Category: Media Relations

When it comes to media relations, think local

Posted on by Wellons team

News media have undergone enormous changes in the 21st century, thanks to the omnipresence of the internet and digital communications. Getting a significant media relations “hit” on the internet can generate worldwide coverage. But those kinds of hits are rare and require significant news value to obtain.

Sure, it’s great to get recognition from all over the nation—or the world—but how valuable is that coverage to you if your primary geographic market or audience is local?

News consumption has changed…but people are still interest in news

Interestingly, the prestigious Pew Research Center, a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world, points out that as news consumption habits become more digital, U.S. adults continue to see value in local outlets.

What makes local news outlets valuable is that even as print media circulation and local TV news audiences have shrunk, thanks to the internet, overall local coverage has expanded.

Take a glance at the chart in the article and you can see for yourself just how people have shifted in how and where they get their news.

Just how important is local media coverage?

With consumer readership for local news shifting to digital, it is easy to discount the importance of local news.

That’s because we live in in a time when people can access a seemingly limitless array of content from anywhere in the world. People can access platforms ranging from to mainstream news organizations that rely on the accuracy of their information to social media sites riddled with falsehoods and opinion.

But don’t discount community news. Local news, and especially quality journalism, continues to play a crucial role in keeping citizens informed about what’s happening immediately around them—a service that other platforms struggle to match. Local news can also serve as a springboard for coverage in larger-circulation mainstream media. And remember, local news outlets have their own websites and actively promote readership to their individual audiences.

Local news serves as a news backbone for community information

Local news outlets act as the first responders to breaking stories. They provide comprehensive coverage on wide-ranging topics—from politics and crime to health and lifestyle. They give citizens the knowledge needed to make informed decisions about issues affecting their communities, like city council meetings and school board elections, and critical issues like housing, education, and public safety.

Local news outlets provide news coverage that will never show up in the 80 hours of the same headlines across dayparts that you see on national news programs.

Coverage includes local news that relates directly to their local audience, ranging from community and neighborhood activities and individual resident achievements and local sports coverage.

Wellons Communications knows how to handle to local media relations

Sure, everyone wants their product or service to headline Fox News, CNN and NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt.

The reality, however, is that consumer product or service marketing rarely has qualities that are going to compete with daily headlines about politics, disasters, celebrities, and strange or unusual events.

Realizing that, our PR firm takes aim at local news outlets and provides them with local angles they use to create stories to share with their readers, viewers and listeners.

We possess the know-how and tools to reach into newsrooms and pitch stories that appeal and make sense to news directors and key editorial staff…and, in fact, our team members have spent part of their careers fielding PR pitches (both good and bad).

Learn more about how we can look for ways to put you in the news…. whether it is digital, broadcast or print. Call us at 407-339-0879 or email us at will@wellonscommunications.com and let’s start making media relations work for you.

Let’s talk about media relations that helps you sell

Posted on by Wellons team

In today’s increasingly complex communications world, marketing “success” is often sought via a dizzying array of digital-related approaches that are measured by mystifying metrics.

When you hear terms like “engagement zones,” “SERP” (search engine results page), “landing page visibility” and “click-through rate,” chances are you have little or no idea what in the world it all means. Unless you are a dyed-in-the wool, all the tech gobbledygook doesn’t matter…if your digitally centered marketing program fails to deliver.

That’s because, in the end, all you want is increased sales or increased support of whatever you are marketing.

And that leads us to what we do best at Wellons Communications: media relations.

At Wellons, we have only one focus: we exist to help our clients sell things

The only reason our clients call on us is to help them increase sales for whatever they are selling or remove impediments that could discourage sales for what they are marketing.

We utilize tried-and-true approaches that our clients can afford, understand and that have proven to contribute to marketing success.

We certainly know our way around today’s technical solutions and platforms. But we also add in basic, proven PR strategies that are well executed.

Our primary service is media relations

Our public relations practice is centered around publicity…media relations: the skillset by which journalists are encouraged to report positively about your business.We share clear, accurate and interesting news about what you are selling.

We point journalists in your direction so they can take advantage of your expert insight about your industry or get your opinion on a trending topic.

We look for ways to add dimension and depth about your business that advertising can only touch upon. Our services are considerably more affordable than paid advertising, and when our strategies work, the results can be enormously successful.

Publicity can earn a direct connection with your potential customers

People are exposed to approximately 5,000 advertisements every day.

With a flood of information like that, publicity — information that people actually look at — can cut through the noise and truly connect with your audience.

Publicity influences the views and decisions of people important to your business — potential customers, investors, employees, suppliers.

And, in an era where misinformation (particularly on the internet) abounds, objective endorsement from trusted media sources is more important than ever to helping build recognition, respect and credibility for your business.

How much does media relations cost?

Typically, a PR firm charges a monthly retainer fee that provides a basic number of service hours plus reimbursement of pre-approved out-of-pocket costs.

There is no such thing as a typical retainer fee because there really is no such thing as a typical client. Every client has a different budget and different needs. What’s more, you can be doing exactly the same work with the same monthly hours for two different clients, and there may be very good reasons for charging them very different rates.

At Wellons Communications, we typically meet with a potential client, gain an understanding of their wants and needs, conduct basic research to determine what we believe will deliver results, and propose a budget and time frame (e.g. six months to one year).

The precise budget depends on what we believe will be required from a time-consumption standpoint and related logistical support (e.g. video, photography, information distribution, special needs like transportation and special event activity).

Consider Wellons to develop a media relations program for your business

Consider this:

You have an ongoing need to sell your product or service. Editorial media have an ongoing need to find and report information.

So how do you connect your customers with editorial media?

That’s where Wellons Communications enters the picture. We serve as the cord that connects the plug in the wall to the device it powers. We create information that media can use in a format that will serve the media’s needs. Then we distribute the information, with pinpoint targeting, to those media that will have the most interest in your information. Further, we maintain ongoing contact with media to reinforce connections between you and media whose coverage is important to your business.

If your media relations program is non-existent, consider Wellons Communications to get a program started for you. If your media relations program needs freshening or reinforcement, consider Wellons Communications to review what you are doing and possibly seek new directions.

Call us at 407-339-0879 or email us at will@wellonscommunications.com and tell us what you are doing, what you want, and what you need to see if we can build a new media relations success story together.

 

Is your business ready for the media spotlight?

Posted on by Wellons team

Business owners and key executives are always eager for their enterprise — and themselves — to generate positive media recognition. The attention and media spotlight validate their business as a leader in their business category and underscores their leadership as an individual.  

When we first meet with clients and potential clients, one of the first things that we hear is “We want to be in the news. We want our business to be ‘out there’ in our field.” 

And one of our first reactions to hearing that is “Are you ready for the media spotlight?”  

Media coverage, after all, can work in two ways: positive and negative. And that means that we must ready our clients to tell their stories before we go about attracting media attention for them. At the same time, we ready our clients for any potential negative situation that could land on their desk. 

“Can’t I just use sales materials for the press?” 

Clients often fall into the mind-set that sales materials are the same as media-oriented press information materials. After all, clients have spent considerably to have sales materials produced to tell their story. 

Both kinds of materials are informational in nature, but media-oriented materials differ in that they are tailored to meet the needs of journalists. Reporters and writers work under continual deadline pressure and have little or no time to edit materials provided them.  

Like Joe Friday in the ancient TV series Dragnet, used to say, journalists “just want the facts, ma’am.”  

At Wellons Communications, we use a three-step approach to putting together basic media information for our clients:  

Step one: Build and maintain a professional press kit. 

Press kits help explain the core facts of your company to journalists in general in a neat, digestible package. The idea is that anyone sifting through your press kit can identify your key people, key facts, and key information about your business without having to speak to you. 

Better still, they can download the information assets they need for their story without emailing you first and then sitting around waiting for a response. 

Press kit information saves their time and yours, while considerably improving your media relations without too much effort on your part. They get to the point and highlight the key information that matters to the press all without having to decipher company terminology and endless marketing speak. 

But it’s not all about them. It’s about you, too. 

Having a press kit at the ready also saves you time running around to put together content when you get a call for a breaking story or a last-minute information request. 

Step two: Distribute the press kit 

Wellons Communications uses press kits as an aggressive, not a passive, marketing tool. Once we have a press kit prepared for a client, we find ways to immediately put it to work.  

Our PR firm identifies the news categories that might have the most interest in your business (journalists with general and trade news sources who cover your business category).  

 Then we develop the means of getting your press kit information into the hands of those media in the most efficient means possible. 

We use a variety of electronic distribution services and platforms to pinpoint and deliver your press kit to the newsrooms of major and trade news publications, the in-boxes of targeted journalists, along with relevant social media.  

By putting your press kit in the hands of the media, we identify you as a willing and credible source of information for what you do and how you serve your clients.  

Step three: We prepare you to polish your message 

Developing and distributing media materials is one thing.  

Preparing for the media spotlight and to respond to inquiries is another.   

Once your materials have been distributed, you have made yourself available as a resource to respond to ongoing news developments that could involve your business category These can be positive (e.g., a new trend, an uptick in business) or a negative development that could affect your industry (e.g. an economic downturn fostered by instability in the Middle East that affects oil prices and your industry). 

Either way, you must be prepared to respond to questions. Serving as the foundation of information for you and your business is your press kit (who, what, and where) with you providing the “why” or “how.” 

Our job is to help you have your answers ready…in an easy-to-understand, succinct manner that journalists (and their audiences) can easily grasp.  

Take a new look at your marketing mix and plan to include a public relations agency as an integral part of your marketing plan.  

And as you look ahead, call us at Wellons Communications to learn more about how we can develop an affordable three-step publicity and information program that can help you set the stage for increased visibility that can lead to increased sales and revenues. 

The inside scoop about pitching stories to media

Posted on by Wellons team

Some of the questions we receive from our clients — and potential clients — underscore their curiosity about how we go about presenting ideas, known as pitching stories in the PR trade, to news media.

Some of the questions we field include:

  • How do you know which media to pitch?
  • How do you know which media are most receptive to news about what we do?
  • Is there some kind of standardized process you employ to pitch media?
  • What is the best way to pitch media?
  • Is pitching an effective means for placing stories?

These are all good questions. So, we’re going to give you a peek under the curtain to illustrate how we pitch and what we do to maximize our pitching success rate.

All pitches are different.

No two pitches are alike That’s because all stories are unique.

To illustrate…

The opening of a new restaurant will have interest to local consumer media where the restaurant is opening and trade media that regularly cover the food and beverage industry.

So, pitching the news about the new restaurant will be directed to local print media, online news sources, broadcast news sources (including podcasts), as well as any national or regional trade media who seek information on the food and beverage industry.

More specifically, the story will be directed to individuals who cover dining and lifestyle topics. The same story, with a slightly different slant, will be directed toward sources that cover consumer business news and food and beverage trade news.

When it gets down to differentiating the new opening, it is our job to dig out what makes the story newsworthy and craft a story that makes the news relevant to the media that matter most to the client’s business. Maybe it’s a menu item that is totally unique or reflective of a popular dining trend. Or maybe it’s the reputation and renowned ability of the restaurant’s chef or the debut of the restaurant in an entirely new area.

What are some of the keys to making pitches work?

Thanks to research compiled by organizations like Meltwater, Cision, and ContentGrip, all of whom offer comprehensive media monitoring, as well as our own experience, we have a keen knowledge of the key components to make pitching stories work.

For example:

  • About one in five journalists prefer to receive pitches on Monday, but more than half of journalists don’t care what day they are pitched stories. Most journalists say they prefer to be pitched before noon.
  • More than half of journalists get at least a quarter of the stories they publish from pitches.
  • Approximately 67% prefer to get pitches that are less than 200 words long. Well over half (61%) say that two to three paragraphs are the sweet spot.
  • 49% of journalists say they seldom or never respond to pitches. 24% said they respond about half the time, 18% usually do and 8% always do (thank goodness for the eight percent!).
  • The leading reason for immediately rejecting otherwise relevant pitches is a lack of personalization.
  • Overwhelmingly (90%) prefer personalized, one-to-one pitching.

We create “pitches” that hit the strike zone.

It is clear from research, and our own experience, that pitches must be tailored to the individual receiving them.

No respectable journalist is interested in a pitch that is from a PR firm casting as wide a net as possible. Individual journalists want to be treated as individuals and are considerably more likely to pay attention to those PR professionals that recognize and respect their work and individual style.

With that in mind, our pitches at Wellons Communications are really a series of individualized pitches tailored to each individual journalist. This requires upwards of thirty to forty individualized emails, letters or phone calls aimed directly to each individual journalist’s wants and needs.

Take advantage of our pitching abilities

Our team has experience from both sides of the communications spectrum. Members of our public relations agency have served as journalists and we have served as publicity specialists, experience that has enabled us to know what kind of information media seeks, how and when they need it, and how to get the information to them.

When it comes time for your story to be told, call on us at Wellons Communication to start pitching stories … preceded, of course, by a well-designed plan that includes all the elements to enable your story to be presented in the most robust fashion possible.

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.

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.

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.

Media relations storylines: Think beyond yourself and your business

Posted on by Wellons team

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

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

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

So how do you mine those gold nugget ideas?

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cut through the clutter and make your voice heard

Posted on by Wellons team

As we head toward the rest of 2020, the challenge of effectively projecting your message — and unique characteristics — to your target audiences is going to be increasingly difficult.

Media will remain neck-deep in coverage of the presidential race, as well as state and local races. The coronavirus will remain at the top of the news for the remainder of 2020. And who knows what other news is around the corner waiting to pull attention away from your message?

The competition for consumer attention has never been more challenging

Forbes contributor Paul Jankowski neatly sums it up with his observation that “…brands have a better chance of keeping the attention of a goldfish than their targeted consumer.”

Need convincing? Try these observations on for size:

That means you cannot spend a lot of time trying to explain who you are and what you offer. It means that your message must possess simplicity and visibility to have a reasonable expectation of breaking through.

Wellons Communications solution: short messages and great visuals.     

Our Orlando PR agency has consistently preached “keep it simple.” It’s a philosophy we embrace and one that underlines a strategic approach we consistently adopt to ensure our client’s message is both heard and recognized.

Arriving at that messaging, however, requires discipline and hard work.

To formulate the message (and the approach that backs it up), we work with clients to address the following questions and identify the message that will get attention and connect with their target audience:

  • What is it you are selling?
  • Why should your product or service matter to your target audience?
  • What problem does your product or service solve?
  • What is the benefit of what you are selling?
  • What is the solution you bring to your target audience?
  • What are you trying to say?
  • What do you want your target audience to do in response to your message?

Once we agree on the answers to these questions, we are in position to determine what you should say and how you should say it.

And when we say it, we want to keep it short and memorable.

Communications have to go beyond words

Words are only a part of the communications process.

At Wellons Communications, we also promote the notion of relying on easy-to-understand visuals to project your message.

The old adage “A picture paints a thousand words” has never been truer than today.

Today’s consumers simply will not always make time to sit down and pore through an article or browse through a post — or even read your headline.

However, graphics and imagery can connect with consumers much faster than text. Witness the popularity of graphics-oriented apps like Instagram, TikTok and the many other photo-related apps that have become so popular.

That places a premium on a well-designed graphic that tells your story in an impactful, memorable way.

So, how can we make your messaging cut through the clutter?

We are bulldogs for adhering to simple solutions.

Keep it short. Keep it simple. Keep it understandable. And make it relevant to your audience.

If that’s the kind of approach you want to employ to improve your marketing, you need to be talking with us. You do the talking. We’ll do the listening. And together, we’ll generate the kinds of marketing results you are seeking.

Share your message with Will Wellons at 407-462-2718 or will@wellonscommunications.com.

Find out more about how our public relations and social media firm can make your messaging work harder, smarter, and more effectively.

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