Category: Blog

Aim at influencers to bolster your marketing program

Posted on by Wellons team

In its most basic form, public relations centers around reaching people or organizations who shape and influence perceptions and opinions. It is PR’s role to persuade people that your business is the correct answer to whatever you are marketing.

The topics can range from what you want people to know to purchase your product to shaping people’s perception about issues and matters of importance.

No longer, however, can PR firms depend primarily on mass media to help shape opinion.

Targeting one’s most influential media resource now centers on finding and defining “influencers” whose recognition and endorsement can have enormous impact on how folks view your product or service. These influencers can range from specific individuals at a mass media outlet to a lone blogger, whose recognition can make or break a marketing campaign.

Gaining traction with influencers

One cannot simply blast away with emails to media (both mass media and online media) in the vain hope that they will use your information.

Successful influencers are deluged by unsolicited emails, most of which end up in the trash can.

One must gradually reach out to influencers first, build up their trust, before even considering asking them for recognition. You must convince them of your legitimacy as a media resource and the newsworthiness of your product or service. It is a slow, gradual process that requires being in it for the long haul. There are no shortcuts.

Finding influencers

At Wellons Communications, we rely on well-established mass media communications programs to immediately reach media outlets that can help boost recognition of your business.

Beyond mass media, however, we have a well-defined approach to zeroing in on influencers whose recognition can augment your marketing efforts. These steps include:

• Hashtag audits

We search for hashtags that are relevant to your business and narrow them down to those best suited to what you do. It’s a tedious process, but an important step in finding your correct target audience.

• Google Alert communications

We use Google Alerts to identify influencers by keywords. We set up alerts for suitable terms that will enable you to start receiving notifications when somebody posts information related to what you are marketing. From that, we can choose from the list of influencers and contact with what information they are seeking.

• Contact with Blogger Outreach Groups and Platforms

Facebook organizes groups by their interests – from investment seeking information to invest in oil drilling to housewives seeking recipes for air fryers.

We identify those groups best suited for our client’s information and seek to build relationships with its most active members.

• Aggregator and outreach tools

We can call upon specialized outreach resources like Pitchbox and Buzzsumo to help build campaigns targeting specific influencers. By employing carefully selected keywords we can scan the internet to identify and reach out to dominant online influencers with the kind of information they are seeking.

Call us to find out how you can benefit from influencer marketing

At Wellons Communications, we pride ourselves in keeping pace with the rapidly change ways in how people absorb information, particularly in the online marketing arena.

Online marketing is an increasingly sophisticated and complex form or marketing, but we keep our programs simple, easy to manage, and well within the budgets and capabilities of our clients. We want you to understand what we are doing, how it can benefit you and increase your business.

As 2023 winds down and you are looking at new ways or more effective ways to help you sell your product or service, think of Wellons Communications.

Contact us about creating a well-rounded public relations program that includes basic PR strategies and new and different approaches to reach your target audiences…. like reaching the influencers best suited to help you increase your reach and sales.

The importance of “positioning” in your marketing program

Posted on by Wellons team

Marketers are fond of talking about “positioning” their product or service in their competitive marketplace.

Often, marketers fall in love with the notion that if they simply advertise or talk about what they do, they have successfully positioned their product.

Wrong. And here’s why.

Positioning is the way companies and brands are perceived by one’s consumer not by you. Positioning is where you exist in mind of your present and prospective customer.

Where does public relations fit into positioning?

Simply stated, PR is one of the key building blocks in an integrated marketing campaign.

The sole mission of public relations is to help you sell your product or service. How PR helps you sell is to develop ways and means to create a distinct identity, image, or concept for a product or service.

In other words, positioning.

At first glance, you might say to yourself, “Well, ‘positioning’ might be great for Coca-Cola, Delta Airlines, IBM, or some corporate giant, but I’m only a medium-sized business and simply don’t have the kind of marketing budget that can support positioning.”

Positioning is important to any business, large or small, because all businesses face the challenge of identifying who you are, what you do, and why it is important to your target audience.

Should you pass on positioning for less complex marketing approaches?

It’s easy to skip pass on the notion of “positioning.” It’s sort of like jumping immediately to tactics without having objectives or a strategy.

Three of the primary reasons of why it’s so easy to reject and avoid “positioning” as a part of your overall marketing strategy are that positioning is hard to understand, positioning requires time and positioning is difficult to measure.

Making positioning even hard is the fact that we live in the most overcommunicated era in human history.

Today, the average person sees around 10,000 ads per day, though only a quarter of that or less will be relevant.

On top of that, the flood on online traffic is overwhelming. The Harvard Business Review reports that the average professional spends 28% of the work day reading and answering email, according to a McKinsey analysis. For the average full-time worker in America, that amounts to a staggering 2.6 hours spent and 120 messages received per day.

That’s a lot of information. And it makes positioning a challenge.

So how do you successfully position your business?

The most efficient way to help you achieve successful positioning is to call on folks who position products and services for a living, like our team at Wellons Communications.

We are positioned as a marketing services company that relies primarily on public relations to build awareness and subsequent sales for our clients.

We have worked in all aspects of marketing and have keen insights on how to battle through the maze of overcommunications that exists in today’s competitive marketplace.

As you shape and modify your business’s overall marketing communications program, keep Wellons Communications in mind.

We are ready and able to assist you in developing – and maintaining – an effective positioning for your business. We rely on creative marketing approaches that put your customer first and positions your business as the best means of delivering what your customer wants and needs.

Are you keeping up with marketing’s fast-moving changes?

Posted on by Wellons team

“Often, as classic marketers, we think there is only one way to do things. Now, out of necessity, we are discovering there are new ways to get the job done.” – Rand Harbert, Chief Marketing Officer, State Farm Insurance

Changes in how you market your product or service are happening at a dizzying pace.

As you wrestle to keep up with the rapid marketing changes affecting your industry and your individual business, you need to constantly be mindful that your company must maintain continuity of purpose while reflecting an external consistency of your messaging and image.

It’s a tough balancing act. You can bet that marketing changes are going to continue to be ongoing, as well as difficult to understand and resolve.

Digital marketing has moved to the forefront of marketing

No surprise: digital marketing has been overwhelmingly the biggest change in marketing.

We’re in the midst of the Digital Age.

But how many business owners, particularly of smaller businesses, really understand much about digital marketing and how to harness its power?

In the mid-2010s, AWeber, a global email marketing software provider, conducted a survey of small business owners and marketers about their relationship to digital marketing. This study indicated that 94 percent of small business owners and marketers declared online marketing to be very important for the growth of their business. But only 12 percent claimed to be proficient in online marketing, whereas 29 percent said they felt overwhelmed by online marketing.

If you feel uncomfortable thinking about how you address digital marketing, that means you have plenty of company.

How can you utilize public relations in your digital marketing?

As you look ahead to 2023 and how you shape your marketing plan, think about how you can reach your target audiences – and your current customers—with an expanded digital public relations program.

We’re not talking about distribution.

We’re talking about content.

Ideas. Suggestions. Thoughts. Benefits. The kind of messages that reflect who you are and how you’re connected to whatever your audience wants resolved.

Content is more than words

At Wellons Communications, we view content as the sum of your entire story.

Certainly, words are important. They should, however, be amplified by graphics and video that more easily capture attention and bring your story to life.

Keeping it simple

In a world where we’re exposed to 4,000 to 10,000 ads every day, it’s critical that your content immediately connects with your targets and clearly says what you want to say.

Our approach to storytelling is to make your story as simple as possible.

We use short, clear sentences. We back the words up with eye-catching graphics like photos, drawings, charts, etc. that bring the words to life. And, if your budget can accommodate it, we mix in affordable video that adds the dimensions of movement and sound to your messaging.

Content development is only one phase of PR

While we develop content, as a media relations agency, we also conduct distribution – putting your messages in front of media who will have the most interest in news about your business.

We develop and maintain lists of media who are looking for the kind of news you can offer. And we regularly put your name and business in front of media who are eager to develop contacts that can knowledgably address issues and happenings in your industry.

Does all this cost a lot?

The good news is that PR is considerably less costly than advertising.

That doesn’t mean PR is less effective. It’s simply a different approach to presenting – and keeping – your business in front of your key audiences.

While PR cannot entirely control when media will adopt your message or how it’ll be employed, the positive impact of a solid PR “hit” will add credibility to your overall messaging and distinguish your standing from competitors.

As you’re working on your Q4 marketing strategy, think about including Wellons Communications in your plan to help you keep pace with the kaleidoscopic world of marketing…and reaching your targets effectively and affordably.

We’re a digital marketing agency that stays up-to-date on the latest trends affecting a large variety of industries. Give us a call at 407-462-2718 or email will@wellonscommunications.com to get started.

The public relations power of your employees

Posted on by Wellons team

What if you could multiply the number of messengers that could tell your story?

What if you had a team other than your sales or marketing departments who can share your story with passion, conviction and, with guidance, accuracy?

The fact is, there’s no “what if.”

You already have a built-in PR team in your employee workforce.  It’s a team that requires only clarification about what you’re already saying about your business and your encouragement to share that message.

Aren’t employee relations and public relations the same?

Employee relations can be viewed as form of public relations. But the audience is a cohort of one – your employees.

What your employees say about you is taken at face value by those who listen to them. They talk to their families, their friends and, in many instances, are the only connection between you and your customers.

Because people view your employees as an accurate barometer of your business’ capability and reputation, your employees are a critical audience to have on your side.

Employees may not clearly understand what to tell others about you.

Just because an employee works for you, doesn’t mean they automatically know how or what to tell others about your business.

Their point of view is frequently shaped by whatever job area they spend their work time. A hotel housekeeper, for example, will see or know very little about an overall employer’s goals or mission. An administrative worker in the front office, however, will likely be quite knowledgeable about their employer’s business.

All your employees likely don’t know precisely what you do, how you express it and how their services benefit your clients.

So, how do you fix that?

Active internal communications

A good starting point for equipping your employees to serve as PR messengers is an active, ongoing internal communications program.

It means you must communicate what you’re doing with your employees on a frequent basis. You must let them know what’s going on in your business and your industry and how it relates to them.

And, at every opportunity, you must communicate your respect and appreciation for their hard work and professionalism. Let them know you’re grateful for their efforts and how much their work means to you and your clients.

Harness recognition power

Use internal communications to take advantage of the power of recognition. State clearly and simply that you understand what your employees do, what kinds of challenges they face and that you value their presence at your side.

You can get better acquainted with the power of recognition in creating a Culture of Recognition.

So, what should you put into an internal PR program?

No two internal communications programs are alike. And many of them are baked into employee relations programs, which sometimes fail to act with the frequency and capability of a professional PR program.

HR folks, in fact, often view internal communications as an extra duty and must struggle to find the time and resources necessary to conduct an ongoing internal communications program.

At the very least, internal PR programs should provide employees with:

  • A clear statement about what your business does (e.g., We build widgets)
  • A clear statement about the benefit(s) your business provides for customers (e.g., We provide families with an enjoyable time together)
  • Ongoing news about your company’s activities
  • Recognition of achievement on the part of employees

But HOW do we establish an effective internal communications program?

That’s where the Wellons Communications PR firm can help.

We spend all our work time providing clients with effective communications programs that build awareness, recognition and sales.

Using the same models and approaches we use to conduct global, national, regional and local PR outreach, we can build an effective internal communications program for your business…with an emphasis on affordability.

We’re ready to start building closer relationships between you and your team members.

Give our Central Florida PR firm a call at 407-462-2718 or email will@wellonscommunications.com to find out more about how we can create or freshen your internal communications program.

Earned media versus advertising: There’s room for both

Posted on by Wellons team

It’s a century-old adage: “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half.”  – Department store mogul John Wanamaker

Advertising is, indeed, costly. Even so, it remains the bedrock for most marketers because they can control virtually every aspect of the advertising message.

So, what other marketing alternatives do you have to reach your potential customers?

The answer, of course, is publicity – the cornerstone of public relations. Publicity is considerably more affordable and, when it hits a home run, it’s worth its weight in gold. The only downside is that publicity messaging is considerably less controlled and not entirely predictable.

The myth of free media

One of the myths about publicity is that it is “free media.”

Publicity is not free. Publicity is earned media. And one must work hard to earn publicity coverage. To clarify, earned media is any material written about you or your business that you haven’t paid for or created yourself.

Although earned media is always published or presented by a third party, there are ways marketers can position themselves for this type of media coverage. That’s where public relations firms or communications agencies like Wellons Communications come into the picture. We create content for placement and seek out opportunities for coverage for our clients.

Media have an insatiable appetite for content

“Every morning in Africa, a gazelle wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning a lion wakes up. It knows it must outrun the slowest gazelle or it will starve to death. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a lion or gazelle. When the sun comes up, you’d better be running.”

Like the lions and gazelles in this famous quote, media must wake up every day in search of new content.

To find new content, media (particularly news outlets with small staffs) depend on pr consultancies to feed them information that might be of value to their particular audience. Media depend on their staff to ferret out new and different information and then package it into a way that will hold on to their readers, watchers and listeners.

Orlando public relations firms like ours then provide a genuine service to media outlets. We create content and use individualized “pitches” to serve it up in a way that makes sense for each media outlet. If information has a broader consumer message or industry-wide message, we tailor it so it can be incorporated into an individual outlet’s particular editorial liking.

Earned media is changing rapidly

Once upon a time, publicity (i.e. earned media) meant placement of an article in the local newspaper, a magazine article or a TV or radio appearance.

In the digital age, there are now plenty of new opportunities for placement. Online media has certainly earned its seat at the table as an important outlet for news and information.

Publicity now also comes in the form of a customer’s tweet about “the best customer service ever!”, which is amplified by likes and retweets. It’s also a horrible Yelp review about how a different customer had “the worst service” from that very same business. And, it’s your industry blogger’s “Top 10 Businesses of The Year” article that was viewed and shared by thousands of people after you launched an important new feature about your product.

How we help you generate earned media

Earned media coverage is one of the prime services we provide our clients.

We create entire publicity packages…. not just press releases, but integrated public relations campaigns that blend your key messages into packages that bring your story to life.

We package together words with visuals. We then distribute those packages to outlets that might have use for them and, in many cases, employ individual messages that explain how your story will be of interest to their audiences.

For media who simply don’t have the time or staff to seek out this kind of information, we make it as easy as possible for them to project your message. Or use your message as an example of whatever else they might be saying.

Disciplined message crafting generates earned media

At Wellons Communications, we follow a four-step process to maximize earned media coverage for our clients:

  1. We create or identify your stories
  2. We package your stories (i.e. words and visuals)
  3. We distribute your stories to qualified media
  4. We follow up to amplify the stories you want to tell

We look for story opportunities that you may not immediately recognize. We keep in close touch with your key media sources to understand what kind of content they’re seeking. We work within media deadlines. We serve as a kind of unofficial staffer for media, helping them obtain information they can use to present to their audiences.

If you are seeking to expand your marketing beyond advertising or complement your already existing ad program, think of Wellons Communications. We’re willing and ready to help you augment and supercharge your already-existing marketing program. Email will@wellonscommunications.com or call 407-462-2718.

What does your online presence say about you?

Posted on by Wellons team

Think about the last time you took a close look at your business’ website – a really close look.

Is all the information on the site accurate? Is it relevant? Is it easily understandable? Is it populated with outdated information? Is there relevant information missing?

Your website is, of course, a key element in your marketing presence. And while it’s exciting to get it up and running, once the novelty has worn off, what your website says is often overlooked in the rush to move on to other marketing challenges.

Your website is only the start of your digital marketing presence

What your website says (or fails to say) has the potential to tarnish your hard-earned reputation. While your website is easily the most visible of your online marketing initiatives, it’s only one of tools you have in your online marketing kit.

All your online marketing initiatives deserve the same kind of careful attention as your website. Social media, email, text and content information and presence are all a part of the package that comprises how others view you and your organization in the digital world.

Here’s a to-do list for reviewing your digital communications

  • Read the content copy that appears on your website and your related internet-related communications. Is the information accurate? Is the information current?
  • Get rid of outdated information. Is your website weighed down with years-old information that is no longer relevant?
  • Get to the point. Does your content immediately project what you want to say? Is there too much explanation?
  • Do the graphics on your website immediately visualize what you do or what you want to project? Do photos and graphics need to be updated or changed?
  • Does your site clearly instruct your customer how to contact you? Is the contact information correct? Is it easy for your customer—or potential customer—to get in touch with your organization?
  • Is the site organized so that your customers can find what they are looking for? Do they have to flail away trying to figure out what you do and how to connect with whatever information they are seeking about you?

Here’s how Wellons Communications can help you with digital marketing

First, we offer you a new set of eyes to look at your website and provide a clear-eyed analysis of what we see…and what we don’t see.

Chances are, you’ve looked at your website so often that you may not recognize the presence of “red flags” that might be detrimental to the information you want to present.

On the positive side, you may be suffering from what advertising people call “client fatigue” – meaning that you may be weary of what you’ve been presenting, only to find out that your marketing messages are on target and effectively getting through to your target audiences.

Our journalistic backgrounds, combined with our marketing know-how, can provide you with a knowledgeable third-party summation that’ll let you know what changes may (or may not) be necessary.

We’re not in the business of recommending total communications overhauls simply to generate new business. We recognize and applaud jobs that are well done. At the same time, we’re not afraid to offer constructive criticism if, in fact, it’s required.

Find out more about how we can help you with the communications and content side of your digital public relations and marketing needs.  We’re only a text or email away and ready to lend a hand to help you update and strengthen how to incorporate public relations into your overall digital marketing initiatives.

If you’re looking for an Orlando marketing agency, call 407-462-2718 or email us at will@wellonscommunications.com.

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.

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.

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