incident? Remain open? Modify your operation? What do you tell your customers? What do you tell your employees? Who will do the communicating?

These are only a sampling of the kinds of questions you would be faced with. And you can bet your bottom dollar these questions will need to be addressed in the first moments of a crisis.

Without a plan, events spiral out of control

Per Dirk Lenaerts, senior partner at CS&A International, who oversaw creation of the survey referenced earlier, “Many companies struggle with reacting quickly and getting organized when crises strike. This is yet another reason why practicing is so important,” he said. According to the survey, respondents chose “reacting quickly” as “the most difficult aspect of crisis response.”

No crisis communications planning, of course, can foresee all types of incidents, but there are common elements that one’s plan should contain that will provide an orderly and managed response to whatever has occurred.

In that context, it suggests that two actions can provide a foundation for crisis response:

  1. Create a plan
  2. Practice and review the plan elements

At Wellons Communications, we know how to deal with crisis management

Businesses like to state, “We’ve seen it all.”

That is an overstatement, of course, but we can confidently state that our team at Wellons Communications has certainly seen enough.

We have served clients who have been well-prepared for a crisis. We have also assisted clients who never envisioned having to deal with the media firestorm that erupts in the wake of a crisis incident.

We have created crisis plans from scratch. We have updated crisis plans. And we have served as the driving force to execute on crisis plans, as necessary.

If your business is prepared for a crisis, congratulations. We hope you stay prepared.

However, if your business needs a crisis plan or needs a partner to assist you in dealing with crisis communications, think of our Orlando PR agency.

We are experienced and well-versed in what actions to take (and not take) to help you maintain your reputation. And, in the end, maintaining your organization’s good name is what our job is about.

Is public relations part of your 2022 marketing plan?

Posted on by Wellons team

Chances are your marketing plan for the upcoming year is already set in stone.

Your marketing objectives have been established, marketing strategies agreed upon, tactics identified and budgets confirmed. Right?

Do you even have a marketing plan?

Surprisingly, almost 25 percent of business-to-business marketers in the U.S., when surveyed in 2020, said they did not have any kind of marketing plan in place. A whopping 76 percent said they did not have a formal marketing plan.

A different survey conducted by Outbound Engine, a digital marketing service that specializes in assisting marketing planning, says, essentially, the same thing. According to Outbound’s information, approximately 50 percent of small businesses have no marketing plan.

In short, there are a lot of small to medium business owners out there whose marketing plan is “winging it.”

What is marketing? Is PR marketing?

As a general rule, marketing includes sales, advertising, public relations, promotion and research, accompanied by measurement.

Public relations, one of the services that Wellons Communications offers, is not total marketing. It’s a specialized marketing service that enables clients to present their product or service and shape public or business perception of what they do, only without paying media for the coverage or recognition.

Two of the primary differences between paid advertising and public relations are, first of all, cost and second, the ability to measure response.

Advertising is expensive and, according to the old marketing adage, “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half.”

Further, consumers recognize that advertising is totally self-serving.

For companies with limited marketing budgets, marketing in PR offers an affordable choice, for the simple reason that they lack sufficient dollars to purchase enough advertising to really make a significant difference in their overall marketing. And, for organizations with larger marketing budgets, PR provides a means of augmenting advertising with editorial recognition that advertising lacks.

How can PR complement your marketing plan?

Where PR shines is in its ability to provide credibility by putting a “face” to a name. Think of it as a second dimension to your branding process.

The type of PR we conduct at our public relations agency seeks to provide an added communications dimension or connection with your product or service to get your message across.

Our primary marketing weapon is publicity: generating editorial recognition for your product or service that possesses the credibility that advertising lacks. We do this by persuading editorial media to recognize your business and what you are doing to benefit your audiences.

Why is PR less expensive?

The reason PR costs less is that publicity has to be earned. You cannot buy publicity.

Media has to decide on their own whether or not your business is newsworthy and what makes it newsworthy.

In that sense, Wellons Communications becomes a storyteller. We package your story in a newsworthy, easy-to-understand format, distribute your story to media whose formats and audiences are suited to receive your story, and individually “pitch” or contact media who might be particularly interested in your story.

Our primary costs are related to manpower, backed by know-how and experience in working with editorial media.

PR’s operational expenses are minimal

There are operating expenses connected with a PR firm, but in comparison with advertising, they are only a fraction of the cost.

Basically, PR’s operational expenses include production of visual materials that bring your story to life (photos, video, online visuals).

So, what’s the payoff with PR?

When PR and publicity connect, it can put your product or service into the news with an impact that advertising simply cannot deliver. Editorial recognition is recognition that is earned…and it is our job to help you earn it.

And, in an era when “fake news” has become a news story in itself, it is exceedingly important that whatever news recognition you seek is backed up by facts, figures and information that can be totally documented.

Ensure that you have PR in your 2022 marketing mix

If your 2022 marketing plan is complete, congratulations. You are in the minority of organizations who possess such a plan and are ready to get out there and promote your business more effectively.

If you don’t have a marketing plan, contact us at Wellons Communications. Let our Orlando PR firm share with you how you can start development of a total marketing plan…one we hope will include public relations as an important cornerstone.

All best wishes for a prosperous 2022!

Lean on public relations strategies to accelerate your post-COVID marketing

Posted on by Wellons team

As 2021 draws to a close, we appear to be slowly turning the corner in battling the COVID threat. While we are not yet over the hump in creating the herd immunity necessary to return to life as we knew it before 2020, the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel is growing brighter.

With more positive days ahead, it is now time to begin looking for opportunities to capitalize on the predicted surge in demand and spending that will likely occur.

And, while you are revising your marketing plans to move beyond COVID, keep public relations strategies in your marketing mix. Why? Because there is considerable demand and interest out there for high-quality news and feature pitches.

Recognize how marketing has changed in the past 24 months

During the pandemic, we became a nation of homebodies. And that fact alone has wrought enormous changes in how we purchase goods and services and how we shop for them.

Consumer behavior has totally changed. Marketers responded to people’s fears of going outside and shifted to customer-centric strategies that, before COVID, would likely would have been given little or no emphasis.

The end result has been an upheaval in how customers and marketers connect. Online shopping has exploded. Home delivery of everything from fast food orders to grocery shopping has become routine. Business meetings and visits with the doctor require only a couple of clicks on one’s computer to get connected.

So where does marketing go from here?

A relevant article by Ernst & Young’s Janet Balis in the March 2021 Harvard Business Review provides some interesting insights into how marketing strategies will change as the COVID era draws to a close.

Within the article, one item, point No. 6, particularly interested us at Wellons Communications. Balis says in the past, the truth was “relationships matter.” Now, it’s “relationships are everything.”

And relationship building is what Wellons Communications is all about.

Re-connect to your audience with publicity and PR

Aggressively publicize what you are selling and why it is useful to your audience.

A few months ago, we noted that, during the pandemic, companies were being strangely quiet about what they were doing or only talking about COVID and how they were responding to it. From a journalist’s point of view, it was hard to find a story that did not have COVID somehow connected it.

Media, like all of us, now are suffering from COVID message fatigue. We’re weary of hearing about the pandemic and want to get on to something more positive and cheerful.

As an illustration, the British PR firm Energy PR surveyed nearly 150 national and trade journalists to get their view on how PR has changed since COVID began. More than half of the media surveyed (53 percent) said they were receiving fewer pitches from companies or their PR firms. Eighty-eight percent said they want people to pitch feature ideas to them.

Closer to home, journalists are telling us that they are hungry for story ideas that are COVID-free. They have an appetite for information that is independent of what a company is doing in relation to the pandemic.

Do you see the opportunity? At our Orlando PR firm, we certainly do and we are working hard to ensure our clients are taking advantage of it

Let us start pitching for you

The most effective weapon we have in our arsenal at our public relations agency is publicity. We have spent our careers on both sides of the desk (journalism and PR) and have keen sense of what journalists want and how to best convey information to them.

What we are talking about, specifically, is the public relations strategies that relay enough information to build trust and confidence in you and your business.

Consider these observations from Cison’s Global State of the Media Report.

Twenty-eight percent of media receive over 100 pitches per week with most being deleted. Contrary to popular belief, a sizeable percentage also say they like receiving pitches on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

PR pros are supposed to make journalists’ jobs easier. Nearly half of journalists report that they cover five or more beats and file seven or more stories per week. Seventy-eight percent report that they are looking for press releases, and 68 percent report they want original research. They are also looking for multimedia elements like photos and video and invites to interview experts or attend events.

To sum it up, at our public relations agency, we recognize that journalists are looking for non-COVID stories and features. We sense that they are willing to consider new and different kinds of stories. And they likely are not receiving the kinds of story ideas and concepts that fit what they are seeking.

There’s no time to waste if you want to get ahead of your competitors and put you message in front of media. Call me and let me amplify on what we can do and how we can use public relations strategies to accelerate your digital marketing program as COVID begins to decline.

We get results.

Bios: Are you telling YOUR story on your website?

Posted on by Wellons team

How often do you look at your website from your customer’s point of view?

Marketers generally blast away with all the unique selling propositions that distinguish their product or service. They often focus entirely on telling their customers why their product or service stands apart from their competitors…or why customers need their product or service.

What websites often overlook is specific information about the people who oversee and deliver what your organization is selling…the folks behind the website.

Let people see and learn about who they are dealing with and buying from

To be clear, we are not talking about, to use the arcane language of website developers, “dynamic website personalization,” or creating a customized website experience that winds up being tailored to the wants of each individual visitor who comes to your web page.

We’re talking about posting information about the people who manage your business.

At first glance, this may seem like a terrifying notion. “What! I’ve been taught to protect personal information at all costs,” may be your first reaction.

What we are talking about, specifically, is relaying enough information to build trust and confidence in you and your business.

Biographies offer a way for your customers to better know you

Glance at some different websites. Find and click on “Who We Are.” In most instances, the information includes a business bio photo and a business-oriented biography that generally centers around the individual’s professional credentials.

We suggest considering a slightly different approach.

At our Orlando PR firm, we adhere to the notion that people like to learn about or read about people like themselves. Sort of like a conversation between the reader and the storyteller.

Why is that important? We believe it offers a more personal connection with the marketer and their customer. And that personal connection builds trust and confidence.

Just how personal are we talking?

As a digital marketing agency, we strongly subscribe to the notion of bridging the trust-gap between you and your customers… connecting with them, not talking at them.

Biographies do not always have to be dead-serious and dull. They can offer a means of personally connecting you with your customers

We’re not recommending in-depth information about individuals. Just enough information to convey a sense of professionalism…and personality. And prompt engagement.

Your bio, for example, can provide the reasons that led you to became involved in your profession. You can share what inspires you or what you want your customers to say about your product or service. Or simple information like what football team you like or your favorite movie.

Back up the bio with a photo…not in a stiff conference room setting, but in a site that positions you as an individual. A real person. The kind of person that your customers will say “I’d like to have these folks as friends.”

A creative professional bio photographer will know how to create a setting (e.g., outdoors, in front of your headquarters, or with some of your employees in an informal gathering) that brings your personality—and that of your organization—to life and underscores your willingness to connect with your customer.

Wellons Communications knows about personalization

Our public relations agency is comprised of communications professionals who work together. But, first and foremost, we are individuals, each with our own individual personalities and backgrounds.

We look at our clients in the same way….as individuals who have their own unique wants, needs and expectations.

Because everyone is unique, we believe personalization…right down to the bios that appear on your website and in your marketing materials…is critical to building a strong connection with your customers.

Take a second look at your overall marketing materials and ask yourself “Does my website provide my customers with the means of getting to know me (or us) better?”

If you’re thinking some personalization might be in order, call me (Will), at 407-462-2718. And, in the true spirit of personalization, I will personally answer your call. And I’ll be happy to review your materials and let you know if you can use some personalization that will let your customers get to know you better.

Are you relevant to your audience?

Posted on by Wellons team

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.

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