Your target market is invariably accessing information about products and services similar to yours in a variety of ways and in a multitude of places being magazines, TV, radio, Facebook, Linkedin, blogs – the list goes on. There’s no longer just one channel to reach your customers; there are multiple channels and different rules of engagement across each. Our task is becoming increasingly more challenging.
People no longer rely just on Google search for products or services, people are encouraged by friends and colleagues to buy, referring to ranking systems and ‘likes’, responding to comments like “hey this is worth a look”. We are buying things we didn’t even think of or know we needed, but our ‘friends’ say it’s worth it, so we check it out.
What we know for sure is that online drives sales. A recent statistic showed that 40% of online sales were coming via pinterest, over 10 million Australians are on facebook and we know investors take to the internet to research before they purchase. Your audience is online and you need to be too.
As PRs, we continue to be the brand champions, but if we ignore the online channels we just wouldn’t be doing our jobs. We need to meet your audience on their playing field. Whether that’s in print, online, in social media, via SMS, or good old face to face! Our job is always to manage brands reputations, whether that be via traditional or digital forums.
But not only do we have to ensure that we communicate in the appropriate way that speaks to your target audience, but we also have to ensure that we communicate on the right level for each different social media platform – importantly we need to get your brand message across consistently.
We also can’t forget social is a two way street, print is a one way communication platform, we write what the publication needs and it often gets printed. In social, we write great content, some like it some don’t, but it engages the community and gets people talking.
Importantly we have to add value to the customer relationship and make them feel part of our online brand community – whether that be through competitions, campaigns that inspire them to share, imparting knowledge or asking for their thoughts. We are the story tellers, we can engage the audience with our writing, but if we only tell the story in print and they are online, there is no point.
The reality is your brand is already being spoken about online, our job is to ensure you embrace that audience, engage with them and give them the information and brand experience they want.
To find out more how you can engage with you online audience, contact our Gen Red department
