Digital Public relations and your website:

It’s quite important to acknowledge that online search results can really define your brand, so it’s really essential that as a business you take control of your online presence. leads that come naturally to your website via Google search are 8X more likely to result in a sale than leads that come through outbound activity. we’ll start by introducing search engine optimization:

Search engine optimization is simply the process of making it easier for people to find your website online. it’s about increasing the quantity and quality of traffic that comes to a website from search engines such as Google Yahoo or Bing. this is important because every day almost 4 billion searches are conducted on Google which means search engines like Google can send loads of valuable customers to your website but you have to work hard to capture that traffic. 

For example if I’m looking to buy organic coffee beans I might search on Google for supplier and I’d probably type buy organic coffee beans into the search bar, now you can see that there are a few ads which will ignore for now and we’ll go to the first organic or natural search results and you’ll see that this website appears at the top. I’m actually most likely to click on that site because there’s quite a lot of evidence that shows that around 30% of searchers will click on the first results.

New perspective about defining your target audience for a highly targeted PR campaign: 

In this blog, I’m going to cover some of the key questions you need to ask when planning your target audience profile and we’ll also go through how you can go about getting answers to those questions.

So why is this important having an audience profile in place?

1. Having an audience profile will help you understand your customers better
2.  which will help you plan a strategy that 
3. will really impact your target audience in the desired manner. 

You might already know who your customers or target customers are but do you know what their specific needs interests and pain points are?

 Knowing this will enable you to target your campaigns at the right people or toward certain segments of your audience.

 Start with demographics. It might be helpful to start by defining your target audience in terms of basic demographics such as age sex marital status and level of education only include this information if it’s going to help you in your planning for example Kylie Jenner’s makeup Empire typically targets a certain demographic gen Z which is people born after around 1995 mostly female with some disposable income which suggests a certain income level. in this instance demographics are relevant.

 Think of Interest it’s always useful to know what interests you target audience as will help with PR campaigns that will really capture their attention. For example if a travel agent discovers that their customers tend to be interested in the environment. That might drive a focus on PR campaigns that emphasize its environmental values or appeal to relevant Media such as National Geographic.

 It is equally important to understand what doesn’t interest them. Find out what their pain points are. What specific problem or challenge is bothering your target audience? This needs to be a problem that relates to your business of course.

Understand their aspirations it’s equally important to get an understanding of where they want to be. If you’re promoting a calorie counting app you might assume that all people want to lose weight because they want to look good. That might be the case but it’s always worth digging deeper. FIND OUT what they REALLY want- people might want to lose weight to feel fitter and healthier, to have more energy to play with their children or fit into clothes that make them feel great once again.  

Moreover, it’s really useful who influences your target audience. Particular journalists? Companies? Celebrities? or thought leaders? that they follow and who’s opinions they respect. This information can help with campaign design targeting and distribution

 Finally, find out how they discover new products and services like yours. Do they search on Google? in which case you might want to focus your PR efforts supporting SEO. which Media do they read Watch and Listen To? and how often and which social networks do they use? and which events do they attend?

But how do you go about getting it? well there are a number of approaches and you’ll need to use a combination of these if you want to gather real and meaningful insights about your audience:

1. Talk to your existing customers those people who’ve already purchased and used your product or service -run surveys focus groups or interviews. 
2. Head out to relevant networking groups and read through comments on online articles to know what really matters and what trends are important to them.

Developing your messaging:

Before you even write a single Media release or opinion piece, you need to focus on no more than three key messages.

Your key messages will be at the heart of your business. It’s therefore recommended that when you’re pulling together your key messages, you work with coworkers from other departments. You need to answer these questions:

1. what problem do you solve for the target audience?
2. what do you want your target customer to think after engaging with your brand?
3. what do you want to be known for? 
4. what story do you tell?
5.  How does this relate to your target audience?
6.  what gives you the right to tell this story it’s really important that you know? 

That is applied through our tailored and well-fitted strategies at

Generating ideas for your brand: 

Finding a story that works

it’s applicable to all PR channels so before we proceed let’s get a better understanding of how the media works here are some things to keep in mind when it comes to dealing with your audience when telling your story, audience are time poor which means your story has to really jump out of them and if they don’t get it in the first few seconds they probably won’t continue reading your content. It is your job to tell a story that your audience will be most interested in. 

Here are the best ways to answer. Include the below elements within your story telling: 

Timeliness

 we like Christmas stories in December Valentine’s stories in February and summer holiday stories in August at least in countries that have summer in August so if you release your story at a time when your audience will already be interested, you have a much better chance of success including major events. Unfortunately, it’s much easier for people in organizations that are already well known to get publicity than a new startup releases. it will be much harder to get the media interested but this doesn’t mean you need to be famous to get more famous, it just means you need to work a little harder if your brand is unknown and this is where we’re most passionate about.

Weirdness 

if your story has a bizarre or unconventional element it’s much more likely to get noticed. for example when a collection of mummified mice were found in a tomb in Egypt, that made world headlines and social media trends much more than any dead mouse in a city like London could ever hope for. if you can just do something completely different from anything they’ve ever heard of you’ll catch their attention.