Annika Launay, Co-Director of PDPR, recently presented at the inaugural Arabon Client Lunch Series. Here’s a taste of what she had to say on the topic of “Aligning your campaign with your end goal”:
The world of marketing can be complex. You may ask yourself will a public relations campaign help me achieve my KPIs? How do I reach a specific target market? What influencers should I use for this next product placement? Whatever the question you may ask, the campaign end goal should always be kept in mind.
When clients initially come to us, even big businesses, they tend to come to us regarding a specific marketing element.
“I need influencers’ or ‘I need to fix my website’.
Either way, our reaction is always the same. ‘Ok stop, what’s the big picture here, what’s the end goal. ‘Where do you want to be in 1,3, and even 5 years?’
For marketing managers, this is an easy connection to make. Your goal is to support your company’s business strategy through various campaigns. This can be digital, experience-based or with public relations.
For General Managers, CFOs, State Managers and others, relating your business strategy to marketing can often feel inconsequential to the bigger picture.
If you are after a five-year exit strategy, let’s look at brand awareness to the point of sector disruption. Perhaps your goal is more personal such as aiming to be invited to sit on three corporate boards and be invited to speak at a conference in Prague each year. If that sounds like you, great! Let’s talk personality PR and how to position you as a thought leader in your chosen field.
Defining and sharing the end goal can be thought provoking or even confronting for some. For other companies it can be as simple as sliding a business plan across the table.
This step however, is imperative.
It is critical to ask the questions: Where are you now? Where are you going?
It is then our job to consider every tool in our marketing arsenal and work out how to connect the two. In doing so we can create that road map of how we’re going to get you there.
Working through the process, and looking at the ‘where are you now’, the PDPR team achieves this by drilling down into your current market position, we look at your social presence, your current collateral, your audience and sales, profits etc.
‘Where are you going’, this is aligned to your business plan.
As to ‘how we’re going to get you there’, we do this by utilising multiple mediums to engage with stakeholders in ways that are consistent, genuine and meaningful. This is where the marketing journey comes into play.
For us, this looks like a marketing matrix showing all our marketing tools and how we propose to use them. When I’m talking about a matrix I’m including events, PR, social media, digital influencers, advertising, experiential activations, sponsorship opportunities and more.
Once approved, this can then be rolled out over the next 6, 12 or 24 months with that clear end goal in mind.
The reality however, is that a great marketing exec will not only help get you to your business target, but they will also help define and shape it. Strategy after all, is at the heart of everything we do.
NEXT STEPS: HOW TO ACHIEVE YOUR MARKETING END GOAL WITH THREE KEY QUESTIONS.
The three key questions that you need to answer to achieve your end goal are: Who are we talking to? How are we speaking to them? What are we saying?
Each of these questions are necessary elements that need to be clearly articulated. Only then can we work out the marketing road map. This includes mapping out where you are now, where you are heading and how are we as a team are going to get you there.
So as to the first question, we need to define your target audience and gain as much understanding as possible about what drives them, what motivates them and what are they receptive to.
This may be as simple as a looking at the statistics behind your social media feed and ascertaining the predominant gender, age and buying patterns. For larger, on-going projects such as a greenfield development, this may require community consultation sessions. This step also sees us working out the pain points of your audience so we can refine future messaging.
How are we saying it comes into your brand and your brand assets – what voice are we using, what digital influencers, what language and imagery.
In a congested market with high competition, your brand is the face of your value proposition, it is your main point of difference and your chief tool for building loyalty, trust and ultimately, buy-in.
Beyond a name and a logo, your brand helps sell the dream.
Personal branding for example, should reflect knowledge, trust, authenticity and enough personality to create a real connection.
Place branding on the other hand, which is related to all property developments and retail precincts, is so much more than a logo. It should represent the anticipation of future, provide the basis for building a community and create a long-standing desirability.
We then consider what we are saying. The key message here is your unique selling proposition. If we were working on a personality, this is your unique hook, so is this your experience or your voice?
For brands, it’s what makes you stand out, what do you have that your competitors don’t?
So now that we have established who we are speaking to, how we are saying it and created what we need to say, your USP is clear.
Some of you have entire in-house marketing departments at your disposal, this therefore is a small insight into what they do and how you can use them to the best of your advantage.
For others, it may provide insight into just what can be achieved on a personal level with a little personality PR.
For in-house marketers – we often take yearly strategy sessions with your team to build a calendar then leave you to it, or help support you with one facet such as content creation or PR.
Either way, I hope you have discovered a few nuggets of marketing gold that will help drive you towards your end goal – whatever that may be.
The stage is now set to tell your story.
Author: PDPR
