Take notes: advice, tips and lessons

For clarity in all of your corporate communications, adhere to these tips. Not only will you showcase your polish and professionalism upon every interaction with your target audience, you’ll cut through the clutter with a commitment to quality content.

1. Create a confusion-free zone. Your prospects are barraged by hundreds of messages a day. Your company’s “narrative” needs to be clear, concise and easily-replicable both in written and verbal form. Clarify your story and stick to it.

2. Believe in PR. Interviews. Market research. Profiles. Analyst relations. Q&As: these are the outlets that show your worth through thoughtful editorial in targeted media. Ads that you pay for proclaim “I’m great;” a third party endorsement holds more heft. Today’s savvy prospects know the difference.

3. First impressions are critical. If your brand identity look like it’s from the ‘80s, your prospects won’t see you as the progressive company you are. WordPress websites, logos, letterhead, email signatures: your “look and feel” needs to make you and your staff proud – and instill confidence in others.

4. Take baby steps. Defining your brand’s core messages takes time. Working with outsourced professionals helps make the process less daunting – and can even be fun!

5. Mind the gap! What industry gaps do your products or services fill? Addressing your prospects’ pain points with solutions that you can uniquely provide – and communicating them in print, digital and broadcast – gives you and edge.

6. Listen. Social media-adverse? Understood. You still need to listen to social media conversations happening in your industry, even if you don’t participate. After all, it’s free research, at your fingertips. (Spoiler alert: social media is not going away.)

7. Invest in video. A professionally-produced video not only personalizes your brand, it is critical for SEO (search engine optimisation). It’s true – even in the B2B marketplace, people search online using YouTube.

8. Let someone do the media outreach. Enough with “we could do that in-house!” If you could, you would have already. Connect with experts who already know the media and can drive critical media relationship. It’s a worthy investment.

9. Blog. Blogging is still important in spite of an 140-character obsessed world. It shows your expertise and when updated regularly, drives prospects to your website. Hire a professional to ghost-write your blog, and become e a leader in your industry’s conversation.

10. Drive press engagement. What the press says matters (you read NJBiz, right?). Speaking to the right reporters, about the right subjects, at the right time, is crucial. A PR agency integrated into your industry can make media relationships come to life.

11. Publish. Bylines (articles with your name on them) in print and digital outlets help you and your company stand out as thought leaders. Let the expert writers do the work: you take the credit.

12. Prepare for the worst. Don’t leave your brand name vulnerable to the whims of the market and the media. Having an expert public relations team in place to weather a storm is good business sense – not to mention peace of mind.


 

Contact Leslie at lbillera@jcprinc.com to see how JCPR and JCIP can help!

Follow Jennifer Connelly Public Relations @JCPR and Leslie Billera @lbillera on Twitter!